SmartSat Distinguished Speaker – Dr Claudia Giardino

Dr. Claudia Giardino, PhD in Remote Sensing (Polytechnic of Milano, Italy) is senior researcher at CNR-IREA (National Research Council of Italy, Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment) in Milano. She has more than 20 years of experience in remote sensing with experience on biophysical parameters retrieval, imaging spectrometry, multi-source data processing, calibration/validation activities. She is group leader at CNR-IREA for Earth Observation (EO) for ‘water quality’ with interest on optically complex waters, aquatic optics, bio-optical modelling, phyoplankton blooms, shallow water mapping, multi-temporal analysis for lakes ecology. Since 2001 she has been responsible for CNR research activity in more than 20 national and international projects on EO of inland and complex waters. Visiting scientist at CSIRO in Canberra (Australia) in 2002 and 2006, she is member of GEO-Aquawatch, IOCCG, of the ESA Mission Advisory Group of CHIME and of the ASI Mission Advisory Group of PRISMA.

Abstract

EO technology for water quality – An overview focused in Europe

This talk will present an overview of EO technology in support to water quality monitoring with specific applications on lakes and freshwater reservoirs. The presentation will show the state-of-the-art of methods which have been commonly applied in the last years to tune satellite data into user ready products. Examples on integration of satellite-derived products to field measurements and modelling for supporting end-users needs will be presented. The presented user-driven applications include the needs of water authorities to respond to the directives and laws on water quality reporting and monitoring and the support of satellite observations in case of natural hazards events. Such examples might cover different scale of observations, from local to regional. Data and products from variety of EO sensors will be presented, such as imagery data collected by the operational Copernicus ESA missions (e.g. Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3). A relevant part of the talk will be dedicated to PRISMA (PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa), the new hyperspectral satellite sensor of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in orbit since March 2019, which might also provide valuable data for water quality mapping.