Open Knowledge Exchange Fellowship: Exploitation of satellite remote sensing for regulation and monitoring of inland and transitional water quality

内陆和过渡性水域，包括湖泊和水库，是我们星球上开发最多的自然资源之一。它们只占地球水分配的一小部分，但却支持对调节碳循环和气候以及维持人类福祉至关重要的一系列生态系统和服务。社会依赖内陆水资源提供多种相互竞争的生态系统服务，包括饮用水、卫生管理、农业、水产养殖和渔业、运输、能源、工业、娱乐和旅游业。越来越多的使用者和用途加大了对内陆水域的压力，过度开采往往导致水质恶化。我们对这些水服务的绝对依赖程度使得严格监测对于管理对水质、状况和功能的影响至关重要，以保护生态系统和人类健康的长期可持续性。因此，环境机构和水务公司将其年度运营预算的很大一部分用于监测和处理我们的内陆水域，以确保水对人类消费是安全的。这一奖学金为监管监督提供了一种新的积极主动的方法，这种方法既及时又具有成本效益，并将推动我们管理英国淡水资源的方式发生重大变化。欧盟法规(欧盟水框架指令(WFD)、欧盟海洋战略框架指令(MSFD)和城市废水处理指令(UWWTD))规定了英国的水监测战略，环境机构(如苏格兰环境保护局(SEPA)、环境局(EA))和水务公司(如苏格兰水务、盎格鲁水务)有责任对水质进行评估。测试通常通过传统的现场采样进行，每年组织对数百个水体进行访问。这种传统的监测方法是劳动密集型和成本密集型的，其结果往往不能在空间和时间上代表完整的水环境。此外，由于业务需求增加了对额外空间覆盖的需求，现场抽样的实际频率正在减少。在某些情况下，地面测量在WFD周期中只被记录了很少的次数。这一挑战在英国和爱尔兰的偏远地区加剧，那里的许多水体无法进行地面采样。卫星遥感可通过为过渡水域和内陆水域的水质监测提供补充数据来源，在弥合这一数据差距方面发挥重要作用。与目前通过地面测量进行的监测相比，卫星遥感能够以较高的频率监测更大的空间区域。因此，它可以提供一个大大改善的水环境的天气图。欧洲航天局发射的新一代哨兵卫星(哨兵-2a/b和哨兵-3a/b)以0.01-0.3公里的空间分辨率提供免费和容易获得的地球图像，时间采样频率在英国上空1至5天。这意味着现在可以从空间上观察到更多的水体，并且可以在集水区尺度上评估水质模式。第一次，卫星遥感对环境监管机构是相关和有用的。该奖学金旨在利用卫星技术的这些最新进步创造的机会，为日常水质监测提供数据解决方案。知识交流研究金的主要重点是：(1)促进和便利卫星遥感数据产品的使用；(2)将数据解决方案落实到环境机构的日常业务中。

Inland and transitional waters, including lakes and reservoirs, are amongst the most exploited natural resources on our planet. They constitute only a small fraction of our planet's water distribution and yet support a vital range of ecosystems and services essential for regulating carbon cycling and climate, and sustaining human well-being. Societies rely on inland water resources for multiple competing ecosystem services including drinking water, sanitation management, agriculture, aquaculture and fisheries, transport, energy, industry, recreation and tourism. A growing number of users and uses have intensified pressures applied to inland waters and over exploitation often results in degradation of water quality. Our absolute dependency on these water services is such that strict monitoring is essential to manage the impacts on water quality status and function to protect long-term sustainability in addition to ecosystem and human health. Consequently, environment agencies and water utility companies spend a significant proportion of their annual operational budgets monitoring and treating our inland waters to ensure the water is safe for human consumption. This fellowship presents a new proactive method for regulatory monitoring, which is both timely and cost effective and will drive a step change in the way we manage freshwater resources in the UK. The fellowship will deliver management solutions optimised for end-users which will facilitate the protection of public and water industry customers.EU regulations (EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), and Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD)) dictate water monitoring strategies in the UK and it is the responsibility of environment agencies (e.g. Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Environment Agency (EA)) and water utility companies (e.g. Scottish Water, Anglian Water) to assess water quality. Tests are typically performed through conventional in-situ sampling with visits to hundreds of water bodies organised every year. This traditional method of monitoring is labour and cost intensive and the results are often unrepresentative of the complete water environment both spatially and temporally. Furthermore, as the need for additional spatial coverage is increasing through operational requirement, the actual frequency of site sampling is decreasing. In some cases, ground measurements are recorded only a small number of times in a WFD cycle. This challenge is exacerbated in remote regions of the UK and Ireland where many water bodies are inaccessible for ground sampling. Satellite remote sensing could play an essential role in bridging this data gap by providing a complementary source of data for water quality monitoring in transitional and inland waters. Satellite remote sensing is capable of monitoring larger spatial areas at a high frequency when compared to what is currently feasible through ground-based measurements. Hence, it can deliver a much improved synoptic view of the water environment. The new generation of Sentinel satellites (Sentinel-2a/b and Sentinel-3a/b) launched by the European Space Agency provide free and readily available images of the Earth at 0.01-0.3 km spatial resolution with a temporal sampling frequency between 1 and 5 days over the UK. This means more water bodies are now observable from space and patterns in water quality can be evaluated at catchment scales. For the first time, satellite remote sensing is relevant and useful to the environmental regulatory agencies. This fellowship aims to exploit the opportunity created by these recent advancements in satellite technology to deliver data solutions for routine water quality monitoring. The primary focus of the Knowledge Exchange Fellowship is to: (i) promote and facilitate the use of data products derived from satellite remote sensing; and (ii) implement data solutions into the day-to-day operations of the environment agencies.