BELAIR 2013 - LITORA

The LITORA area is situated at the Belgian coastal zone, where the presence of the North sea has a strong influence on the interaction between the people and their environment. The LITORA study group monitors a variety environmental processes, including water quality at the Port of Zeebrugge, sediment deposition at the Yzer estuary and biodiversity at the natural parks of Zwin and Laege Moere. During the field campaign a large amount of in-situ data are gathered over the different study areas, ranging from algae measurement in the water to sediment compositions analysis or plant species inventarisation at the intertidal zone. Special attention goes to the timing and standardisation of these measurements to be able to extrapolate them in space - via remote sensing techniques -, and time - in comparison to future campaigns.

In-situ

General:

• Atmospherical visibility and water vapor content, measured with a sunphotometer
• Spectral reference measurement, taken with  the  ASD spectroradiometer from various black and white targets distributed over the study area
• GPS measurement taken with a Trimble device and DGPS corrected  to exactly locate the environmental measurements.

Water Quality:

• Concentration of algae and suspended material, base on in-situ water samples taken at different location of the Port of Zeebrugge
• Water leaving reflectance spectra, measured with  the  ASD spectral radiometer from a fixed position in the port of Zeebrugge.

Sediment deposition:

• Sediment samples taken at low tide and characterized in the lab.
• Surface reflectance measurements taken on the same location as the sediment samples
• Digital photos taken on the same location as the sediment samples

Biodiversity:

• Collection of reference vegetation information in the Laege Moere and conversion of existing field data (2013) from Zwin towards the appropriate digital format.

Airborne

Hyperspectral APEX images of Laege Moere, Zeebrugge and Zwin were acquired on July 8th 2013; Yzer estuary and Zwin were acquired on July 9^th 2013. Quicklooks are available on http://www.apex-esa.org/content/quicklooks

Satellite

• Landsat (04/08/1984-04/08/2013), Pléiades (09/07/2013)