ARTEMISIA - Advancing greenhouse gas monitoring in African lakes with EO

African lakes make up two‑thirds of the world’s tropical lake surface, yet their CO₂ and CH₄ emissions remain poorly quantified due to limited field measurements and the high optical complexity of inland waters. ARTEMISIA brings together an international consortium - VITO, ULiège, VUB, MRAC/KMMA, the University of Tartu, and TAFIRI - to change that.

A new EO‑based framework for lake GHG emissions

ARTEMISIA will develop a pan‑African, satellite‑based framework to estimate CO₂ and CH₄ emissions from lakes larger than 0.1 km². The project combines:

• Advanced atmospheric correction and improved water‑quality retrievals (Chl‑a, CDOM, TSM) tailored to African inland waters
• Machine‑learning models predicting dissolved CO₂ and CH₄ from EO data and lake morphology
• Integration of new hyperspectral missions (EnMAP, PRISMA, PACE, CHIME)
• High‑resolution case studies on Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria, including flux tower validation and geomorphic driver analysis

These innovations will enable spatially explicit, monthly and annual GHG emission estimates across the continent.

Supporting climate reporting and environmental management

The project’s outputs—open datasets, geospatial layers, and a web interface—are designed to support National Inventory Reports (NIRs) under the UNFCCC, as well as regional water and climate management. ARTEMISIA will also shed light on the environmental drivers of emissions, from land‑use change to sediment transport and ecosystem disturbances.

VITO’s role

VITO leads the project coordination and drives the EO processing chain, including atmospheric correction, quality control, and operational generation of water‑quality and dissolved‑gas products. VITO will also prepare the integration of upcoming satellite missions to ensure long‑term continuity of inland water monitoring.

ARTEMISIA will run until 2030, delivering new scientific insights, operational tools, and a step change in our ability to monitor freshwater greenhouse gas emissions from space.
ARTEMISIA is a four-year research project funded under the Belgian STEREO IV programme that aims to reduce one of the largest uncertainties in the global carbon cycle by improving the quantification of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from African lakes. Despite representing nearly two-thirds of the world’s tropical lake surface area, African lakes remain poorly characterized in terms of CO₂ and CH₄ emissions due to limited field observations and the optical complexity of inland waters. Bringing together an international consortium led by VITO, ARTEMISIA will develop a pan-African Earth Observation (EO)-based framework to estimate GHG emissions from lakes by combining advanced atmospheric correction, improved water-quality retrievals, machine learning models for dissolved gas prediction, and data from emerging hyperspectral satellite missions. The project will validate and refine its approach through detailed studies on Lakes Tanganyika and Victoria, delivering spatially explicit monthly and annual emission estimates, open datasets, geospatial products, and a web platform to support climate reporting, environmental management, and long-term monitoring of freshwater greenhouse gas emissions across Africa.