Marine food provision ecosystem services assessment using EO products

Physical, chemical and biological characteristics of seawaters are primary descriptors to assess the spatial and temporal dimensions of ecopotential productivity performances in terms of fish vitality, growth and stress. Among these characteristics, temperature can be considered the key descriptor, i.e. the Essential Variable (EV) to characterize fish vitality and thus marine food provision potential, because it influences the variation of many other parameters and as consequence the entire life cycle of marine organisms. We developed a method to identify suitable fish growth conditions sites scenario in the Mediterranean Sea and, among these sites, to estimate the potential fish growth rate. For the assessment of fish growth conditions from the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) products, we consider the spatial and temporal distribution of water quality variables derived from satellite , such as Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Chlorophyll-a concentration, together with other modeled variables like currents, dissolved oxygen (DO), etc. The final result is an integrated toolbox oriented towards the development of an EO downstreaming service, that collects the workflows of processing procedures to support the planning of maritime uses