WAVESS

Waterbody Assessment and Verification fusing Earth observation and Seabot Surveying

Introduction

WAVESS introduces an innovative method for mapping and monitoring Mediterranean shores and other water bodies. The project combines Earth Observation (EO) and in-situ data collected by Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USVs) to generate near real-time bathymetric maps. It offers a scalable, sustainable, and cost-effective response to growing climate-related challenges affecting coastlines.

Objectives

Deliver a commercially viable solution for monitoring coastal areas, focused on the Mediterranean basin.
The project seeks to address the need for a scalable, cost-effective, and low-emission solution that integrates EO data with ground truth (GT) measurements, enabling near real-time coastal monitoring while overcoming the limitations of traditional extensive field data collection and purely EO-based approaches.
Serve both public and private sectors through a modular and commercially viable service.

Space-driven Innovation

The novelty of WAVESS lies in its operational framework, which ensures reliability across diverse scenarios by integrating EO data with real-time in-situ measurements, thereby improving accuracy, temporal resolution, and adaptability to dynamic environments

Impact on climate resilience

The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, exacerbated by climate change, highlights the urgent need for timely information from varied data sources to understand and respond to these vulnerabilities.

WAVESS addresses the urgent need for precise and frequent coastal monitoring in the face of sea level rise, coastal erosion, and increased storm frequency. The system provides accurate, up-to-date bathymetric data to support decision-making in environmental protection, urban planning, and risk management. Its low-cost and low-emission design allows broader adoption by climate-vulnerable regions.

From Lab to Market: Clients and Commercial Roadmap

WAVESS is being developed as a stand-alone product ready for market, scientifically validated, and integrated into Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs), to generate bathymetric maps and other types of relevant maps. This product will be intelligent enough to tell its operators how much more surface data is required for a certain area of interest to be considered mapped, calibrated, and truthful.

Through automation, WAVESS reduces operational costs by up to 80% compared to traditional methods , making it a cost-effective choice for clients.

Furthermore, the solution is designed for scalability and replicability, allowing it to be adapted to various regions and sectors, thereby maximizing its global impact.