Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems (EBUS) represent less than 1% of the total ocean volume, and < 3% of surface area, but support more than 10% of the marine new production and roughly 25% of the total worldwide fisheries, on account of enhanced primary production through upwelling of nutrients to the surface. EBUS provide ecosystem, economic, and recreational services to millions of people living along their coasts and are important in aquaculture: for example, the NW Spanish (Galician) coast, that produces 40% of the European and 15% of the world production of mussels
The ESA supported PRIMUS project aims to provide the best possible characterisation of net primary productivity (NPP) and its relationship to upwelling in Atlantic Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems (EBUS) using a 25-year time series of 1-km NPP over the Atlantic, and experimentally, at higher-resolution (300m) using the unique capabilities of the MERIS and OLCI sensors.
PRIMUS will use these data to advance Earth System science analyses covering Atlantic EBUS including temporal and spatial variability in NPP and its statistical relationship to upwelling and climate indices (such as the NAO). PRIMUS will also conduct eight further science cases in specific science areas / regional settings, such as: aquaculture in Galicia; fisheries and eutrophication in the Portuguese upwelling region; potential EBUS impacts on ocean carbon pools; Lagrangian estimates of NPP; and air-sea interaction and acidification impacts. Science cases will make use of EO data, in situ data as well as numerical model outputs (freely available through Copernicus and elsewhere) to investigate the 4D character of EBUS, for example linking Lagrangian NPP with sediment traps samples at depth.
In order to demonstrate wider socio-economic relevance and impact, PRIMUS will conduct demonstrations that transfers science into solutions for society, working together with scientific, agency, policy and commercial early-adopters, building on three of the science case studies (concerning EBUS and aquaculture, fisheries and eutrophication monitoring); affiliating with the Future Earth Coasts initiative; evaluating transition of data production to operational initiatives such as Copernicus and GMES and Africa; and the potential for exploitation by the European and international ecosystem modelling community.
Finally, PRIMUS will coordinate and promote international collaboration and communicate results to scientists and citizens to maximise impact of the project through cross-cutting promotion, communication, and education activities, and through peer-reviewed publications.
The ESA “4D-Atlantic Dust-Ocean Modelling & Observing Study” (DOMOS) kicked off in September 2021, with an overarching objective to advance our fundamental understanding on the complex atmospheric dust-ocean interactions and processes governing the Atlantic Ocean, in the context of climate change, through an innovative approach of integrated use of modelling, EO-based products and in-situ datasets.
The project will develop and thoroughly validate against both the ESA-ASKOS campaign dataset and surface‐based dust deposition measurements across the Atlantic Ocean, a novel product of dust transport and deposition from optical measurements from spaceborne satellite lidar systems (CALIOP and ALADIN) and radiometers (MODIS and IASI). Moreover, DOMOS envisages to validate the dust deposition field from the CAMS reanalysis and will also provide assimilation tests of IASI and Aeolus aerosol products with the goal of providing a better description of the dust aerosols, for applications in aerosol radiative impacts and ocean biogeochemistry.
The DOMOS products will contribute to an improved representation of the physical and chemical characteristics of dust deposition over the ocean which is crucial to interpret the observed climatic change responses and to better describe the future ones. This includes a better understanding and quantification of the deposition of soluble iron from natural and anthropogenic dust and of its contribution relative to biomass burning and anthropogenic aerosols which will be achieved through the use of a climate model (EC-Earth3-Iron).
Finally, DOMOS foresees providing a scientific roadmap to highlight the findings of the project and identify possible gaps in the modelling and the observing approaches of atmospheric dust-ocean interaction. Here, a general overview of the project, including some preliminary results, will be presented.
