Harmful algal bloom monitoring maps bloom extent, intensity proxies, trends, and alert context for lakes, reservoirs, estuaries, and coastal zones.^[1]^[2] Satellite ocean-colour and water-quality observations support bloom tracking through chlorophyll-a, cyanobacteria, and related water-colour indicators.^[1]^[3]^[2] Multimission Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 chlorophyll-a or phycocyanin products improve cyanoHAB monitoring across spatial and temporal scales.^[4] Remote sensing observes surface optical signals and does not by itself confirm toxin concentration or subsurface bloom absence.^[2] Surface-temperature retrievals provide bloom-favourable context, but temperature is not bloom detection.^[2]

What's available today

2 services and 30 sensors. Start with the most-used; switch to Filter for the full catalogue.

0 Data products

2 Services

30 Sensors

Services & platforms — 2

Geostationary Ocean Color Imager II (GOCI-II) Airbus Defence and Space

Marmoris Coastal Ecosystem Insights Marmoris

Advanced Hyperspectral Imager Gaofen-5 (GF-5)

AEISS-A KOMPSAT-3A

Antelope DPU —

ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) Terra

Carbon Mapper Imaging Spectrometer Tanager-1

CBERS-4 Infrared Multispectral Scanner 2 CBERS-4

China Ocean Colour and Temperature Scanner HY-1D

DESIS (DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer) —

ECOSTRESS (ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station) ECOSTRESS ISS deployment

EnMAP HSI (Hyperspectral Imager) —

FY-4B Advanced Geostationary Radiation Imager FY-4B

Geostationary Ocean Color Imager II (GOCI-II) GEO-KOMPSAT-2B

HY Ultraviolet Imaging and Calibration Sensor HY-1D

Hyper-Spectral Imager - 2 Huan Jing-2A

HySIS HySIS

Infrared Multispectral Scanner - 2 Huan Jing-2A

Marmoris Coastal Ecosystem Insights —

MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) —

MSU-MR VIS/IR Imaging Radiometer Meteor-M N2-4

Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) Sentinel-3B

Ocean Color Instrument PACE

Ocean Color Monitor 3 Oceansat-3

Second Generation Global Imager (SGLI) GCOM-C (Shikisai)

SLSTR (Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer) Sentinel-3A

Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager Meteosat-10

The Herd —

TIRS (Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor) Landsat 8

VectorSurv Vectorborne Disease Surveillance System —

Verde —

Zhuhai-1 OHS hyperspectral imager Zhuhai-1 OHS

Sources

[1]NOAA NESDIS harmful algal blooms overviewagency doc-2026-05-27
[2]NASA satellites on toxic algae patrolagency doc-2026-05-27
[3]USGS multimission satellite data for cyanoHAB monitoringagency doc2023-01-012026-05-27
[4]NOAA NCCOS HAB remote sensing productsagency doc-2026-05-27

How to cite this page

Plain text

Harmful algal blooms. EO-Atlas, SpectraWorks B.V., last reviewed 2026-05-27. https://eo-atlas.org/topics/harmful-algal-bloom (CC BY 4.0)

BibTeX

@misc{eoatlas:topics:harmful-algal-bloom,
  title = {Harmful algal blooms},
  author = {{EO-Atlas}},
  publisher = {SpectraWorks B.V.},
  year = {2026},
  note = {Last reviewed 2026-05-27. CC BY 4.0},
  url = {https://eo-atlas.org/topics/harmful-algal-bloom}
}