Coastal Turbid Plume Survey
An operational service to support coastal water quality management
Area of benefit covered
Coastal & Marine Environment
Water Quality, Health security, tourism activities
Iberian-Biscay-Ireland
Regional seas
The “Coastal Turbid Plume Survey” service is available through subscription. This service contributes to an advanced management of the coastal ocean supporting nearshore water quality preservation. The solution is based on the combination of satellite imagery and numerical modelling of the ocean dynamics, which are transferred from the offshore up to the nearshore thanks to an advanced COASTAL DOWNSCALING procedure from the Iberia-Biscay-Irish Regional seas products.
The proposed Coastal Turbid plume service provides detailed water quality information with high space-time resolution in the nearshore to support the sustainable management of the coastal area. Monitoring and forecast data are produced daily and feed a decision support tool dedicated to local end-users and stakeholders. The tool provides diagnosis, recommendations and alerts in Real Time about the management of coastal waters, like e.g. for the recreational use of beaches (bathing waters, etc.) or the preservation of vulnerable coastal areas (fisheries, protected areas, etc.). Here, the service is demonstrated in the Iberia-Biscay-Ireland Region with a specific focus on the French Basque Coast and the Adour river area.
The following Copernicus products are used in the Coastal Turbid Plume survey:
- Atlantic-Iberian Biscay Irish- Ocean Physics Analysis and Forecast
- Atlantic-Iberian Biscay Irish- Ocean Wave Analysis and Forecast
- Atlantic Iberian Biscay Irish Ocean- In-Situ Near Real Time Observations
- North Atlantic Surface Chlorophyll Concentration from Satellite observations
- European Sea Surface Chlorophyll Concentration from Multi Satellite observations
- European Ocean- Sea Surface Temperature Multi-Sensor L3 Observations
Follow this link for more information on the available Copernicus Marine services.
Copernicus Marine Service provides added value of the Coastal Turbid Plume Survey service at several levels: the Copernicus physical analysis and forecast product is used as a part of the boundary conditions forcing the coastal and open ocean models. The Ocean Colour Chlorophyll and Total Suspended Matter observations are used for both high resolution satellite imagery cross-validation and control of numerical model results. Copernicus Sea surface temperature and in situ near real time Copernicus observations are also used to validate model and imagery outputs used in the Turbid plume survey service. Copernicus Marine Service improve the proposed service efficiency by providing high quality inputs within the modelling suite as well as real time validation data. Finally, Copernicus Marine Service helps reducing the overall service cost by allowing our solution to focus on the local nearshore scale and processes, while benefiting from reliable information from the regional ocean scale.
17/08/2020
The predictive modelling techniques used in the Turbid Plume service were mentioned in this article recently shared on the SUEZ website, which explains how it can be applied as part of a methodology for bathing water quality monitoring and forecasting (in French): https://www.suez.fr/fr-fr/actualites/saison-estivale-des-eaux-de-baignade-sous-surveillance
02/09/2019
This summer, the Turbid Plume technology was used by the center RIVAGES PRO TECH of SUEZ, in combination with a monitoring by rapid bacterial analysis (GENSPOT®), to monitor and forecast bathing water quality every day in the Basque Coast in France.
The service greatly helped to optimize the management of bathing areas by the agglomeration (Communauté d’Agglomération Pays Basque) in close collaboration with municipalities during a series of major storm water events, guiding preventive beach closures to guarantee the maximum safety of beach users, while limiting the number and duration of recreational areas unavailability, thus limiting the economic impact of temporary water quality degradation.
09/09/2018
Highlight on the late 2017 and first semester of 2018 turbid plume induced by numerous stormy events. Large storm precipitations have induced increased Adour river discharges through runoff that carried lots of terrestrial elements. Theses terrestrial material ended in nearshore waters and concentrated and accumulated within the Adour plume. The dynamics of the plume are controlled by nearshore processes; mainly river discharges, tides, waves, nearshore currents and winds. The downscaling model suite is designed to simulate these nearshore processes while satellite imagery provides a spaceborne observation of these phenomenons and patterns at a specific time. Several examples, ranging from September 2017 until July 2018 are highlighted with high spatial resolution derived Total Suspended Matter concentrations products (Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 derived biogeochemical parameters, as done for Sentinel-3 during the 19th April 2018 event).
For more info about the Coastal Turbid Plume Survey please contact thibaut.voirand@telespazio.com or matthias.delpey@rivagesprotech.fr.
For more info regarding the Copernicus Marine Service please contact the CMEMS service desk.
Credits:
Generated using E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information
Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data
Contains Landsat-8 imagery courtesy of USGS