Aquascope and Caeloscope will provide new data products for marine applications and air quality monitoring
BELSPO has allocated funding for two projects aimed at enhancing data services within Terrascope. This development will enable the operationalization of research findings from Belgian federal scientific institutes, making them accessible to the public.
Aquascope: satellite-based data products for marine applications
The Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences will lead the Aquascope project which aims to integrate marine information products for the Belgian part of the North Sea and its surrounding areas. These products will be derived from data obtained from Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3 and Landsat 8/9 satellites, and will cover key parameters such as:
- Turbidity (TUR) and Suspended sediment concentration (SPM) to support management of activities related to sediment transport (e.g. dredging activities)
- Chlorophyll a (CHL) concentration used to describe the algal bloom dynamics in the Belgian Coastal Zone
- Sea surface temperature (SST) allowing for the mapping of Marine Heat Waves in our coastal waters
- Reflectances of solar radiation (Rrs) allowing the development of new ocean colour algorithms
For TUR, SPM and CHL, the Aquascope team will generate gap-filled daily products using a combination of Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 data. In addition, monthly and yearly composite products will be developed to provide a comprehensive overview of these marine parameters.
Caeloscope: satellite-based data products for air quality monitoring
The Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy will lead the CAELOSCOPE project which will focus on integrating products derived from the Sentinel-5P TROPOMI instrument, such as:
- Ground level ozone (O3) maps for Belgium and surrounding areas. This product is an important indicator of air quality at ground level
- 3D (multi-level) nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations for Belgium and surroundings, allowing a better understanding of NO2 transport processes in the atmosphere
- High-resolution near-surface NO2 concentration based on both satellite and in-situ observations
Products will be available in Terrascope in the near future
Both the Caeloscope and Aquascope projects will provide these/their publicly available data products via Terrascope. The first preliminary datasets are expected to be available by the summer of 2025 via the following Terrascope services:
- Terrascope viewer
- STAC catalog for querying and downloading
- Jupyter Notebooks
- Virtual Machines
- openEO for cloud processing
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