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Packed in a smart web app, the new service supports two main applications:

• Bathing Water Quality Monitoring and
• Environmental Monitoring and Reporting

Key data in one place

Advice4COASTS leverages data from various Copernicus Service sources such as Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS), and the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet). The tool not only aggregates policy-specific key oceanographic and water quality parameters. It also offers automated data integration, analysis, and visualisation.

Coastal decision makers benefit from short- and long-term insights, real-time alerts, and heatmaps or hotspot analysis, visualised on a single dashboard. Users can freely select their areas of interest, ranging from small nearshore bays to large areas of open sea.

This article about a use case at the German Baltic coast highlights heatmaps, one of the key features. It enables to identify ideal conditions for growing seaweed or detect hotspots of eutrophication.

In line with EU directives

The online solution empowers coastal environmental and health authorities to

• perform in-situ campaigns for directive reporting
• identify hot spots of pollution and eutrophication
• detect environmental risks such as algae blooms,
• and comply with key EU directives, including the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and the Bathing Water Directive (BWD).

By combining Copernicus datasets and in situ measurements, the new service will support water quality monitoring and key environmental directives.

Advice4COASTS has been funded by the Copernicus Marine Service National Collaboration Programme 2021-2028.

Let’s connect

Sign up for the eoapp Advice4COASTS here and access free demo regions.
Contact our R&I team for more details!

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The project benefits significantly from the expertise of our partners, the Finnish Meteorological Institute and Snowcap, Belgium.

Precise data needed to optimise energy production

Information about snow depth (SD) and the water volume stored in snow (snow water equivalent – SWE) is particularly crucial for the hydropower sector. Especially during Spring when the snow melts, there is a need for precise data on both to optimise energy production. However, retrieving SD and SWE data in extensive mountainous regions by traditional methods, such as in-situ measurements or Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) overflights, is not only limited in time and personnel. It is also highly expensive to execute.

A new approach to estimate water reserves in snow

Now, SnowPower represents a solution to cover wider geographical areas in more detail, more efficiently and at lower cost than ever before: Using state-of-the-art technology, our partner SnowCap retrieves precise snow depth information from active radar data in vast areas. Combining this satellite-retrieved data with advanced data assimilation techniques, a physics-based snow model is fed to generate daily Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) information at a resolution of 500 meters.

This results in:

📏 Seamless SWE data availability for vast mountainous regions, such as Scandinavia or the entire Alpine arch
🗺️ Merged SWE information for non-mountainous areas, offering comprehensive regional coverage
📈 Enhanced visualization, export, and analysis via eoapp HYPOS by EOMAP to support decision-making processes.

Within this project, we support the Enel Group in managing reservoir levels and optimising electricity production of their hydropower plants across the Alpine and Apennine areas.

SnowPower is developed under ESA’s Business Application and Space Solutions programme.

Let’s connect

Please contact our R&I team for more details.

Read more in this article on ESA’s business platform.

E-mail to our team for the recordings of the SnowPower webinar.

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Challenging conditions in shallow water

Currently, on-site survey methods for shallow water require substantial effort in equipment and costs. To address this, we developed a concept and system using standard drones. These drones can be operated with standard licenses and equipped with relatively affordable yet precise multispectral sensor systems and positioning tools.

However, this approach presented several challenges. Until now, our physics-based algorithms for retrieving depth and water properties have relied on either multispectral satellite data or hyperspectral airborne data. Factors such as the amount of data collected, recording conditions, precise positioning, and recording below cloud cover, among others, needed to be carefully considered and applied.

The outcome: a streamlined workflow for standard drones

The drone-based system now offers a streamlined workflow with user-friendly operation. It enables flexible on-site surveys at very high resolution, which is especially valuable for mapping changes such as coastal erosion processes and for benthic studies.

Key insights from the REMAP project include:

• Multispectral drone data are particularly effective in very shallow waters.
• Proper calibration, data analysis, mosaicking, and geolocation improvements are crucial.
• Throughout the project, the developed algorithms and workflows proved reliable across different sites and with three different sensors.

Coastal stakeholders will benefit from flexible and extremely high-resolution bathymetric data, which enhances decision making. This should be complemented by seafloor characterisation to help detect localised anomalies in shallow water areas, which are critical for navigation or coastal engineering projects.

We appreciate the support given by Landesbetrieb für Küstenschutz, Nationalpark und Meeresschutz Schleswig-Holstein and Staatliches Amt für Landwirtschaft und Umwelt Mittleres Mecklenburg.

• For more details, please get in touch with our shallow water team.

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TESA aims to provide new insights into these riverine ecosystems by the example of the Elbe River: The German research project led by the Elbe River Basin Community (FGG Elbe) focuses on the temporary lack of oxygen in the tidal Elbe during summer and dives deep into its causes. The issue has supra-regional implications for many stakeholders along the Elbe River basin. EOMAP contributes to the project with water quality analyses using its online solution eoapp AQUA.

Why oxygen levels matter

Low-oxygen zones in rivers are harmful to existing fish population and the ecosystem’s biodiversity. Furthermore, these zones pose a barrier for migratory fish and lamprey species. As part of their life cycle, these fish depend upon migrating from the sea into the flowing waters of the entire Elbe River catchment including the Hamburg harbour area. The “oxygen valley” is a result of hydromorphological changes caused by human interventions, such as bank protection, port expansion, and flood protection measures, along with nutrient enrichment and algal biomass buildup in the Middle Elbe.