More information can be found at https://www.ecmwf.int/en/research/projects/domos
Given the major role of the Atlantic Ocean in the climate system, it is essential to characterize the temporal and spatial variations of its heat content. The 4DATLANTIC-OHC Project (https://eo4society.esa.int/projects/4datlantic-ohc/) aims at developing and testing space geodetic methods to estimate the local ocean heat content (OHC) changes over the Atlantic Ocean from satellite altimetry and gravimetry. The strategy developed in the frame of the ESA MOHeaCAN Project (https://eo4society.esa.int/projects/moheacan/) is pursued and refined at local scales both for the data generation and the uncertainty estimate. At two test sites, OHC derived from in situ data (RAPID and OVIDE-AR7W) are used to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of the new space geodetic based OHC change. The Atlantic OHC product will be used to better understand the complexity of the Earth’s climate system. In particular, the project aims at better understanding the role played by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in regional and global climate change, and the variability of the Meridional Heat transport in the North Atlantic. In addition, improving our knowledge on the Atlantic OHC change will help to better assess the global ocean heat uptake and thus estimate the Earth’s energy imbalance more accurately as the oceans absorb about 90% of the excess energy stored by the Earth system.
The objectives of the 4DATLANTIC-OHC Project will be presented. The scientific requirements and data used to generate the OHC change products over the Atlantic Ocean and the first results in terms of development will be detailed. At a later stage, early adopters are expected to assess the OHC products strengths and limitations for the implementation of new solutions for Society. The project started in June 2021 for a 2-year duration.
Visit https://www.4datlantic-ohc.org to follow the main steps of the project.
Established in 2003, the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Ltd is the world’s leading facility for demonstrating and testing wave and tidal energy converters. EMEC offer purpose-built, open-sea testing facilities for prototype technologies. The facilities enable technology developers develop and demonstrate their solutions in some of the harshest marine environments whilst remaining in close proximity to sheltered waters and harbours.
Engagement between the UK National Oceanography Centre and EMEC via the ESA funded Blue Economy Atlantic Region Initiative identified a need to more effectively characterise sea state at EMEC’s test berths to inform device design, deployment and operations and maintenance activities. Issues at present include the loss of in-situ measuring equipment due to weather events, and operating cost uncertainties for device developers due to insufficient real time data on wave heights and directions at the test sites, impacting intervention planning.
Techniques which provide high quality information without requiring in-water deployments of measuring equipment are extremely compelling.
GNSS reflectometry (-IR) based on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) has become an established tool in ocean remote sensing; for marine applications the technique can be used to measure water levels, significant wave height and direction. The distance between an antenna and the water surface is measured by analysing the oscillation of the SNR observation. Due to the antenna gain pattern, this oscillation is more pronounced for satellite signals coming from low elevation angles. Sea surface roughness is related to the attenuation of the SNR oscillation and can be processed to derive significant wave height and direction. To date demonstrations have used high cost (c.£20,000) geodetic receivers – however recent advances have demonstrated the potential for high quality results from extremely low-cost receivers.
This presentation will provide an overview of a demonstration GNSS-IR deployment underway at EMEC via the ESA funded Blue Economy Atlantic Region Initiative. The solution potentially significantly reduces the need for expensive and risky in-situ measurement campaigns and presents a new approach to sea state characterisation for the marine renewable energy sector.
The Blue Economy: Innovation Clusters, Atlantic Natural Resources Management and Maritime Spatial Planning project, developed by a consortium led by GMV, aims to complement the ESA Regional Atlantic initiative by providing insights and solutions in the Blue Economy thematic. ESA’s actions to coordinate, establish, and assess efforts demonstrating how EO can support meeting the aspirations and requirements of EU marine policy, are timely. Atlantic-facing EU and ESA states are implementing a suite of new EU-based marine planning and management regulations (such as the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Blue Economy measures, and the Integrated Maritime Policy). This EU-level policy landscape also extends into national policies.
It is in this context that consolidating EO and IT experience to design and build well-framed services that support information delivery to address the needs of new marine legal frameworks is an important and opportune step.
In order maximise the added value of such services, the information delivery must be guided by three main guidelines:
• The developed services shall make the users’ life simpler in terms of the acquisition of information, and as such, assuring a fit-to-purpose design focused on the users’ requirements;
• The developed services shall not require the users to be experts in EO based technologies and at the same time assure that the information that is generated and to be used is clear, quality assured, and actionable; and
• In the short term, the developed services shall fit within existing legal frameworks and information needs, whilst promoting and opening avenues to the development of new legal frameworks, capable of harnessing novel advances.
Together with these principals, the consortium that is developing the Blue Economy project is aware of the challenges and in order to overcome them, combines a range of complementary skills within the marine sciences, EO data analytics, processing paradigms, legal frameworks, and community development.
