Lake Monitoring in Baden-Württemberg

Satellite-based lake monitoring

The federal state of Baden-Württemberg in the South West of Germany is rich in sweetwater. It counts 28 lakes larger than 50 ha, 260 lakes with more than 10 ha and 1300 smaller lakes (> 1 ha).

For monitoring these inland waters – many of which are bathing waters, we have been cooperating with the environmental authority LUBW – Landesanstalt für Umwelt Baden-Württemberg since 2021. Its project SAMOSEE-BW has now made it to the top of the eGovernment competition – a contest of all German speaking countries: The satellite-based lake monitoring case was selected winner of the category “Sustainability by Digitalisation”.

The winners of the egovernment

For their lake monitoring, the environmental agency is successfully complementing in situ data with satellite-based information from Landsat and Sentinel-2 sensors. In brief, the German federal agency LUBW …

📍 is integrating satellite-based remote sensing into routine monitoring
📍 of Lake Constance, 50 natural small lakes and 20 quarry ponds
📍 to keep an eye on key parameters, such as Chlorophyll a, turbidity, harmful algae blooms (HAB), Secchi Disk Depth (SDD), temperature,
📍 thus helping fulfil the regional and EU monitoring requirements for water protection
📍 and visualizing these data for easy public access.

💡 Authorities can benefit from satellite-based information by significant information gain and decision support, in particular for smaller water bodies, where there is no or little data available.

For more details, please:

Read the product description and watch the short video here.
Get in touch with the EOMAP Water Quality Team via Email
Stay up to date and follow EOMAP on Linked in

a map of Lake Constance, Bodensee - Chlorophyll a concentration
Chlorophyll a concentration in Lake Constance, Bodensee
Chl-a concentration in small lakes of Baden-Württemberg
Chlorophyll-a concentration in Schreckensee and other small lakes of Baden-Württemberg
map of Schreckensee showing Secchi Disc Depth (SDD)
Secchi Disc Depth (SDD) shown of Schreckensee and neighbouring lakes in Baden-Württemberg (D)
Harmful Algae Blooms on a map of small lakes of Baden-Württemberg
EOMAP's HAB-Indicator reveiling potentially Harmful Algae Blooms in small lakes of Baden-Württemberg