14 DAY TRIAL // Representatives from the European Space Agency (ESA) say that a new project, called CoastColor, will from now on provide researchers, scientists and authorities in European Union member states with all the information they need about how to take care of coastal regions all over the continent.
These areas are of critical importance for the European society, the ESA experts say, explaining that a large portion of the food, trade and tourism industries on the Old Continent is heavily reliant on them.
In order to ensure that these delicate ecosystems remain stable and continue to be exploited sustainable, conservation experts and scientists need to monitor them closely at all times.
Through the ESA CoastColor project, this will become possible at a large scale. The entire program is dependent upon the capabilities of the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) instrument aboard the Envisat satellite.
The unique abilities that this sensor has can be augmented even further, experts in charge of CoastColor say, which is where the team handling this project comes in. Its job is to ensure that all MERIS data are of unrivaled, top quality.
Unlike similar instruments, this one can analyze and keep track of pollutants, suspended sediments, phytoplankton, and other microorganisms that blend together in waters off coastal regions. All of this is done at a resolution of 300 meters, ESA producly reports.
“ESA is to be commended for supporting the use of Earth observation to help solve the management issues of these truly complex coastal aquatic ecosystems,” explains Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) expert Arnold Dekker.
The Australian group is working together with ESA on this program, considering that the entire country is surrounded by oceans. In fact, CoastColor now officially includes more than 40 user organizations.
Dekker's CSIRO group is in charge of analyzing the waters around Australia's most prized natural possession, the Great Barrier Reef. Various factors are currently threatening to destroy portions of it.
“The new site-specific CoastColour water quality products improve significantly the operational environmental monitoring of harbor dredging activities,” explains Dr Liis Sipelgas of the Tallinn University of Technology, in Estonia.
“The products also enable us to estimate and quantify the long-term water quality changes in the harbor area,” the expert concludes.