03/02/2025 News

Monitoring water quality in Europe, the Copernicus challenge to which CREAF is contributing

European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery
Media Relations Manager

Ángela Justamante

Graduate in Biology and science communicator, with experience in European citizen science and outreach projects at CREAF.
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The data collected by Europe's Earth observation programme - known as Copernicus - helps, among other things, to monitor the health of oceans, seas, lakes and rivers. This information is very valuable because it allows us to detect whether water is polluted, if its flow has decreased, and the amount of salt or temperature. It also helps to prevent extreme events such as droughts or floods, to better manage water resources or to measure the impact of climate change. The problem is that the data often come from different sources, are disaggregated and public authorities do not exploit the full potential of the information. The GRUMETS group, formed by CREAF and the UAB, has addressed some of these challenges through two European projects in which they have recently participated: WQeMS and Water-ForCE. Both initiatives have already been finalised, but the service and results they developed are still active. Copernicus has recently recognised its contribution in a piece of news that highlights 10 projects that have significantly contributed to improving any of its six missions: atmospheric monitoring, marine environmental monitoring, land monitoring, climate change, emergency management and security.

WQeMS aims to provide an operational emergency water quality monitoring service to the water utility industry in relation to the quality of the ‘water we drink’. Image: WQeMS

On the one hand, the WQeMS science team developed a service capable of detecting water quality emergencies in lakes and reservoirs, such as possible floods, harmful algal blooms, silt inflows or oil spills. The tool, which is still active and uses the most up-to-date data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and -2 satellites, is mainly used by public water management and supply companies and government agencies. On the other hand, Water-ForCE developed a roadmap for improving products related to freshwater monitoring. Among other things, the results included recommendations to better support policymakers, researchers, international organisations, local authorities, industry and the general public.

Ivette Serral CREAF

The work we did in the context of WQeMS was an extra degree of difficulty in the research we usually do. We are very proud to be recognised by Copernicus for this milestone!

‘The work we did in the context of WQeMS was an extra degree of difficulty in the research we usually do. Especially because it involved providing a service that was fully operational, efficient and useful for water managers in different cities, including Thessaloniki in Greece. The data and services had to comply with the FAIR principles, i.e. to be fully integrable, harmonised, standardised and available to anyone in near real-time. We are very proud to be recognised by Copernicus for this milestone’, Ivette Serral, CREAF researcher and part of the WQeMS team.

Other European projects mentioned in the informative article addressed other missions such as better monitoring of ice melting, air quality or land use.

The informative article was published as a result of a Results Pack recently produced by the Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS), the main source of information on EU-funded projects. The aim of a Results Pack is to showcase the outstanding results of European initiatives that share a common focus or theme, in this case, the common topic was Copernicus.

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