It is considering this background that, together with a very relevant list of stakeholders and system users, specific use cases were defined and are being implemented with the main purpose to cover detailed, well-identified and operational needs of demanding marine sectors.
The services being implemented and provided to the users cover the following topics:
• Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management – To mitigate flood and erosion risk in coastal regions of the United Kingdom, the Channel Coastal Observatory co-ordinates and disseminates data collected by the National Network of Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes of England. The Programmes collect and distribute the necessary data to underpin evidence-based decisions regarding strategic and local level Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management in a co-ordinated and systematic manner to serve the needs of coastal engineering and management.
Faced with rising costs of coastal defence it is anticipated that management approaches will move away from protection towards resilience and adaption measures, and accordingly there is a need to increase levels of observation across a range of parameters. The over-arching aim of this use case is to find and showcase novel ways to use EO data in combination with non EO to allow the Channel Coastal Observatory to plan labour intensive ground data collection more efficiently by filling gaps in the in-situ monitoring program and alleviating the need for some ground surveys. One key aim of this project for CCO is to assess the usefulness of EO to provide pre and post storm beach profiles to monitor changes in beach volume.
In this regard there are well established EO methodologies that use data from both SAR and optical satellites to monitor coastal change and it is possible to anticipate that these methods will be required in some locations. In addition to enhancing standard shoreline mapping techniques, the National Oceanography Centre has developed the temporal waterline (TWL) method that combines SAR imagery with tidal records to map intertidal bathymetry heights. Intertidal areas can be extensive and dangerous and potentially difficult to access, making ground surveying extremely challenging in certain areas. TWL gives the estimated height of the intertidal bathymetry at every pixel by correlating free and readily available Sentinel-1 time-series data with tidal records. Thus extensive and morphologically dynamic areas such as river drainage channels, sand bars and intertidal mud flats areas can be accurately mapped. This will allow CCO to better deploy their surveying resources.
• GNSS interferometric reflectometry for remote sensing of sea - For the development of this service, the consortium is working in partnership with the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) co-designing an EO service tailored to the needs of the expanding marine renewables sector. The service that is being developed is to be validated at the site in Orkney, using EMEC’s existing suite of models and in-situ measurements.
Following consultation, various discussions and an assessment of options it was understood that EMEC requires solutions which can tackle their immediate need for better characterisation of waves on their test sites, especially the full-scale tidal test site where in-situ measurement of waves (e.g. via Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler - ADCP) is extremely challenging (rough sea conditions), expensive and thus a real operational issue.
It is in this scenario that Low-cost GNSS-IR has been identified as a viable and highly promising solution for remote sensing of sea state. This idea has full support of the metocean and operational teams at EMEC, who are supporting equipment installation, providing in-situ data for validation and acquiring additional ADCP data con-current with the GNSS-IR deployment to build the evidence required for performance assessment.
GNSS interferometric reflectometry based on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) has become an established tool in ocean remote sensing - for marine applications the technique can be used to measure water levels and sea state. In this approach, the distance between an antenna and the water surface is measured by analysing the oscillation of the SNR observation. In the end, sea surface roughness is related to the attenuation of the SNR oscillation and can be processed to derive significant wave height and direction.
• Detection and monitoring of marine pollution – Marine pollution is a devastating problem that urges for new conceptual and technological solutions to help prevent, detect, monitor and mitigate the consequences of this environmental degradation. In this regard EO based services can contribute decisively for potential solutions.
In this context, GMV is developing EO based services that aim to detect marine pollution using freely available Sentinel 1 and 2 (optical and SAR) imagery. These services rely on the advantages of using multispectral EO data together with machine learning and artificial intelligence, to identify floating plastics (understanding their type) and marine spills.
The use of Sentinel imagery is a decisive factor to underline the added-value of these services, as it is possible to make continuous monitoring of areas of interest and even expand the analysis with the addition of ocean circulation models in order to understand pollution flow trends.
These services are being operationalized in the scope of the Blue Economy project and their outputs can be exploited for a vast number of activities such as the identification of marine pollution hotspots, understanding flow dynamics, provide insights for more adequate decision making and support the implementation of the European Commission MSPD.
