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Now in its 10th edition, Satellite-Based Earth Observation, Market Prospects to 2026 is the only report providing industry forecasts, assessment of business opportunities and analysis of the entire civil & commercial value chain for this growing segment of the satellite industry. It includes a detailed breakdown of application sectors within each region along with consolidated forecasts per application sector and per region.

Highlights from the report:

The Earth Observation (EO) data and services market should reach $8.5 billion by 2026 based on current growth trajectories. An alternative value-added services (VAS) model also presented has a combined market potential of $15 billion. This upside model considers the implications of new supply solutions being able to open further markets. As well, advances in artificial intelligence and deep learning are expected to benefit the sector, acting as enablers for new solutions based on change-detection analytics.

The growth drivers for data and services are distinctly different. Defense still dominates the market for commercial data, with the sector alone responsible for over $1 billion in data sales with a focus on very high resolution and high accuracy data sets. Data prices to support defense applications are expected to remain high, a drawback for services development in the civil government and private sector. VAS’ largest markets remain infrastructure and natural resources monitoring, however in order to build these solutions often lower-cost or free data solutions are utilized. This creates a disparity in the value-chain in which high-cost, precision data sets make up most of the defense-driven commercial data market, whereas more services are being built from less expensive, more competitively-priced solutions.

Companies (both operators and new service providers, such as Orbital Insights, AllSource Analysis, etc.) are building algorithms to detect changes in multisourced data to detect patterns and build predictive analytics. Bringing higher-frequency collected data into these models, the so-called “Big Data” environment will further aid developments, with the potential to open new services areas based around location-based systems such as financial intelligence and site monitoring, among others.

Euroconsult has identified approximately 20 companies that have announced intentions to develop lower-cost constellations to collect data at a high rate of revisit based on smallsat and cubesat technologies. As of 2017, these new operators have attracted more than $600 million in venture capital to fund their initiatives. None of the newly announced initiatives have yet reached full capacity; for these constellations to come to fruition, additional investments will be required.

From 2007 to 2016, 181 EO/non-meteorology satellites were launched; the cost to develop these satellites generated $17.4 billion in manufacturing market revenues. Over the next decade more than 600 EO satellites (50kg+, non-meteorology) should be launched to support EO applications. Nearly fifty countries are expected to launch satellite capacity, and over half should be from the private sector; this is expected to generate over $33 billion in manufacturing market revenues. Cumulatively, developing programs could represent $4 billion in market value (12% of the total). This figure remains significant, as the majority of export opportunities are to be found with emerging programs, as opposed to more established government EO programs, which remain captive.

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TOKYO — Japan looks to offer companies free access to troves of satellite images starting in fiscal 2018, aiming to help with tasks such as inspecting infrastructure remotely and forecasting crop harvests.

The move was announced Friday in a report on usage of the data from an expert panel including members of the nation’s economic and science ministries, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology — known as AIST — as well as information technology businesses and university research bodies.

The images were captured by the Daichi earth-observation satellite, designed to help the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan — part of the land ministry — make maps and track disasters.

JAXA is in possession of a large volume of satellite imagery. A single image often costs private enterprises several thousand yen, or tens of dollars, to use. Businesses largely shy away from doing so, as the amount of data they need can cost up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the analysis requires specialized software or expert knowledge.

AIST will develop a method for using artificial intelligence to analyze the voluminous data, letting businesses that sign up obtain the material preprocessed from a dedicated website.

The economy ministry hopes combining imagery taken at various angles by special cameras will draw interest from a range of fields. For example, agricultural companies could use infrared and other types of imaging to study crop characteristics invisible to the naked eye, like sugar content and protein volume. This would help pinpoint the optimal time to harvest.

Construction companies and others could tap the images for remote management of infrastructure, performing maintenance checks more efficiently on structures such as bridges and tunnels that are difficult for people to enter. Oil trading companies might streamline distribution, using photos from multiple angles of tanks with movable roofs to check how much fluid remains in the receptacles around the globe.

Easing access to the satellite data is part of the economy ministry’s “connected industries” plan to spur technological innovation by enticing businesses in different sectors to partner and share information as well as production equipment. Companies could improve productivity and enter a wider range of related businesses, eventually exporting business models to the rest of Asia and elsewhere.

Japan’s myriad satellites include positioning and meteorological trackers. Launches typically have been costly, so JAXA has handled them. But private companies have developed lower-cost satellites recently, and related industries are expected to grow.

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The Group on Earth Observations is pleased to announce the appointment of Gilberto Câmara as the next GEO Secretariat Director, effective 1 July 2018.

Gilberto Câmara is a leading researcher in Geoinformatics, Geographical Information Science, and Land Use Change with Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). He has been recognised internationally for promoting free access and open source software for Earth observation data.

