Water quality mapping in Estonian coastal areas

The project involves the development of 2 Copernicus Coastal Hub Use Cases. Our Use Cases aim to give an input for WFD reporting needs via characterisation of direct eutrophication parameters, Chlorophyll a and transparency, together with nutrients, which are the main shaping factor for phytoplankton community. Copernicus Land and Marine Service possibilities will be used to retrieve land cover change assessment for coastal areas. Estonian coastal areas represent a challenge for using Earth Observation data, as there are 16 coastal water bodies, belonging to six different coastal regions with large variation in the amount of optically active substances. Especially challenging are those regions, where turbidity is occasionally high, depending on the wind conditions, and the presence of coloured dissolved organic material complicates correct detection of in-water substances, thus project also includes validation activities. Development of the prototype service is coordinated with stakeholders, whose interests and usage of Copernicus data will be mapped and taken into account.