Abstract
The assessment of seawater quality in coastal areas is an important issue as it is related to the welfare of coastal ecosystems, a prerequisite for the provision of the related ecosystem services. During the last decades, marine eutrophication has become an important problem in coastal waters as a result of nutrient inputs increase. Consequently, there is need for appropriate methods and tools to assess the eutrophication status of seawater which should be user-friendly to coastal managers and support the adoption of effective plans for the protection and sustainable development of the coastal environment. In this framework, a user-friendly webGIS application has been developed and the Strait of Mytilene at the southeastern part of the Island of Lesvos in the NE Aegean Sea, Greece, was used as a case study. The methodology includes, as a first step, the evaluation of the accuracy of spatial interpolators widely applied in oceanographic studies for assessing the spatial distribution of relevant variables. The most appropriate interpolator revealed for each variable is subsequently applied for the production of the representative thematic layer. The second step involves the integration of the information from the optimal thematic layers representing the spatial distributions of the variables under study; as a result, a new thematic layer illustrating the eutrophication status of the study area is produced. The webGIS application is fully available via a web browser and provides a number of geoprocessing modules developed in Python which implement the user interface, the application of the interpolation analytical tasks, the statistical evaluation toolset and the integration of the optimal interpolated layers. Suggestions for further improvement of the proposed webGIS application are discussed.
Highlights
Eutrophication is a natural process resulting from the enrichment of nutrients within a water body
Nutrient inputs to coastal waters are increasing in coastal areas, since almost 45% of the total population lives within the coastal zone of 150 km from the sea [1]
The need to follow the requirements of the Directives and regulations as well as the continuous increase of environmental pressure due to human activities related to the sea, has led the scientific community to focus on the development of methodologies and tools for the assessment of seawater quality [6]
Summary
Eutrophication is a natural process resulting from the enrichment of nutrients within a water body. The need to follow the requirements of the Directives and regulations as well as the continuous increase of environmental pressure due to human activities related to the sea, has led the scientific community to focus on the development of methodologies and tools for the assessment of seawater quality [6] The latter include evaluation of different methods and application of the most accurate approaches [7,8,9,10,11], use of modern techniques [12,13,14], development of new and modification of already existing eutrophication scales [15] as well as introduction and use of relevant indicators [3,16,17]. A GIS-based integrated framework for monitoring and blooms is presented integrating in situ observations, satellite data and numerical models forecasting coastal seiches is available This apaper, a user-friendly webGIS application is proposed forforecasting assessing seawater seiches is available. Its potential users as well as the possibility to improve its functionality are presented
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