All the operational services that are being provided in the scope of the Blue Economy project are to be interpreted as examples of the far greater potential that EO based services provide, harnessing the perspectives of maritime stakeholders and helping them recognise opportunities in the space arena, and actively work towards future paths beyond the project itself. Context and opportunity mapping is being done as part of an Innovation Clusters roadmapping process. The consortium are working with a wide range of governance, private industry, education, and Atlantic observation stakeholders to develop a suite of recommendations for ESA to strategically target future animation efforts.
The Atlantic Regional Initiative (ARI) is one of ESA’s Regional Initiatives under development in the Earth Observation Programmes Directorate. Its objective is to work with end-user communities in cooperation with national and regional authorities to develop beneficial Earth observation (EO) applications and services within three priority domains: Blue Economy, Renewable Energy (Off-shore Wind) and Atlantic Cities [1].
Focusing on the third domain of ARI, Atlantic Cities: smart, sustainable, and secure ports and protecting the ocean (ARIA3) is a project led by Deimos Space UK and developed together with Deimos Engenharia, Planetek Italia, Climate Impact, the Marine Remote Sensing Group of the University of Aegean (MRSG), the Atlantic International Research Centre (AIR Centre) and Instituto Hidrográfico. It aims to develop and deliver to the end-user community a number of customised EO-based information services (and subsequent impact assessment) based on three specific areas: Climate Resilience; Atlantic Cities and Ports; and Protecting the Ocean.
From the outcomes of the Atlantic from Space Workshop, organized by ESA in January 2019 in Southampton, UK, a set of technical requirements was consolidated. While that provided a foundation to define ARIA3’s initial service portfolio, a comprehensive effort was made to consolidate this information based on the engagement and co-design exercises performed with a wide range of key stakeholders in the Atlantic Region. High-level user requirements were refined collecting information from organizations which are developing a range of highly-relevant investments or technical assistance projects in the Atlantic region, always taking stock of the existing and planned initiatives, avoiding duplication of effort and optimizing synergies with these stakeholders. Specific requirements were also identified by working with the end-users judiciously selected for the implementation of a set of pilot case studies.
In order to maximize the ability to gather user requirements for the ARIA3 project, three different strategies were employed:
1. an extensive review of existing documents and surveys regarding previous events and projects that are somehow related to the services and tools being developed inARIA3.
2. workshops with high-level organizations, when the main objectives were to present the project, inquiry about their related work and publications regarding general requirements for EO data and services and to require their collaboration to reach out a larger number of potential end users for ARIA3 outputs.
3. individual interviews with end users to present ARIA3 and characterize their current data-related activities and specific needs regarding EO data and services. This also supported the consortium decision to run pilots applications with these users for the services and tools to be developed in each of ARIA3 themes.
Following this consultation phase in which more than a hundred formal user requirements were identified, the final ARIA3 portfolio was defined covering the three themes mentioned above, under which a set of nine service chains are being developed. These, in turn, rely on the information produced by fifteen different data services and the full framework is built within services4EO, the EO Exploitation Platform developed by Deimos. This platform holds all service development, integration, deployment, delivery and operation activities within a flexible ICT cloud infrastructure, offering a comprehensive solution for the quick generation and deployment of EO-based applications.
ARIA3 consumes several datasets from the Copernicus programme, including Sentinels 1 and 2 imagery and products from the Copernicus Marine Services, beyond specific data produced by the consortium partners. Final products are delivered by using a tailor made Service Dashboard as the main access point to the EO-based services, where users will have the flexibility to select their Area of Interest (AOI) and discover and visualise (preview) the available data generated by the services.
Building on the interest of the engaged users on this service portfolio, pilot applications are currently being developed in six different areas of study, based on the most relevant services identified by the end users within each service chain. This set of demonstration exercises will be performed to evaluate each of the applications, providing feedback on the usefulness and usability of the services that will iteratively drive the evolution of the ARIA3 portfolio.
