Project

Copernicus Evolution: Research for harmonised and Transitional water Observation (CERTO)



Project Start: January 2020 | Project End: December 2023
Project Funder: EU Horizon 2020
Principal Investigator: Steve Groom
Other Participants: Dr Elizabeth C. Atwood
Project Website: https://certo-project.org

CERTO will provide solutions to harmonise water quality products across a continuum of oceans, seas, coasts, estuaries, lagoons, rivers and lakes, to support industry, policy-makers and academia. The project will create a prototype system for Earth observation data that will be implemented across all three Copernicus services: marine, climate change and land.

The three-year EU Horizon 2020 project will bring together six user-case studies with a wide variety of stakeholders to focus attention on industrial, policy, environmental issues in poorly characterised transitional waters (three lagoons and three estuaries) each with associated coastal zones. This will provide the most comprehensive in situ validation data set to undertake water type classification in all water bodies from oceans, to coasts, estuaries, lagoons and lakes.

The project will interact closely with key end-user communities including the developing DANUBIUS European research infrastructure, GEO AquaWatch and Blue Planet and the Lagoons for Life community and efforts addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.