| Project | Summary | PI Europe | PI China | Domain | Full text |
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| GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE, SEA LEVEL RISE, EXTREME EVENTS AND LOCAL GROUND SUBSIDENCE EFFECTS IN COASTAL AND RIVER DELTA REGIONS THROUGH NOVEL AND INTEGRATED REMOTE SENSING APPROACHES (GREENISH) | Coastal zones are essential for the socio-economic well-being of many nations. Coastal regions, which are the location of large population centres, have multiple uses, needs and opportunities, and are particularly exposed to extreme events and [...] | Dr. Antonio Pepe, CNR - I. Rilevamento Elettroma. Ambiente, ITALY | Prof.. Qing Zhao, East China Normal University, CHINA | Oceans and coastal zones | Coastal zones are essential for the socio-economic well-being of many nations. Coastal regions, which are the location of large population centres, have multiple uses, needs and opportunities, and are particularly exposed to extreme events and climate change. Many key sectors are affected by long-term effects in these zones, such as the monitoring of public/private infrastructures, cultural/natural heritage preservation, risk management, and agriculture. The combined effects of sea level rise (SLR), tidal evolution, modulated ocean currents and extreme events can have numerous impacts to coastal, river delta, and inland water zones, including water management, which in turn lead to cascading and unpredictable impacts on other sectors. The GREENISH project is the natural extension of the 32294 Dragon IV project, and aims to provide extensive research and development analyses of areas in Europe and China subject to climate change induced (e.g., SLR, flooding, and urban climate threats) and anthropogenic disasters (e.g., ground subsidence over reclaimed-land platforms), with the goal to improve the knowledge and develop new remote-sensing methods. Of great relevance is a detailed understanding of the combined risk of SLR, tidal evolution, storm surges, and ground subsidence in coastal areas and lake-river systems. Global sea-level is rising, and tides are also changing worldwide and these risks are accompanied by increasing concerns about the growing urbanization of the worldÔÇÖs low-lying coastal regions and related coastal hazards (e.g., flooding). Inland water bodies such as lake and river system also experience substantial degradation with rapid economic development.The use of optical, SAR, InSAR, and hyper-spectral data products will be fostered. Selected case-study areas include the Yangtze and Pearl river deltas, Poyang Lake, the Bohai Rim Region (China), the city of Istanbul (Turkey), the Po river delta and the Venice Lagoon (Italy). Flood hazards will be investigated by using satellite SAR and altimeter data, tide gauge data, and by developing proper hydrodynamic models. The results will help provide reliable information for improving the resilience of population centres to coastal disasters.The main goal of the project is the well-use of Earth Observation (EO) data and in-situ monitoring information, to detect the long-term evolution of coastal, deltaic and lake-river systems. More specifically, the project aims:- To study the ground deformation in coastal/deltaic regions with conventional and novel interferometric SAR approaches. – To monitor changes of urbanized areas via coherent and incoherent change detection analyses. – To study interactions between ocean currents and coasts, such as coastal erosion, using high resolution optical and SAR satellite images.- To properly assess SLR, tidal evolution, and hydrogeological risks in urban coastal areas.- To study the interactions between Poyang Lake and its connecting rivers.- To study atmosphere/surface interactions and develop atmospheric phase screen correction methods in multi-temporal SAR images. – To develop methods to integrate satellite- and ground-based RADAR systems to monitor public infrastructures in Shanghai- To develop interactive maps of coastal, urban, and inland zones susceptible to primary and secondary risks via GIS. – To train Young scientists (PhD and post-doc).The project deliverables are papers on peer-reviewed international journals, conference proceedings and new software algorithms to monitor and map coastal risks. The work will be financed from internal resources of the participants. Additional funding will come from National Natural Science Foundation of China, Research Grants of Ministry of Land and Resources of China, High-end Foreign Experts Recruitment Program of China, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China, EU projects and EU-China governmental cooperation. |
