Multisensor monitoring of plume dynamics in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea

We used data from various space-borne sensors to monitor the marine ecosystem in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea, at the Costa Dorada, between the City of Barcelona and the estuary of the river Ebro. The aim of this study was to demonstrate that the combination of different remote sensing data (acquired at different electromagnetic frequencies) allows for an improved monitoring system, in particular for a better monitoring of the marine ecosystem and, hence, a better coastal zone management. We present remote sensing data acquired by the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and the Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) aboard the Second European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS-2), and by the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (Sea WiFS) on the SeaStar satellite. By combining the different data we are able to overcome specific drawbacks of the single sensors, like an insufficient temporal coverage, or a strong dependence on weather and daylight conditions.