Marine Monitoring in Denmark - Current Activities and Results.
Hansen, Lars Boye¹; Kaas, Hanne²; Andersson, Henrik²; Closter, Rikke Margrethe²; Erichsen, Anders²; Uhrenholdt, Thomas^2
1GRAS, DENMARK; ²DHI, DENMARK

In the spring of 2011 an extreme algae bloom of the toxic species pseudo-chattonella took place in the Inner Danish waters. For the Danish Aquaculture community, one of the largest economic threats is related to a high fish death rate of juvenile fish due to toxic algae blooms in this period when the juvenile fish in the cages are particularly vulnerable. Thus, being able to forecast such events can have significant financial impact to an entire industry.
A unique monitoring system providing forecast as well as hindcast and knowcast marine information of the Danish area is being operated over the Danish area as cooperation between GRAS (EO service provider) and DHI (Modelling unit). The service aims at combining the strengths of modelling (hydrodynamic and ecological), satellite based information and in-situ data - by combining the different sources of information the total value of the information is significantly improved. One of the goals of this monitoring service is to support the aquaculture industry in the Danish region.
In recent years DHI and GRAS has put significant effort into improving both the biogeochemical modelling and the quality of the EO data products through projects such as MarCoast, AquaMar and CoBiOS. Through data assimilation routines the EO data is furthermore integrated into the forecast systems by providing valuable information about the spatial distribution and the magnitude of e.g. algae blooms to the modelling environment.
In this contribution we will give an overview of the system including the current status on the operational EO data monitoring based on MODIS data as a gap-filler between MERIS and OLCI. The integrated approach will be demonstrated also, with special focus on how the different sources of information complement each other.