Remote Sensing of Shelf Sea Ecosystems - State of the Art and Perspectives

In 2005 the Marine Board - ESF established a Working Group (consisting of nominated experts) on remote sensing of shelf sea ecosystems, with a remit to review the state of the art and to make recommendations about research priorities and organisational changes needed to advance the application of scientific knowledge in this subject area. The context for the study is the increasingly urgent requirement for regular monitoring of shelf sea ecosystems in order to meet international treaty obligations for protecting the health status of European coastal waters, allied with a recognition that the contribution of ocean colour remote sensing to this operational task has been slow to develop when compared with the benefits of other satellite oceanography techniques in monitoring physical ocean properties. The report is written to inform those responsible for planning and funding marine science, remote sensing technology and the Earth Observation (EO) space programme, especially in relation to the development of operational oceanography capacity and capability in Europe. At the same time, the report aims to highlight to marine and optical scientists the intellectually challenging problems in this field which still need to be solved.JRC.H.3-Global environement monitorin