The BASE-platform project: Deriving the bathymetry from combined satellite data

Abstract

The project »BAthymetry SErvice platform« (BASE-platform) addresses the lack of available up-to-date, high-resolution bathymetry data in many areas of the world. With the increasing number of earth observation satellites, e.g. by the ongoing deployment of ESA’s Sentinel fleet, remote sensing data of the oceans are widely available. Three sources of satellite information are combined in BASE-platform: optical, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and altimetry data. BASEplatform’s ambition is to use these data for creating bathymetric maps and supply them to end users via a bathymetry data portal, where data will be available off-the-shelf as well as on demand. Adequate metadata will be provided along with the bathymetry so usability by the end user is ensured.