Latest European Water Quality

The Finnish Institute of Marine Research is also heavily involved in monitoring the Baltic environmental conditions and is responsible for the provision of key data sets to the Helsinki convention secretariat (the Helsinki convention is a treaty signed by all Baltic states to protect and manage the Baltic environment). Together with French company ACRI, FIMR make use of monthly and seasonal composites of transparency and chlorophyll concentration to monitor changes in the Baltic environment. The example product is the average monthly transparency from May to September 2007. For further details on the Helcom monitoring using ocean colour data, see the Helsinki Commission website.

The Finnish Environment Institute is responsible for Finnish monitoring activities with respect to the environmental quality of the Baltic Sea. This includes the use of both 1km and 300m resolution ocean colour data (in particular MERIS data) for generating chlorophyll concentration and transparency measurements as well as algal bloom detection and evolution forecasting. In addition to supporting national monitoring, the higher resolution products are also used for local and regional authorities such as Helsinki Municipal Environment Authority. The example product shows the latest chlorophyll concentration map for the Gulf of Finland around Helsinki and is based on MERIS 300m data.

Plymouth Marine Laboratory operate a web based service providing daily information products as well as weekly and monthly composites of chlorophyll concentration, yellow substance, turbidity and suspended particulate matter for all UK and Irish waters. In addition, these data are integrated into regional ecosystem models operated by national partners such as the UK Meteorological office covering areas such as the North Sea. Users for PML products include CEFAS and the UK Environment Agency, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Irish Environmental Protection Agency

• General support to regional and national environmental monitoring and fish stock assessments through the provision of a range of data streams including mineral concentration, total suspended sediment, transparency, chlorophyll concentration and temperature. Detection of algal blooms is also provided

• Routine monitoring to support regional and national Water Framework Directive assessments. The main parameter used as a proxy for eutrophication is chlorophyll concentration based on the integration of MERIS, MODIS and SeaWiFS data. At present, the advantages of 300m MERIS data for monitoring the inshore waters addressed by the Directive is being investigated.

Daily measurements of chlorophyll concentrations and transparency are provided by Planetek to APAT for the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Seas. In addition, weekly and monthly average composites are provided together with the 90th percentile chlorophyll concentration to support water framework directive reporting requirements for Italian waters. This service has been running since late 2005, initially providing 1km resolution products for the Adriatic and progressively expanding to cover all Italian waters at both 1km and 300m resolution. The example shows the Chlorophyll concentration between Sardinia and the Italian mainland for 15 May 2008.

• More frequent monitoring of water quality parameters. We get more observations and indications about water quality parameter than using only an in-situ system.

• Spatial monitoring of water quality parameters. We get observations for the full territory of the Romanian waters and beyond (complete Black Sea).