Fig. 1 shows an example of such a Kd(490) map of the Himmerfjärden area derived from MERIS data, presented via Google Selleckchem BYL719 Earth. During 2008, Vattenfall Power Consultants (now BG Sweden AB) and Stockholm University started a new collaboration on developing an operational system for water quality monitoring in the Baltic Sea based on remote sensing [32]. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the Swedish River Basin District Authorities, the societies

for water conservation and water companies were involved in the system development and product evaluation, and financed the project together with the Swedish National Space Board. The monitoring system was based on an operational system that had initially been developed for the Swedish great lakes; Vänern, Vättern and Mälaren during 2006–2007. In 2008, Stockholm Archipelago and the Himmerfjärden area were included as additional sites. The basic products, i.e. concentration maps of chlorophyll a, TSM and CDOM absorption, were produced for all available MERIS images and made accessible to the end-users only a few days after image registration. In addition,

a number of image-based products were delivered after the monitoring season and subsequently reported to the end-users. One of the early end-user requests was user-friendly information and data access via a web-based solution. A project web page was developed (www.vattenkvalitet.se) and from this site water quality data can be accessed through an ArcGIS http://www.selleckchem.com/products/ABT-888.html Server solution. The server software enables fast and reliable data delivery and administration, as well Fludarabine molecular weight as a user friendly interface. Basic GIS-functionality is available and the end-user only needs a web browser to be able to use the services delivered. The software offers ample options for future development and capacity increase according to end-user requirements. The final development project finished in December 2009 and until the end of 2011 www.vattenkvalitet.se/ was an official monitoring service

available for everyone in the aquatic end-user community. The near-real time service had to be discontinued until further notice due to the unexpected end of the ENVISAT mission, in spring 2012. However, the data is still available on-line. A study comparing sea-truthing and MERIS data from 2008 showed that the retrieval of chlorophyll a and TSM in the coastal zone is reliable [17]. The authors evaluated different types of MERIS processors for the area, and the best processor was then directly implemented into the operational system. A comparison of the monthly means of chlorophyll a concentrations derived from the operational monitoring system to the monthly means measured by the Swedish monitoring program has been done recently in the study area [33]. The evaluation shows that the data retrieved from satellite-based monitoring are comparable to the observations from ship-based monitoring, but satellite-based monitoring is much better in capturing the spatial dynamics [33].