| INNOVATIVE USER-RELEVANT SATELLITE PRODUCTS FOR COASTAL AND TRANSITIONAL WATERS | The Earth's coastal and transitional waters are fundamental resources and encompass a broad range of ecosystems that are core to global biogeochemical cycling, food and energy production. The mounting conflicting pressures from the number of [...] |
Dr. Spyrakos Evangelos, University of Stirling, UK | Prof.. Junsheng Li, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CHINA | Oceans and coastal zones | The Earth’s coastal and transitional waters are fundamental resources and encompass a broad range of ecosystems that are core to global biogeochemical cycling, food and energy production. The mounting conflicting pressures from the number of users and uses, coupled with population growth, industrialization, land use intensification and climate change bring into focus the urgent need for the sustainable management of our aquatic resources and space. The increasing availability of satellite data from the new missions in this decade has radically transformed the approaches to monitor and sustainably manage coastal and transitional systems and has stimulated rapid growth in the development of downstream services. This proposal aims to develop and validate innovative user-relevant satellite products in regards to the biogeochemical properties of coastal and transitional waters to improve the management and sustainable exploitation of these zones by exploring the capacity offered by latest generation of satellite data (e.g. Sentinel-2 MSI, Sentinel-3 OLCI, HY-1, GF-1, GF-6, Jilin-1, and Planet Dove) from Europe and China. In particular, we will develop and validate innovative products for phytoplankton size classes (PSC, as an important parameter for shellfish aquaculture), primary production (PP, leading to carrying capacity estimates for aquaculture and policy making), specific ecosystem threatening harmful algae blooms (HABs) (e.g. caused by Pseudo-nitzschia spp., including macroalgal blooms due to the macroalgae Ulva prolifera) and marine oil spills (MOS). Our study areas will include and the Danube Delta & Black Sea coast, Galician coast (NW Iberian Peninsula), Shandong Peninsula coast and Northern South China Sea. This proposed work is under the topic of “Oceans & Coastal zones” and spans over the subtopics “Algae and phytoplankton blooms” and “Marine dynamic environment”. |
| INVESTIGATION OF INTERNAL WAVES IN ASIAN SEAS USING EUROPEAN AND CHINESE SATELLITE DATA | The East and South China Seas, the Sulu Sea, and the Andaman Sea the sea areas, where the most intense internal wave are encountered in the WorldÔÇÖs ocean. Internal waves are of relevance, among others, for off-shore activities since they can [...] | Prof.. em. Dr. Werner Alpers, University of Hamburg, GERMANY | Dr. Kan Zeng, Ocean University of China, CHINA | Oceans and coastal zones | The East and South China Seas, the Sulu Sea, and the Andaman Sea the sea areas, where the most intense internal wave are encountered in the WorldÔÇÖs ocean. Internal waves are of relevance, among others, for off-shore activities since they can disrupt offshore exploration and drilling operations, for the propagation of sound in the ocean, since internal waves can disturb the propagation of acoustic signals, and for the transport of nutrient-rich water to the sea surface in coastal zones causing there plankton growth. Although much research was carried out in the last years on the generation, propagation, refraction, interaction, and breaking of internal waves in these Asian seas, we aim at pushing this research further by using data from different sensors flown on recently launched satellites, in particular from the European satellites Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-3, and the Chinese satellite GF-3. These satellite data will be compared theoretical models, in particular, with the model developed by the Kan Zeng (the Chinese PI of this project) and co-workers on the relationship between internal wave amplitude and half-width of the internal solitary wave. Furthermore, we will explore more in more how internal solitary waves are detectable by the new high-resolution SAR altimeter SRAL onboard the Sentinel-3 satellites. |
| MARINE DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT MONITORING IN THE CHINA SEAS AND WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN SEAS BY SATELLITE ALTIMETERS | Satellite altimeter is one of important global ocean remote sensing technique to monitor the marine dynamic environment. Sentinel-3A/3B satellite equipped with SRAL have been launched on 16 Feb. 2016 and 25 Apr. 2018 in Europe, and HY-2A/2B [...] |
