ORMES - Operational Remote sensing Mapping of Estuarine suspended Sediment concentrations

Context and objectives

To assure the accessibility of ports, shipping channels must be dredged regularly to maintain an adequate water depth. Dredging operations are subjected to strong environmental regulations which require that the sediment dynamics are monitored, temporally as well as spatially, in an ever increasing manner. IMDC, the private partner in this project, prepares specifications and recommendations of techniques, equipment and methods for any dredging project. IMDC requires information on the spatial variation of turbidity for e.g. the optimization of the dredging locations to minimize the recirculation of sediments towards harbors after dumping. To support IMDC in their activities, a service will be developed in this project which provides suspended sediment maps from remote sensing images in a cost effective and efficient way. This project aims: (1) to develop a simple and robust procedure for near surface (or 2 D) sediment concentration mapping from remote sensing data. (2) to operationalise and automate the procedure. (3) to implement the procedure/software at the private partner.