Marcoast adriatic service meris products validation

Coastal zones are the most populated and utilized areas of the earth. Assessment and regular monitoring of coastal waters quality are key activities for a sound management of the coastal areas. Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) is one of the key parameters used for evaluating coastal water quality status. MarCoast is a three year project funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) with the aim of establishing a durable network of marine and coastal information services from remote sensing data, integrated with in-situ measurement, in close cooperation with national and regional authorities. In MarCoast, Chl-a and Water Transparency parameters are both measured with the MERIS instrument onboard ENVISAT. This paper describes the outcomes of validation activities of the MERIS products and algorithms performed for the Adriatic Sea using in situ data. First validation results made on oneyear dataset were promising. However, further analysis should be made to confirm this first year good results and to improve regionalization of the algorithms.