Water Insight (WI) specialises in high quality spatial information products for monitoring surface water quality applying the synergistic use of Earth Observation (EO) and optical in situ measurements. Based on a close interaction with users, WI wants to add a new user-tailored service branch to their portfolio: forecasting of cyanobacteria blooms. Due to climate change and anthropogenic activity, massive blooms of cyanobacteria become an increasing problem for lakes world-wide. Cyanobacteria may be toxic for animals and humans, change the water quality and ecosystems. The consequences are visible in social, economic and industrial levels. While WI's technology has been proven to be very suitable for monitoring the development of cyanobacteria blooms, water managers also require quick and precise forecasts of the blooms development to take timely measures or mitigating actions. Existing process-based forecasting models are complex, need a too long processing time and more input data than is operationally available. WI has an extensive dataset of EO and in situ data on affected lakes. A data-driven statistical model could be developed based on these data, and significantly reduce the processing time for a forecast. To develop such a model, a highly-skilled searcher (PhD) is required, with specialised knowledge of EO data, proven skills in statistical modelling, cyanobacterial ecology and water quality. It is difficult for WI to recruit such a specialist as there is a lack of university graduates, particularly on the PhD level, in this field in the Netherlands. INNO-CYANO will be beneficial for all: WI will get the chance to hire a specialist to develop our innovative ideas, the candidate will get the chance to get an insight in the practice of a commercial company and to develop in the field of business innovation, and the ‘INNO-CYANO’ model will serve water managers with a precise forecast of the blooms and therefore improve the management of cyanobacteria blooms.

Coastal zones are very productive areas, offering many valuable habitats and ecosystems services and attracting human settlements and activities. The intensive concentration of population and excessive exploitation of natural resources puts high pressure on coastal ecosystems leading to biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, pollution as well as conflicts between potential uses and space competition. Several European directives aim at sustainable management of coastal waters, retaining or restoring a high ecological status and safeguarding ecosystem services. Increasing pressure and stricter regulations increase the need for efficient monitoring solutions. Where traditional in situ sampling is insufficient to characterise the highly dynamic coastal environments, Earth Observation (EO) provides a synoptic view and frequent coverage. With the launch of the Copernicus Sentinel satellites, operational water quality services become a business opportunity. CoastObs will develop a service platform for coastal water monitoring with validated products derived from EO. In dialogue with users from various sectors, CoastObs will develop innovative EO-based products: monitoring of seagrass and macro-algae, phytoplankton size classes, primary production, and harmful algae as well as higher level products such as indicators and integration with predictive models. CoastObs will establish sustainable supply chains that can be directly integrated into the users’ systems. The CoastObs consortium has the knowledge and ambition to develop services that are commercially viable, grow in capacity and thus create new jobs. The business case is to define user groups with common requirements, so tailored products can be developed at highly reduced costs per user. Setup of efficient data structures (array database) for smart (re)processing of data is part of this ambition. The commitment of 13 users to CoastObs demonstrates the need for such user-friendly and affordable coastal water services