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

内陆和过渡水域，包括湖泊和水库，是我们这个星球上开发最多的自然资源之一。它们只占地球水资源分布的一小部分，但却支持着一系列至关重要的生态系统和服务，这些生态系统和服务对于调节碳循环和气候以及维持人类福祉至关重要。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。越来越多的使用者和用途加剧了对内陆水域施加的压力，过度开发往往导致水质退化。我们对这些供水服务的绝对依赖是这样的，严格的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，以确保水可供人类安全消费。该奖学金提出了一种新的积极主动的监管监测方法，既及时又具有成本效益，并将推动我们在英国管理淡水资源的方式发生变化。该奖学金将为最终用户提供优化的管理解决方案，这将有助于保护公共和水务行业的客户。欧盟法规（欧盟水框架指令（WFD），欧盟海洋战略框架指令（MSFD）和城市污水处理指令（UWWTD））规定了英国的水监测策略，环境机构（如苏格兰环境保护局（SEPA），环境署（EA））和水务公司（如苏格兰水务公司，安格里安水务公司）有责任评估水质。测试通常通过传统的现场采样进行，每年组织访问数百个水体。这种传统的监测方法是劳动和成本密集的，其结果往往在空间和时间上都不能代表整个水环境。此外，由于业务需求增加了对额外空间覆盖的需要，因此实地抽样的实际频率正在减少。在某些情况下，地面测量在一个WFD周期中只记录很少的次数。这一挑战在英国和爱尔兰的偏远地区更为严重，因为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，在弥补这一数据差距方面发挥重要作用。与目前可行的地面测量相比，卫星遥感能够以高频率监测更大的空间区域。因此，它可以提供一个更好的水环境的天气视图。欧洲航天局发射的新一代哨兵卫星（Sentinel-2a/b和Sentinel-3a/b）在英国上空以0.01-0.3公里的空间分辨率提供免费和随时可用的地球图像，采样频率在1至5天之间。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的模式。卫星遥感第一次与环境管理机构相关和有用。该奖学金旨在利用卫星技术的这些最新进展所创造的机会，为常规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：(i)促进和便利使用来自卫星遥感的数据产品；（ii）在环境机构的日常运作中实施数据解决方案。

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.