Port of Azores (Azores Archipelago, Portugal) will host a pilot focused on coastal hazards, fulfilling their need to access more information on the subject. Three Service Chains will be deployed (Impact on Economic Activities, Coastal Flooding Hazards and Protection of Coastal Assets), with information provided by five independent data services (Sea Level Rise, Sea Level Near-Real-Time Monitoring and Forecast, Historical Sea Waves Significant Height, Waves & current monitoring & forecast and Coastal Exposure). These services aims to estimate losses due to port paralysation as an impact of storm events, provide alerts for potential coastal hazards according to thresholds set by the user and develop vulnerability maps based on coastal hazards risk factors and a combined risk index.
Port of Imbituba (Santa Catarina State, Brazil) presented concerns regarding sediment processes that influence berth draft and erosion processes in a nearby beach. Two service chains (Coastal Erosion Risk Assessment and Security of Port & Maritime Transport), relying on six different data services (Sea Level Rise, Sea Level Near-Real-Time Monitoring and Forecast, Historical Sea Waves Significant Height
Waves & current monitoring & forecast, Coastal Exposure and Advanced Bathymetry Nearshore) are included in this pilot application. The main goals are to assess the erosion risk on beaches adjacent to the port area, providing different risk factors and a combined erosion risk index. Tracking the sediment transport via nearshore bathymetry from satellite will also provide a berth draft indicator service. Current and wave data shall also be provided, allowing for alerts regarding hazardous conditions to be set by the user.
Pollution and other anthropogenic impacts in the coastal area were a major concern expressed by users from the UK’s Solent region, represented in ARIA3 by University of Portsmouth. The Tourism and Public Health service chain, to be implemented in this pilot, includes four data services: Sewage Plumes, Detection of Methane, atmospheric pollution and carbon, Algal mats and Sediment Disturbance. These services should produce probability maps of sewage plumes in the intertidal area by using AI algorithms, while also presenting demonstration of automatic detection of algal mats and human impact on coastal sediments. It will also provide current and forecasted information on atmospheric pollution, including carbon and methane, allowing for alerts to be emitted according to thresholds set by the user.
Port of Taranto expressed the need to monitor pollution and oceanographic parameters in the port area. This shall be fulfilled by the Port Pollution Monitoring service chain, which relies on four data services: Sea Level NRT Monitoring and Forecast, Waves & Current Monitoring and Forecast, Detection of Oil Spill Incidents and Detection of Methane, atmospheric pollution and carbon. This framework aims to monitor and provide near-real-time alerts for atmospheric pollution and oil spills within the port area, also delivering feature maps of the later. Current and wave data shall also be provided, allowing for alerts regarding hazardous conditions for port operations.
The Marine Remote Sensing Group of University of Aegean indicated the importance of deploying targets to improve marine litter detection from space. A single data service shall supply information for the Detection and Monitoring of Marine Litter service chain: Marine Litter Detection & Monitoring. A demonstration in Lesbos Island will showcase the detection and mapping of marine litter aggregations. Considering this requires local calibration through deployment of standardized targets, datasets from previous experiments are to be presented in the demonstration to evaluate the advantage of using an interface capable of providing alerts for users.
A need to obtain detailed environmental data from satellites was expressed by EPAGRI, a public organization from Brazil that supervises aquaculture activities in a 150km stretch of coast. The Good Environmental Status service chain includes time series of different parameters in its three data services: Chlorophyl Timeseries, Primary Productivity Timeseries, and SST Timeseries. The services will compile historical and statistical analysis of SST, CHL-A and primary productivity, providing an indicator of environmental quality over several aquaculture production areas and allowing for alerts regarding newly acquired data to be emitted according to thresholds set by the user.
ARIA3 is a two-year project which started in August 2020 and the full set of solutions developed are currently going through validation prior to starting the demonstration exercises. It is expected that until LPS 2022 the project will be already in the impact assessment phase, and thus able to provide the first evaluations received from end users from each pilot application.
More information regarding ARIA3 can be found on the ESA website [2].
References
[1] ESA Atlantic [Online]. Available: https://eo4society.esa.int/regional-initiatives/atlantic/. [Accessed 05/01/2021].
[2] Atlantic Regional Initiative data handbook [Online]. Available: https://eo4society.esa.int/resources/atlantic-regional-initiative-data-handbook/. [Accessed 19/01/2021]