Sea surface temperature and fronts
The global OSTIA temperature product from Copernicus Marine supports real fishing services. It is the basis of the SAFI case, with more than 65 end users in fishing and aquaculture.
SAFI case: >65 end users
Fisheries and aquaculture
Where the productive water is, when to operate, and where to place a facility: the operational data of the European ocean already answers those decisions, with records since 1993 and ten-day forecasts.
Copernicus Marine: records since 1993 · 10-day forecasts
What you can do today
Everything on this page comes from use cases published by the European service itself: we cite only verified figures, each with its source.
Chlorophyll and ocean color
The GLOBCOLOUR products provide daily chlorophyll in near real time, plus an interpolated monthly series: the productivity signal that guides operations and water quality watch.
GLOBCOLOUR: daily NRT + monthly
Aquaculture site selection
Using temperature, dissolved oxygen, currents, and waves from the IBI products, the Norwegian company Offtek selected a site for submerged salmon farming off Aveiro, Portugal. The same data feeds marine heatwave alerts.
IBI products · Offtek case
Electronic logbook for small vessels
EU Regulation 2023/2842 brings geolocation and electronic logbooks to vessels under 12 meters, starting in January 2026 on a staggered calendar. Small-scale fleets need software that makes this easy.
vessels <12 m · from 01-2026
Production, in numbers
Spain's harvest of farmed marine fish has grown and now holds above 65,000 metric tons a year: the more biomass you keep in the water, the more each decision on siting, alerts, and water quality matters.
The other half of the sector is the fleet: Spanish marine fisheries land more than ten times the aquaculture fish harvest. There we work with sea state and operating windows, temperature and productivity of the fishing grounds, and fleet fuel use.
How we put it to work
We build decision systems on operational, documented European services with years of service behind them: temperature and chlorophyll dashboards for the fleet, site suitability and alerts for rafts and cages, or the electronic logbook the regulation requires. And since the sea ignores sector borders, this page has a sister:
Where to place a raft or a cage
A good aquaculture site needs water in the species' temperature range, enough oxygen, and waves the structure can take. The system combines sea temperature, dissolved oxygen, currents, and waves from the Copernicus Marine IBI products over the candidate area, and scores each point for suitability. The output is a map that ranks sites from best to worst before you invest.
IBI products · temperature, oxygen, and waves
An alert for turbid water or an algal bloom
The ocean color measured by Sentinel-3 reveals when chlorophyll (the pigment in microalgae, which spikes during a bloom) or turbidity rises near a facility. The system watches that signal day by day over your rafts or cages and alerts you when it moves outside the usual range. You gain hours to react, protect the biomass, or delay a sensitive operation.
Sentinel-3 · chlorophyll and turbidity · daily watch
Where the productive water of the fishing ground is
Sea temperature and ocean color trace the fronts, the lines where different waters meet and life concentrates. The system combines OSTIA temperature with GLOBCOLOUR chlorophyll and highlights those fronts over your fishing area, with how they have moved in recent days. You aim the trip toward the water with the strongest productivity signal, with the history behind it to read the trend.
OSTIA + GLOBCOLOUR · temperature and ocean color
What would the ocean tell you if you checked it every morning?
Tell us about your fishery or your facility. We will tell you which Copernicus Marine variables describe it, and how to turn them into daily decisions.
Talk to the team