The advent of remote sensing in biological oceanography in the 1990s offers a very powerful tool able to capture temporal and spatial changes of chlorophyll-a concentration and temperature at several temporal scales (decadal, inter annual and seasonal), and at local as well as at the oceanic scale. Such data have the advantage over traditional measurements of being inexpensive, spatially extensive, automatically repeated in time and validated. They have been very useful for phytoplankton monitoring in relation to eutrophication in coastal waters and the number of applications in the field of coastal zone management is growing. We present here a real case application to shellfish aquaculture. We assessed the potential for mussel aquaculture in Mont Saint Michel bay by combining satellite images and an individual growth model. The model was applied to simulate annual growth of mussel over nine years with a resolution of 1 km2 over the entire bay. Results show that a strong spatial growth gradient is expected and that some locations are more suitable for mussel aquaculture when individual growth is considered. Such an approach to physiological responses can be extended to assess filter-feeders productivity in coastal areas. Perspectives of new applications will be briefly presented.