The Colour of Water is determined by substances in the water, and measuring the water colour

allows a retrieval of the water quality. Eutrophic waters appear green, while sediment loaded
waters get a brown colour. Highly sensitive multispectral cameras, deployed on satellites, allow a
quantification of such water constituents from space, at global scale and with a spatial resolution
of down to 10s of meters.

The retrieval of water constituents, or its optical properties, is achieved by inversion of the water
leaving reflectance spectrum, measured at top of atmosphere and thus requiring a correction for
atmospheric effects. This multi-variate problem is extremely challenging in so-called optically
complex, or Case-2, waters. The Case–2 Regional processor, originally developed by
DOERFFER and SCHILLER, uses a large database of radiative transfer simulations inverted by
neural networks as basic technology.

Through the ESA CoastColour project major improvements were introduced and subsequently
further improved. The actual version of the processor is called C2RCC (Case-2 Regional
CoastColour) and is capable of processing data from Sentinels–3 and 2, MERIS, VIIRS,
MODIS, and Landsat-8.

The C2RCC processor is composed of a set of additional neural networks performing specific
tasks and special neural networks have been trained to cover extreme ranges of scattering and
absorption. C2RCC has been validated in various studies and is available through ESA’s Sentinel
toolbox SNAP. It is also used in the Sentinel–3 OLCI ground segment processor of ESA for the
generation of the Case–2 water products, as well as in the processor for the MERIS 4th
reprocessing. More information can be found here.

BC’S ACTIVITIES

 In-house development, with original development by HZG Research Centre Geesthacht

(until 2014)
 Radiative transfer simulations, bio-optical model development, neural network training,
validation
 Contribution to various R&D projects
 Application in operational services
 Software development

PROJECTS

WAQSS-BSH, WasMon-CT, HIGHROC, GlobWetland Africa, S3MPC, WAQSS-NIVA,

Case2Extreme, CoastColour, OC-CCI, MERIS QWG, CGLOPS Lake Water Service, SPONGE,
CyanoAlert
CLIENTS/ PARTNERS

ESA, EUMETSAT, BSH, NIVA, EU, BfG, scientific community

Brockmann Consult GmbH

Max-Planck-Str. 2
21502 Geesthacht
Germany

Contact
+49 4152 889300
+49 4152 889333

info@brockmann-consult.de
www.brockmann-consult.de