ARTEMISIA - Advancing greenhouse gas monitoring in African lakes with Earth observation
VITO Remote Sensing is proud to announce the start of ARTEMISIA, a four‑year research project funded under the Belgian STEREO IV programme. The project tackles one of the largest remaining uncertainties in the global carbon cycle: greenhouse gas emissions from African lakes.
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.
