The Integrated Maritime Policy of the EU has the objective to ‘support the sustainable development of seas and oceans and to develop coordinated, coherent and transparent decision-making in relation to the European Union’s sectoral policies affecting the oceans, seas, islands, coastal and outermost regions and maritime sector’. Furthermore, European directives such as the Water Framework Directive and Marine Strategy Directive require member states to reach good ecological status in their coastal and inland waters. Finally, the goals of the Helsinki Convention (HELCOM) – ‘Protect the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollution from land, air and sea, as well as to preserve biological diversity and to promote the sustainable use of marine resources’ – are very relevant for this topic.
Due to the large and industrialized population living in its drainage basin, years of pollution emissions (e.g. nutrients from agriculture), small water volume, and limited exchange of water with the Atlantic, the objectives mentioned above have not yet been reached in the Baltic Sea. Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is a process that aims for the mitigation of the impacts of human activities and eventual improvement of the state of the environment through coordination and implementation of various practices and policies. Thus, one important action for the improvement of the state of the Baltic Sea is to improve the territorial and maritime spatial planning capabilities of the organizations operating in the area.
Earth Observation can help spatial planning processes by providing information about the state of the coastal environment, where most of the human activities take place. With this in mind, the objective of the ESA funded (EO4society programme) BalticAIMS project (www.syke.fi/projects/BalticAIMS) is to demonstrate an integrated data approach for essential processes of land and coastal water areas to better analyse and visualize the interactions. This goal will be reached by creating data access, visualization and analysis systems and tools. The system requirements have been defined together with national authorities and experts working with Marine Spatial Planning, and HELCOM groups (VASAB-MSP, Pressures) and reflect actual information needs. Based on a large number of interviews we defined the information requirements (EO and other) and in spring 2022 the project will launch a demonstration service that includes:
• EO and model datasets – Water quality, land use and land cover
• GIS material – Marine Spatial Planning, human impacts and pressures
• In situ water quality information – Monitoring stations, automated stations, Alg@line ferrybox
The demonstration service will cover selected areas in Finland, Sweden, Germany and Poland. The services will be built with the tools available in CREODIAS to utilize the advantages of the cloud environment. Various datasets will be made available through OGC interfaces which allow the users to access the data with their legacy systems, and through map applications such as SYKE’s TARKKA system (www.syke.fi/tarkka/en). The definition and implementation of respective interfaces is one key for the success of integrating the different data sets.
The presentation will show examples of how EO and other datasets can be combined to help users with their spatial planning tasks. The use cases include monitoring the effects of nutrient flow from the drainage basin to the coastal waters, monitoring the impacts of coastal activities and monitoring of temperature anomalies.
Estonian Weather Service at Estonian Environment Agency performs duties of Ice Service during winter navigation period. Responsibilities of Estonian Ice Service include daily production of (1) Ice report - an overview of ice situation on the fairways in text format and (2) Ice сhart by mapping the ice cover extent including information about ice type and thickness. The ice conditions information is required for winter navigation and planning of ice breaking activities in Estonian waters. There is also wide public interest towards the ice situation in Estonia during winter.
The project named „Development of new ice information system” was initiated in 2019 by Estonian Environment Agency. The aim of the project was to make new solutions for the (1) collection and processing of various ice data sources - observations and satellite data, (2) creation of daily ice chart and (3) sharing ice conditions information to the public.
Within the project, an operational processing and visualization of high resolution Sentinel-1,-2 and -3 data was started in the national satellite data center ESTHub. Enhanced visualizations of Sentinel-2 and 3 data were applied for ice detection. To assist the creation of ice charts a machine learning method was developed retrieving the following ice products from EO data: sea ice types (fast ice, strong ice, weak ice, open water), ice features (ridges, leads) and lake ice products.
The ice charting tool that is based on the QGIS desktop application was updated during the project. The developed QGIS based tool automatically integrates operational satellite data and ice observations and thus enables to create a high-resolution, georeferenced ice chart and publish it through the interactive web application.
Since 2021 winter season the new interactive web application with ice information https://jaakaart.envir.ee is available for the public. Users can monitor various high-resolution satellite images on a daily basis from the web interface. In addition, it is possible to view the Estonian ice chart composed by Estonian Weather Service and follow the ice thickness observations from volunteers (citizen science) collected using the mobile application.
The Baltic Sea is a strongly stratified semi-enclosed sea with a large freshwater supply from rivers, net precipitation and high-saline water exchange from the North Sea. In the Danish Straits the water exchange is hampered by bathymetric and hydrodynamic restrictions. The shallow depth yields to highly variable ocean dynamics. The water exchange with the North Atlantic Ocean is restricted by the narrows and sills of the Danish Straits and river outflows. The bottom water in the deep sub-basins is ventilated by major Baltic saltwater inflows. These complex oceanographic conditions are not well described in current model simulations. Moreover, the available in situ data in the region is temporally
and spatially very sparse.
