Observations of surface chlorophyll-a concentration on 15 August 2019 from the OLCI sensor onboard the satellite Sentinel 3
WaterColours is a new project in which satellite multispectral imagery will be used to render, with unprecedented detail, environmental parameters in the Maltese coastal areas including harbours, embayments and the nearshore open sea areas.
Computed at a high resolution, satellite-based climatologies and statistical trends for surface Chlorophyll-a concentrations, as well as Total Suspended Matter (TSM), will provide very important water quality markers. The latter will in turn be used for estimating essential indices for the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD).
All results will be made publicly available through an online portal that will embed machine learning and image processing techniques. These will automatically detect and highlight specific patterns
such as harmful blooms or areas with a high TSM content, and provide automated alerts of such
occurrences to the Environment Resources Authority (ERA).
The project is financed by the Malta Council for Science and Technology through the Space Research Fund. The University of Malta is represented by Dr Adam Gauci and Prof. Aldo Drago, both from the Physical Oceanography Research Group within the
Department of Geosciences.
This research is being carried out in collaboration with Dr Daniele Ciani and Federico Falcini, experts from the Italian National Research Council, Institute of Marine Sciences (CNR-ISMAR).