About

EONEMP is a three year project (2015-2018) funded by the South African Water Research Commission being led by CyanoLakes (Pty) Ltd, with collaborating partners including the Department of Water and Sanitation, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the South African National Space Agency.

 

EONEMP will integrate remotely sensed estimates of cyanobacteria blooms and eutrophication (chlorophyll-a) into the national water management database of the Department of Water and Sanitation, using the information to assess historical changes in water quality, and for near real time monitoring purposes. This will dramatically increase South Africa’s ability to both monitor and assess changes in water quality on a national scale.

 

A summary of the objectives of the EONEMP project are as follows:

 

  • Use the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) satellite instrument to produce a ten year time series for cyanobacteria blooms and eutrophication between the years 2002 and 2012 for more than 100 water bodies in South Africa
  • To develop an operational system based on the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) satellite instrument for near real time monitoring of these water bodies from 2016 onwards
  • Determine the spatial extent, severity and change in cyanobacteria blooms and eutrophication in South Africa’s water bodies
  • To integrate these information into the Department of Water and Sanitation’s Water Management System making the information available to the public
  • To validate, calibrate and improve the maximum peak heigh algorithm

The EONEMP data have been integrated into the national database of the Department of Water and Sanitation, and can be viewed alongside in situ information at this webpage. These data are available free to the public.

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Collaborators