PROJECT: ”Data fusion system for Black Sea water quality monitoring – DaFSys”

Financed by ESA through TERRASIGNA Romania

Responsible: Florin Tatui

Period: 2015 – 2017

Short description: The Romanian coastal waters are dominated by the large sediment inputs from the Danube River, thus being classified into the Case 2 category (optical-complex waters). The optical properties are mainly influenced by particles other than phytoplankton. In order to better understand the changes occurring in the coastal area, not only related to suspended sediments dynamics, but also for other parameters, such as chlorophyll concentration, improved datasets are required in terms of both spatial and radiometric resolutions. Our project develops a new methodology for satellite data fusion in order to obtain improved products of ocean colour (especially coastal waters turbidity) at increased spatial (tens of meters) and radiometric resolutions. All the necessary steps are covered, from data acquisition and processing to co-registration issues and fusion algorithms. In-situ measurements were used for for validation purposes and for estimation of algorithm performance. The implemented methodology is robust and can be applied to any type of satellite imagery. Such high-resolution ocean colour datasets can be used also to overcome the difficulties in water quality studying for small interior lakes, which are very numerous in the Danube Delta.

Coastal water turbidity before and after applying DAFSYS fusion algorithm