ANACONDA

This project is commissioned under the European Space Agency programme: ESA CfP/5-50046/23/I-DT-bgh.

The current fleet of satellites within the Copernicus program will be expanded with additional satellite missions in the coming years that will enhance European’s Earth observation capabilities, and will have a significant impact on our ability to understand and act on all types of domains including the atmosphere, climate, environment, nature, and water. Optimal utilisation of these new future satellite missions requires innovative methodologies and approaches to process these datasets, and to integrate those datasets with other types of data, including existing satellite and in-situ data. To be prepared for these future missions, methodologies and demonstrations can already be developed, so that the industry is equipped with new products when the satellites become operational.

Water quality and ecosystem health (including biodiversity) of inland waters are domains of great importance for society. Many human activities including industry, agriculture and domestic consumption are dependent on water with a certain level of quality. Understanding and monitoring the status of water bodies concerning water quality can decrease costs with water treatment and identify sources of pollution. The ecosystem health of aquatic habitats reflects both their capacity to maintain organisation and autonomy over time as well as their resilience to external stress (Constanza, 2012), and biodiversity is essential in maintaining the stability of these ecosystems. Aquatic habitats provide not only water but other ecosystem services as well such as habitat provisioning, climate regulation, and cultural services (Ferreira et al., 2023).

The objective of the proposed project Co-creAting New wAter quality and Biodiversity Management ProduCts from expansiOn missioN DAta (ANACONDA) is:

• To develop innovative methodologies and applications to monitor water quality of inland waters (domain D from the tender text), and ecosystem health / biodiversity around inland waters (domain B from the tender text) using the future Sentinel missions CHIME, LSTM, and ROSE-L, combined with current Sentinel data (Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3) and local in-situ data.

• Create experience and expertise regarding these future missions in cooperation with (end-)users and stakeholders.