Earth Observation salinity measurements have a great potential to help in the understanding of the dynamics in the Baltic Sea. However, this basin is one of the most challenging regions for the satellite sea surface salinity (SSS) retrieval. The available EO-based global SSS products are quite limited in terms of spatio-temporal coverage and quality. This is mainly due to technical limitations that strongly affect the brightness temperatures (TB), such as the high contamination by interferences and the contamination close to land and ice edges. Moreover, the sensitivity of TB to SSS changes is very low in cold waters and dielectric models present limitations in this low salinity regime.
In the ESA Baltic+ Salinity Dynamics project, new regional SSS products derived from the European Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) measurements were developed. In this work, we describe the enhanced algorithms used in the generation of SMOS SSS fields. A complete quality assessment with respect to in situ measurements is also presented. Finally, we compare the satellite SSS measurements with a Baltic reanalysis and in situ measurements time series, focusing on the SSS dynamics captured by Baltic+ SSS products and the added-value that can provide for the understanding of the salinity dynamics. Scientific applications identified from the interaction with users working in the Baltic Sea will also be presented.
Earth Observation (EO) provides a wide range of different types of environmental information that is key to the effective planning and implementation of knowledge-based approaches in society. During the last years, Estonian public authorities have strongly supported the greater use of EO derived information to advance sustainable development goals according to their specific needs and challenges. Scientists are increasingly being called upon to provide scientific information to support decision-makers and stakeholders. Four ministries initiated a specified study to introduce satellite data in their areas of responsibility. The following themes were involved:
Prevention and eradication of landscape fires were aimed at the needs of the Estonian Rescue Board (which is the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior). The results include a more precise fire hazard map, fire propagation algorithm, and landscape damage assessment.
Monitoring of floods and water levels – the information is essential for the Estonian Rescue Board and the Estonian Weather Service (which is the responsibility of the Ministry of the Environment). The results include water height assessment, altimetric data validation and moisture regime of wetland (the latter gives us information about mining operations).
Monitoring of the use of agricultural land was aimed at the needs of PRIA (Agricultural Registers and Information Board), which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Rural Affairs. The results include the Crop identification model methodology with precision estimates and Classification of Estonian plant groups.
Planning and monitoring construction activities was a theme raised by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. The results include a prototype for monitoring the construction process.
The project results gave new perspectives on using EO derived information to develop public services in Estonia. In addition to the algorithms developed, a plan with specific guidelines for the sustainable implementation of remote sensing was developed. An important step forward has been made to enhance the cooperation between universities, the private sector and public authorities towards developing applications and data management prototypes to make public authorities more efficient in the field of EO.
For sea level studies, coastal adaptation, and planning for future sea level scenarios, regional responses require regionally-tailored sea level information. Global sea level products from satellite altimeters are now available through the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Climate Change Initiative. Through the efforts of ESA-funded projects such as Baltic SEAL, the regionalisation of these mission datasets is now possible. The project established a state-of-the-art altimetry processing chain for extracting sea level measurements, and improved measurement retrieval, in areas with complex coastlines and prone to sea-ice coverage. It developed a new suite of dedicated along-track and gridded sea level datasets for Baltic Sea stakeholders, spanning the years 1995-2019.
Advances in waveform classification, altimetry echo-fitting, expansion of echo-fitting to a wide range of altimetry missions (including Delay-Doppler altimeters), and Baltic-focused multi-mission cross calibration, enabled all mission data to be integrated into a final gridded product, which is now freely available (www.balticseal.eu). Such advances could be exported to other key areas, particularly those with complex, jagged coastlines. In addition, there are opportunities for these developments to be progressed further within the Baltic Sea test region, and beyond. However, a strategic approach is needed to identify advances made, chart their potential future trajectories, and maximise the benefits for society, scientific advancement, and the researchers themselves.
Identifying opportunities for inter-regional knowledge transfer, and applications development, is a complex and delicate process. It must capture and convey the scope, scale, diversity and relevance of advancements, while distilling it into actionable areas. It must also empower and protect the innovators responsible for these developments. The Baltic SEAL consortium used a participatory foreground-mapping approach, coupled with context analysis to frame strategic recommendations. Capacity building within the consortium was also required, to ensure foreground mapping was harmonised across the 5 international partners. The review process also engaged with actors in the wider Baltic + programme, to maximise identified synergies, and as a form of external review. The final product was an actionable Baltic SEAL Roadmap (also available at www.balticseal.eu), which captured the breadth of scientific development achieved, identified future development needs, opportunities and applications, and potential synergies going forward.
This presentation gives a brief outline of the approach used, and aspects which could be integrated as good practice in other initiatives going forward. It then explores the range of recommendations, and synergy areas which were identified under three themes: (i) further advancements needed in the science; (ii) opportunities for Baltic Sea applications synergies, and (iii) opportunities for inter-regional knowledge transfer.