How we contribute

EOMAP is contributing to the project

• by retrospective data analysis to reveal trends in water quality evolution, applying eoapp AQUA.
• Until April 2025, we continue monitoring various water quality parameters such as turbidity, inorganic absorptions, Chlorophyll or yellow substances, in near real-time.
• For this purpose, we process data of 3 x 3 m high resolution Planet SuperDove sensors with daily repetition rates.

The research target

The screenshot taken from eoapp AQUA below shows turbidity levels on the Elbe River around the port of Hamburg. The orange colour indicates high turbidity levels in the tidal zones as well as in the middle parts of the river and a reduced turbidity in the harbour area. Correlating these data with oxygen levels measured by in situ campaigns might help introduce earth observation (EO) measurements as proxy parameters. We hope to unveil oxygen level patterns associated with changes in water quality parameters, which will finally generate a deep understanding of oxygen deficiency situations in the river system.

The Elbe River Basin Community (FGG) is a group of experts from German federal institutions and state authorities. It coordinates and harmonises the management of water bodies and flood risks of the Elbe River basin on national and international levels, aligning with the Water Framework Directive (WFD) of the European Commission.

For more details, please get in touch with the water quality team.

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4S stands for “Satellite Seafloor Software Suite”, an innovation project co-funded by EU Horizon Europe. Under the lead of EOMAP, eight renowned partners cooperated from 2019 to 2023. The 4S project sought to bring a higher level of automation and standardisation to shallow water mapping.

Understanding shallow waters

A deep understanding of the bathymetry and morphology of shallow waters is crucial for marine and coastal management. This knowledge is essential for activities such as coastal engineering and planning. Digital data on seabed characteristics not only greatly aids operations such as dredging, sand reclamation and navigation. Moreover, it supports targeted protection of critical habitats in shallow waters and thus helps strengthen biodiversity, carbon storage and coastal protection.

Digital data needed

Collecting data on shallow water morphology and habitats is currently linked to cost-intensive boat or airborne surveys, diving campaigns or cameras. These methods are not only risky, they are also limited by budget constraints and cannot provide continuous monitoring. To overcome this dilemma, the 4S project team strived to develop a cloud-based software solution building on satellite data. This online solution aimed at empowering its users to map and monitor seafloor habitats, morphology and water depth from the comfort of their desks.

Harnessing Copernicus data

The 4S team harnessed Copernicus satellite data and other Earth Observation information and combined them with user data. These were analysed in a state-of-the art workflow for aquatic remote sensing and service components, before being processed and stored in a cloud environment. Apart from a global map for SDB application, the major outcome is the online solution SDB-Online.

Validating across the world

Throughout the 4S project, the partners have optimised usability and validity of the software suite in +15 use cases. These range from the high latitudes of Canada to the turbid waters in Dublin Bay to the crystal-clear Caribbean. (See validation plots at the bottom.)

SDB of Hooper Island, Canada

More on 4S

Learn more about the project in the CORDIS article “Powerful tool surveys water depth in shallow waters from space”.

Read about detailed validation analysis in the peer-reviewed ‘International Hydrographic Review’.

Watch the video with interviews of all 4S project partners below.

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Contact

Reach out to our coastal team for more details on the 4S project.

Try the web app SDB-Online here.

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The international Catch-Mekong project aims to provide research and technology for the sustainable management of natural resources in the Mekong basin with a special focus on the delta region. Main topics include saltwater intrusion, land use and river and coastal morphology.

The Catch-Mekong project’s main goal is to integrate Earth observation and in-situ monitoring with water quality models and data for the Mekong Delta. This will provide a tool to support decision-making on salinification, coastal instabilities and specific environmental challenges.

EOMAP processed all available satellite imagery from the Landsat archive for the whole of the middle and downstream section of the Mekong river to derive time-series information on water quality parameters such as turbidity. This information is used by scientists from the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) and is included in the modelling of sediment dynamics for the Mekong basin.

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Easy access to and targeted analysis of water quality data such as sediment concentrations and hydrological parameters are essential for hydropower stakeholders. Information on the sediment regime, on sediment trapping in the river network and basin are key parameters for assessing major operation costs and investment risks. However, such information is usually rare in the planning phase of hydropower installations.

Within the Horizon-2020-funded project HYPOS (GA No.870504) – HYdro POwer Suite – an innovative decision support tool has been developed. In a user-friendly online tool, HYPOS provides comprehensive data analysis. As for data sources, it builds on satellite-based water quality data and hydrological modelled data. In addition, the online solution allows to integrate in situ data for further validation. It is designed for hydropower reservoir monitoring and planning.

The main target is to decrease project risks with continuous data beyond traditional on-site measurements. The application of the toolbox was showcased in the framework of hydropower projects in Georgia, Switzerland, and Africa.

Download the HYPOS Portfolio here to learn more about the concept, parameters measured, and the technology behind.

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The goal of MarSat is to allow the maritime industry to take advantage of the most up-to-date satellite information in their day-to-day work. This requires an efficient IT infrastructure to share, integrate and implement satellite-derived data from various satellite sources quickly and efficiently. Services such as ice detection and drift, obstruction and bathymetry mapping will be integrated into maritime information systems  so that shipping routes can be optimised, up-to date information made available for rescue or emergency events, and base data provided for environmental and coastal applications.

EOMAP provided their Satellite-Derived Bathymetry (SDB) data as an electronic navigational chart (ENC) layer. For more details on MarSat, visit the MarSat project homepage.

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