The present disclosure relates to a method for estimating chromatic dispersion of a received optical signal (Rx(f)), the method comprising: scanning the received optical signal (Rx(f)) through a number (M) of chromatic dispersion compensation filters in a chromatic dispersion filter range (Dmin . . . Dmax) between a first chromatic dispersion value (Dmin) and a second chromatic dispersion value (Dmax) with a resolution (ΔD) determined by the chromatic dispersion filter range (Dmin . . . Dmax) normalized by the number (M) of chromatic dispersion compensation filters to obtain filtered samples (Rx, D(f)) of the received optical signal (Rx(f)); and determining a correlation function (CD(τ,B)) indicating an estimate of the chromatic dispersion by correlating the filtered samples (Rx, D(f)) of the received optical signal (Rx(f)) with respect to frequency shifts (τ) over a correlation bandwidth (B), wherein the correlation bandwidth (B), the chromatic dispersion filter range (Dmin . . . Dmax) and the resolution (ΔD) are iteratively adapted according to an optimization criterion.