Dr. Ole Andersen, Technical University of Denmark, DENMARK | Dr. Jungang Yang, The First Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources of China, CHINA | Oceans and coastal zones | Satellite altimeter is one of important global ocean remote sensing technique to monitor the marine dynamic environment. Sentinel-3A/3B satellite equipped with SRAL have been launched on 16 Feb. 2016 and 25 Apr. 2018 in Europe, and HY-2A/2B satellite equipped Radar Altimeter were launched on 16 Aug. 2011 and 25 Oct. 2018 in China. The CFOSAT was launched in 2018. The combinations of European and Chinese altimeters will improve the data application ability of these altimeters. As the continuance of Dragon 4 project (ID.32292), the objectives of this research topic are to improve the retrieval of SSH and SWH of Sentinel-3 and HY-2 series altimeters in the Chinese seas by the waveform retracking method in the coastal areas, to combine Sentinel-3 and HY-2 series altimeters data into high spatial resolution grid data in the China seas and western Pacific Ocean, to develop the retrieval method of sea surface current by combining the altimeter, sea surface wind and SST data in the Chinese seas and western Pacific Ocean, and to analyze the spatial-temporal variation characteristics of ocean waves, ocean current and mesoscale eddies in the Chinese seas and the western Pacific Ocean. In this study, the deliverables of the investigation include the time series grid data of SWH, SLA (Sea Level Anomaly) and sea surface current with the high spatial resolution in the China seas and western Pacific Ocean, the spatial-temporal characters of marine dynamic environment, such as ocean wave, ocean circulation and mesoscale eddies in the China seas and western Pacific Ocean. The funding to support this project includes the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.51839002) and National key research and development program of China (2016YFC1401801). Last name |
| MONITORING HARSH COASTAL ENVIRONMENTS AND OCEAN SURVEILLANCE USING RADAR REMOTE SENSING (MAC-OS) | The proposed project aims at demonstrating the benefits of radar products for coastal area monitoring and, therefore, it is framed into the ÔÇ£Ocean & coastal zoneÔÇØ Dragon-5 thematic area. The various sub-topics addressed within this domain [...] | Prof.. Ferdinando Nunziata, Univ degli studi di Napoli Parthenope, ITALY | Prof.. Xiaofeng Yang, State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Ac, CHINA | Oceans and coastal zones | The proposed project aims at demonstrating the benefits of radar products for coastal area monitoring and, therefore, it is framed into the ÔÇ£Ocean & coastal zoneÔÇØ Dragon-5 thematic area. The various sub-topics addressed within this domain include the understanding of ÔÇ£marine dynamic environmentÔÇØ, the analysis of ÔÇ£sea surface characteristicsÔÇØ and the EO support for ÔÇ£marine disastersÔÇØ management. These applications are of paramount importance for both the scientific and the end-user communities. In particular, the project aims at exploiting Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite measurements to generate innovative added-value products to observe coastal areas characterised by harsh environments, even under extreme weather conditions. The project relies on a deep co-operation between Chinese and European (including Italy, UK and Spain) partners that call for a complementary expertise which is a key resource to publish co-authored results and to train European and Chinese YSs. This co-operation has been already successfully experienced during the Dragon-4 project 32235. Master and PhD students will actively take part in the modeling and analysis of the phenomena under study, i.e. coastal water pollution, coastal erosion, in-land water body observation, metallic target detection, typhoon/cyclone monitoring, etc., as well as in the development of effective and reliable algorithms for the generation of added-value products from remotely sensed measurements. The project also aims at stimulating the use of complementary microwave satellite instruments, including scatterometer and radiometer on-board of operational and planned missions operated by ESA, ESA TPM and Chinese EO.The proposed piece of research will involve the development of tailored models of the processes under study combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI) methodologies that allow the interpretation and the processing of multi-pol (MP) SAR measurements, collected under different imaging modes, in order to derive the above-mentioned user friendly added-value products. The latter include, but are not limited to, maps of metallic targets at sea, e.g., ships and wind farms, as well as aquacultures, wetland coastal erosion/accretion trends due to both anthropogenic and natural phenomena, mapping marine pollutants, modeling, tracking and forecasting extreme weather events as cyclones/typhoons.Summarizing, this