MOCCASSIN

Port development affects the environment. For example port development and dredging activities may change environmental conditions such as seabed topography and turbidity. Therefore, construction and dredging companies have to assess environmental impacts when building new coastal infrastuctures. Examples of unwanted impacts are erosion of beach and critical dune areas with high inundation risk, erosion of tourist beaches and increased turbidity over vital ecosystems such as coral reefs and sea grass beds.

Turbidity meters and water samples can provide measurements of suspended sediment concentration. However, this type of analysis is time consuming and expensive. A more cost-effective way is to use remote sensing data.

The aim of the MOCCASSIN project was to build a prototype of a commercial service to monitor the impact of human activities on the coastal zone, using satellite imagery.

The service provided by ARGOSS included the production of maps of suspended sediment concentration and bathymetry. The information from bathymetry and sediment concentration have been integrated to provide a complete picture on the changes, if any, to the sediment transport regime. The sediment transport regime and the bathymetry are inextricably linked and therefore knowledge of changes in bathymetry enables sources and sinks of suspended material to be identified. This information has been integrated with the spatial distributions of suspended sediment derived from the optical imagery to provide a complete picture on the sediment transport regime. In particular, areas where changes in bathymetry had been identified, have been examined carefully for changes in sediment concentration.