The objective of the BELCOLOUR-2 project was to further improve the quality of existing optical remote sensing products for marine, coastal and inland waters and to develop innovative products including primary production and partial pressure of CO2 for key applications such as aquaculture and air-sea CO2 fluxes. This project has now ended.

More specifically the objectives were:

• Improve the quality and the quality control of existing earth observation products for total suspended matter, chlorophyll a and diffuse attenuation.
• Develop and validate algorithms for detection and correction of adjacency effects and for detection/correction/mapping of bottom effects
• Improve and validate algorithms for atmospheric correction, particularly aspects concerning turbid waters, moderate sun glint and absorbing aerosols.
• Develop new algorithms for phytoplankton-related parameters including phytoplankton taxonomic groups and determine their range of applicability (detection limits, limitations on feasibility related to optical water type).
• Develop new products (such as PAR attenuation and partial pressure of CO2) for use with ecosystem and carbon cycle models in an integrated assessment of primary production and air-sea CO2 fluxes.
• Provide the basic research to support the design of new sensors.