research project will address the following main assets:a) Promoting an “intelligent”, i.e., physically-based, exploitation of MP SAR measurements for generating end-user friendly added-values products in the context of harsh coastal zone management; b) Developing new AI-based models/methods to deal with the synergistic exploitation of microwave satellite measurements to address key issues for coastal area monitoring; c) Boosting the co-operation between Chinese and European partners by taking full advantage of their respective expertise, including the training of YS.ProjectÔÇÖs outcomes will be disseminated through publications to be submitted to Dragon 5 symposia at mid-term and final stages, as well as annual progress reports on the status of the projects will be provided during Dragon 5 symposia. The main achievements will be also presented at dedicated workshops and international symposia and will be submitted on peer-reviewed journals and refereed conferences. The proposed project is financially backed on Sino-European funds, e.g. ÔÇ£Development of algorithms to analyse and processing signals and images in the complex domainÔÇØ, funded by the European Fund for Regional Development (DING127), “On-board processing and remote sensing for meteorological and marine disasters”, funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFB0502803) and “Objective Tropical Cyclone Intensity Estimation from Remotely Sensed Passive and Active Microwave Observations”, funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41871268). |
| MONITORING OF MARINE ENVIRONMENT DISASTERS USING CFOSAT, HY SERIES AND MULTIPLE SATELLITES DATA | As global climate change intensifies, many countries are facing increasing marine environment disasters. These disasters, such as typhoons, giant waves, macroalgal blooms and decrease in sea ice cover pose a serious threat to coastal areas, [...] | Dr. François G. Schmitt, Laboratoire d'Océanologie et de Géosciences, France | Prof. Jianqiang Liu, National Satellite Ocean Application Service - NSOAS, CHINA | Oceans and coastal zones | As global climate change intensifies, many countries are facing increasing marine environment disasters. These disasters, such as typhoons, giant waves, macroalgal blooms and decrease in sea ice cover pose a serious threat to coastal areas, aquaculture and maritime transportation. Therefore, it is essential for governments to respond quickly and reduce the loss and damage of these disasters.Satellite observation plays an important role in monitoring these marine environmental disasters by its unique advantages. However, monitoring of marine disasters with a single satellite data is extremely difficult due to the limitations of observed parameters, resolution, and revisit time etc. Consequently, utilization of multiple satellites data is inevitable and superior. Taking advantage of the multiple satellites data such as CFOSAT, HY-1, HY-2 and multiple satellites, this proposal aims to provide the combined satellite monitoring of marine environment disasters. Three aspects of research will be carried out. Firstly, the validation of CFOSAT and multiple satellite data will be executed. Secondly, the validation and merging of HY-1 and multiple satellite data will be executed. Thirdly, the multiple satellite data are combined to present the monitoring results of marine environment disasters. Meanwhile, data processing methods regarding the above three aspects, interactions of observed parameters and evolution mechanisms of marine environment disasters will also be investigated. This proposal has across subjects in Marine Disasters & Coastal zones including algae and phytoplankton blooms, marine dynamic environment and marine disasters. The studied areas include global ocean and polar region.The activities to be undertaken are financially supported by the following Chinese and European projects: CNSA project ÔÇ£CFOSAT technical research projectÔÇØ; NSFC project ÔÇ£High-resolution coastal wind retrieval from the rotating fan beam scatterometerÔÇØ ÔÇô Grant No. 41706197). |
