MapEO Water

Features

• Data Management: Data access through (Web Map Service) WMS  and (Web Coverage Service) WCS.
• Sensor Measurements: The camera measures radiance over water bodies, expressed in Digital Numbers (DN). MapEO Water converts these into physically meaningful values:
  • Water leaving reflectance
  • Turbidity
  • Total Suspended Matter
  • Chlorophyll-a concentrations
• How it works:
  In the development of the MapEO services some key challenges in application of image technology to characterize water columns had to be overcome, for example:
  • Water bodies often look dark on images.
  • The interaction of the light with the atmosphere just above the water surface plays a major role (sky glint). Luckily, this can be modelled through a modified version of VITO’s atmospheric correction algorithm iCOR (iCOR4Drones).
  • The water surface acts as a mirror (sun glint). Therefore, a well-adapted flight protocol and hardware setup is indispensable.
  • The water column is often a dynamic environment, variations in currents and tides can lead to a rapidly changing scene under investigation.
  These challenges are addressed one by one in a clear processing workflow.

  
  Diagram of MapEO workflow

  

  
   

Specifications

• Resolution: cm-resolution (depending on flight height)
• Dimensions: Drone platform dependent
• Power requirement: Battery
• Method to transmit data: Upload to workflow through FTP server. Data access of processed data through WMS and WCS.
• Deployment method: The system has to collect data according to predefined flight instructions to avoid contamination by sun glint, and enable correction for incoming irradiance.

Publications

Technical Resources

Technical drawing

Graphical image of the processing workflow that makes up the MapEO water service.