MarCoast network: a provision of EO-based services for marine and coastal applications
- Paper number
IAC-06-B1.5.04
- Author
Mr. Jerome Bruniquel, Thales Alenia Space, France
- Coauthor
Mrs. Araceli Pi Figueroa, Starlab Barcelona SL, Spain
- Coauthor
Mr. Gordon Campbell, European Space Agency/ESRIN, Italy
- Year
2006
- Abstract
The MarCoast project, standing for MARine & COASTal environmental information services, is part of the GMES Service Element (GSE) programme, managed and funded by the European Space Agency (ESA). MarCoast aims at scaling up services which have been consolidated in the frame of ROSES and COASTWATCH ESA projects.
The MarCoast consortium is composed of 32 partners from 10 European countries, and gathers all key actors in the field of marine and coastal applications.
MarCoast targets to deliver a single portfolio of marine and coastal services at the European scale. The portfolio is composed of 6 service lines which are:
- Oil spill surveillance and customised information,
- Oil spill drift forecast,
- Water quality monitoring and alert,
- HAB monitoring, evolution and forecasting,
- Water quality assessment service,
- Met-Ocean data.
All MarCoast activities have the objective to set up a MarCoast network which will support the provision of services, and which shall last beyond the life time of the MarCoast project. This sustainability that shall be reached drives all the cross-cutting activities that support the service deliveries (promotion, user federation, web portal, etc).
One of the specificity of MarCoast, as for each GSE project, is the strong commitment of users; this commitment is formalized through Service Level Agreement (SLA), signed between the service provider and the user. Signed SLA is mandatory to start any service activity.
For each service line, a dedicated information, generally derived from space-borne systems, but not exclusively, is delivered to the user. Delivery delay, format, access are agreed by both parties, and described in the related SLA.
MarCoast makes use of all sensors dedicated to marine applications, such as SAR systems (ASAR and RSAT-1) for oil spills, ocean colour sensors (MERis and MODIS) for water quality applications. Altimeter, radiometers, and scatterometer sensors support the production of metocean data. In the future, GMES sentinels 1 and 3 will be the 2 main missions on which MarCoast services will rely on.
MarCoast is a unique opportunity to gather in a the same project end-users, service providers and system developers. As such, it demonstrates that GMES services are about to reach the needed level of maturity that will ensure sustainability.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-06-B1.5.04.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.