| REMOTE SENSING OF CHANGING COASTAL MARINE ENVIRONMENTS (RESCCOME) | Coastal marine environments, being invaluable ecosystems and host to many species, are under increasing pressure caused by anthropogenic impacts such as, among others, growing economic use, coastline changes and recreational activities. A [...] | Dr. Martin Gade, University of Hamburg - ZMAW, Germany | Prof.. Xiaoming Li, CAS Inst. of Remote Sensing Applications, CHINA | Oceans and coastal zones | Coastal marine environments, being invaluable ecosystems and host to many species, are under increasing pressure caused by anthropogenic impacts such as, among others, growing economic use, coastline changes and recreational activities. A continuous monitoring of those environments is of key importance for the identification of natural and manmade hazards, for an understanding of oceanic and atmospheric coastal processes, and eventually for a sustainable use of those vulnerable areas. The proposed project, “Remote Sensing of Changing Coastal Marine Environments” (ReSCCoME), will address research and development activities that will focus on the way, in which the rapidly increasing amount of high-resolution EO data can be used for the surveillance of marine coastal environments, and how EO sensors can detect and quantify processes and phenomena that are crucial for the local fauna and flora, for coastal residents and local authorities. ReSSCoME will consist of five research packages (RP), each addressing a relevant aspect of changing coastal marine environments: the state of vulnerable coastal regions and their changes (addressed in the RP on intertidal regions and coastline changes), the impact of growing economic use on coastal environments (offshore wind farms and oil pollution), and the growing threat of plastic debris and green tides (coastal pollution). The project consortium is formed by internationally renowned experts in each of the research fields. In order to ensure a high degree of cross-fertilization and synergy effects among the partners, five cross-cutting themes have been identified, the synergism of EO data, handling and processing of Big Data, identification of coastal stress factors, support of Young Scientists, and dissemination and outreach. Responsibilities for each RP and cross-cutting theme are equally distributed among all partners. The partner affiliations are based on, or close to, five European (Norwegian, North, Baltic, Black, and Mediterranean Sea) and three Chinese marginal seas (Bohai, Yellow and South China Sea). These marginal seas host five areas of interest, of which large quantities of EO data will be analysed, and in which complementing in-situ campaigns will be run. In addition, the western Java Sea will serve as a test and validation area for newly developed algorithms. Intertidal regions are particularly sensitive to natural and anthropogenic hazards. RP ‘Intertidal regions’ will focus on an optimization of the monitoring of those regions by including multi-modal SAR data into existing monitoring schemes that are based on optical EO data and in-situ observations. China and Northern Europe are hot-spots for future developments of offshore wind energy. RP ‘Offshore wind farms’ will provide information on wind resources, wake effects and environmental impacts, which are needed by wind energy industries during the entire lifecycle of a wind farm. The detection and quantification of marine oil pollution and the identification of its sources are crucial for the pollution monitoring in coastal marine waters. RP ‘Offshore oil pollution’ will address these tasks through a synoptical use of EO data and the automated processing of large quantities of SAR data (Big Data). Floating marine litter is a global problem, with millions of plastic items ending up in the sea. In addition, harmful algal blooms such as green tides are posing a threat to coastal marine environments. RP ‘Coastal pollution’ will address both aspects and will help in both optimizing the detection and quantification of marine litter, and understanding the dynamics of green tides. Coastlines are changing rapidly worldwide as a result of both (quasi-) natural and anthropogenic pressures. RP ‘Coastline changes’ will demonstrate the use of EO data for an accurate long-term quantification of coastline changes, which is needed by coastal managers for a sustainable development of coastal environments. |
| SYNERGISTIC MONITORING OF OCEAN DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT FROM MULTI-SENSORS | Observing, understanding and predicting ocean swell has been a focus on study in both China and Europe for climate, meteorology, environment and economy. To monitor at global scale ocean swell will improve the wind and wave forecast for marine [...] | Dr. Bertrand Chapron, Institut Francais de Recherche et Exploitation de la MER, FRANCE | Prof.. Jingsong Yang, The Second Inst. of Oceanography, MNR, CHINA | Oceans and coastal zones | Observing, understanding and predicting ocean swell has been a focus on study in both China and Europe for climate, meteorology, environment and economy. To monitor at global scale ocean swell will improve the wind and wave forecast for marine meteorology (including extreme events), the ocean dynamics modeling and prediction, our knowledge of climate variability, and fundamental understandings on air-sea surface processes. And to monitor and map extreme events during typhoons (hurricanes) or storm surges we have to develop the use of multiple satellite wind, wave and sea level data for forecast. The Dragon projects have been providing an excellent opportunity for Chinese and European ocean research communities to utilize the spaceborne satellite remote sensing data from China, ESA and Third Party Missions (TPM) to actively monitoring ocean swell, wind and other relevant parameters. It is the purpose of this project to continue cutting edge research in synergistic exploitation ocean swell study at global scale and extreme events in coastal region and gain insight of the physical nature of these phenomena, which will lay a solid foundation as we move to operational oceanography. The purpose of the project includes: (1) investigate algorithms for advanced ocean products from multiple microwave satellite sensors together describing wind and wave at the storm event scale ; (2) develop high wind retrieval algorithm from cross-polarization SAR; (3) synergy with existing satellite missions monitoring ocean waves; (4) investigation on global swell climate based on long term series space-borne data. (5) assimilation studies of wind, waves and sea level in the context of hurricanes forecasts; (6) the influence of swell on the studies of coastal extremes; and (7) consistent analysis on winds, waves and storm surges in the context of hurricanes. The Chinese and European parts are both funded by National Programme on Global Change and Air-Sea Interaction and other relevant programme to run this project. |
| TOWARD A MULTI-SENSOR ANALYSIS OF TROPICAL CYCLONE | Oceans, especially the upper oceans , play key roles on the earth climate regulation (e.g., climate change) as well as for human societies. Despite the ever-increasing development of simulation and observation capabilities leading to earth [...] | Dr. Alexis Mouche, Institut Francais de Recherche et Exploitation de la MER, FRANCE | Prof.. BIAO ZHANG, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, CHINA | Oceans and coastal zones | Oceans, especially the upper oceans , play key roles on the earth climate regulation (e.g., climate change) as well as for human societies. Despite the ever-increasing development of simulation and observation capabilities leading to earth observation big data, our ability to understand, reconstruct and forecast upper ocean and marine atmospheric boundary layer dynamics remains fairly limited for numerous processes.Surprisingly, data characterizing the air-sea interactions at the ocean interface are not used for TC intensity estimates and forecasts. However, a new generation of space-borne sensors able to probe the ocean surface through clouds has emerged ((e.g. Reul et al. 2012, Zhang et al., 2012). In addition, there is also a wealth of non-local information related to TC that can be analyzed to fully characterize the TC intensity and its coupling with the oceans. Indeed, associated with TC extreme wind forcing conditions, quite systematically persistent signatures in TC wake can also be observed. A TC induces vigorous mixing and intense upwelling that generally result in a cooling of the upper ocean mixed layer [Ginis, 2002] and an important displacement of isopycnals [Geissler, 1970], characterized by prominent sea-surface height anomalies in their wake. Swell systems are also fingerprints of extreme ocean storms, and can propagate all the way across ocean basins from the area of high winds that generated them. Very long-period swells have been observed to propagate up to halfway around the globe [e.g. Munk et al., 1963]. Data acquired at different times and locations can thus be gathered to document a given extreme event. This proposal focuses on the interactions between ocean and atmosphere in the case of TC and Extra-Tropical Cyclones (ETC). Main scientific objectives are to develop data-model-driven techniques dedicated to extreme marine-atmosphere events, to provide new insights for air-sea exchanges processes parameterization under extreme conditions, and to drive the specifications of new generation of observation networks for TC monitoring. The project also aims at training young scientists. It includes three PhD students and will elaborate new material for a new tutorial on the benefit of adopting a multi-modal approach to characterize Tropical and Extra-Tropical Cyclones. The tutorial will rely on case studies extracted from the CyclObs database, a specific database for cyclones developed during the project.European team is funded through CNES IWWOC and COWS projects aiming at promoting the use of CFOSAT and ESA Sentinel-1 MPC and SMOS projects focusing on SMOS and Sentinel-1 missions. Chinese team is funded by National Key R&D program of China under Grant 2016YFC1401001. |