IES team in Living Planet Symposium by ESA

The IES team was attending one of the biggest events in remote sensing sphere: Living Planet Symposium by ESA in Milan, Italy (13-17 May 2019). IES researcher Dr Tuuli Soomets presented FLUID project findings in a poster presentation “The validation and comparison of the water quality products in Baltic lakes using Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 data” The aim of this work was to find the best algorithms for estimating Level-2 water quality parameters. Researchers compared two sensors on different Copernicus satellites: MSI on Sentinel-2 and OLCI on Sentinel-3 with in-situ match-ups. The algorithms from different band ratios based on OWTs gave the best results for both satellites. The S2 outperformed S3 every time! Often top-of-atmosphere band ratios gave more accurate results than the atmospherically corrected ones. S2 and S3 reflectance spectra were mostly strongly underestimating the in-situ reflectance’s, but S2 C2X were able to retrieve similar spectra shape and often also the magnitude, even in clear waters (L. Razna)! The S2 C2X reflectance spectra gave the most accurate results to obtain OWTs (R² = 0.8).

View the poster by clicking on image.

Living Planet Symposium by ESA focuses on how Earth Observation contributes to science and society, and how disruptive technologies and actors are changing the traditional Earth Observation landscape, which is also creating new opportunities for public and private sector interactions.

More about symposium here.

The research is a part of the project “ICT-based remote sensing tool for retrieving water quality products for lake research and monitoring” (FLUID), No. 1.1.1.2/VIAA/1/16/137. Agreement with State Education Development Agency of the Republic of Latvia No. 1.1.1.2/16/I/001. The project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund and partly funded by State budget and the Institute for Environmental Solutions.

Find more about the FLUID project here.