Under his guidance, as Director for Earth observation (2001-2005) and Director General (2006-2012), INPE made significant advances in land change monitoring using remote sensing, which contributed to Brazil achieving 80% decrease in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, supporting Brazil’s commitment made at the UNFCCC COP15. This achievement was hailed as “the biggest environmental success story in a decade” by the scientific journal Nature. In support of Brazil’s pledge to the 2015 Paris Agreement, Gilberto lead a team that projected Brazil’s future emissions from land use and agriculture.

Gilberto is a co-chair of the Belmont Forum, an international consortium of the funding agencies of global environmental change research. The Forum supports international transdisciplinary research, providing knowledge for understanding, mitigating and adapting to global environmental change.

Gilberto has been involved in GEO since its early days, and led the Brazilian delegations that helped initiated GEO and GEOSS.

More on GEO

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) — China will freely share data from its new-generation weather satellite Fengyun-4 as well as its first carbon monitoring satellite TanSat with international users, a Chinese official said here Tuesday.

Yang Jun, director general of the National Satellite Meteorological Center, part of the China Meteorological Administration, made the remarks at the China Day event during the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) week 2017 in Washington, D.C.

“These two satellites represent the latest outcomes of scientific and technological innovation in China, and also the contribution made by China to global meteorological disaster prevention and mitigation, climate change response and economic-social development,” Yang said.

“In the future, we will continue to provide more and better satellite observational products for users worldwide,” he said.

FengYun-4, launched last December, was the first of China’s second-generation weather satellites in geostationary orbit and also the country’s first quantitative remote-sensing satellite in high orbit.

Yang said the testing of FengYun-4 platform and payloads has been completed recently, showing that the satellite is stable in operation with good performance.

“The China Meteorological Administration is in the process of testing FengYun-4’s various products including cloud, atmosphere and surface conditions,” he continued.

“FengYun-4 is scheduled to be put into use in early 2018, with its data and products being freely available to international users,” he said.

TanSat, also launched last December, was China’s first satellite to monitor greenhouse gas emissions, which Yang said was “of great importance to a full understanding of the global carbon cycle process and its impact on global climate change.”

The Chinese official said that the satellite’s in-orbit test has also been completed and that all performance indicators met the design requirements, with the precision of carbon concentration monitoring being below four ppm (parts per million).

“We have developed a carbon satellite data sharing policy, and level 1A, 1B, 2 and 3 data will be open to users worldwide freely,” he said, referring to data that have been processed and relevant products.

Yang added that data and products from TanSat will be released through Fengyun satellite data center website and national integrated Earth observation data sharing platform in quasi real-time.

“We have a key carbon initiative and we would love to see China more engaged in that,” Barbara Ryan, secretariat director of GEO, an intergovernmental organization, told reporters at the event.

“I think your satellite is going to be a key contribution, and particularly with your broad open data polices that will help enormously, really give us better estimates of how the Earth climate is changing,” Ryan said.

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GEOGLOWS projects seek to connect emergency managers, governments with data ahead of flooding. This article is part of a series by Earthzine covering GEO Week in Washington, D.C., Oct. 23-27.

It’s said that water is life. But water, or a lack of it, can cause myriad humanitarian problems. At GEO Week 2017, people from around the world came together to discuss the role of Earth observations and the Group on Earth Observations in managing these issues.

GEOGLOWS (Group on Earth Observations Global Water Sustainability) is a framework for mobilizing Earth observations to mitigate the challenges posed by water—issues of quantity and quality—at the local, regional and national scales around the world. Though the group’s first business meeting was a scant eight months ago, GEOGLOWS participants are already working with strategic partners including the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), NASA SERVIR, the Joint Research Centre and Cemaden.

“GEOGLOWS is providing a framework with an integral perspective of how water touches all the areas of life,” said Angélica Gutérriez-Magness, one of the GEOGLOWS leads and hydrologist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “I hope we are able to provide the benefits of GEOGLOWS so that we can bring those organizations to lead the development and formation of capacities within own institutions and countries. I hope that they see GEO as a strategic partner for the management of their resources.”

Gutérriez-Magness said Colombia is the only country in which GEO initiatives have been implemented as national public policy and cultivating political support and investment is necessary moving forward. As evidenced by this video, non-governmental indigenous groups are calling for GEO’s assistance whether their governments have adopted the framework or not.


In Nepal, understanding using Earth observations to better understand the hydrology of watersheds is important to locals and downstream communities as well. Image Credit: GEOGLOWS

In Nepal, the GEOGLOWS working group on data dissemination, community portals and capacity building in partnership with the European Commission is testing the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS) to provide advance warning to communities in Nepal and downstream in Bangladesh. In light of the recent flooding event in Bangladesh, advance-warning systems are more important than ever.

GloFAS is a partnership between ECMWF and GEOGLOWS to combine weather forecasts with hydrological models by adding river networks. Follow Global Floods on Twitter for flooding information around the globe.

“We are not creating the global forecasts, but we are making them better in the sense we’re bringing it from large-scale to little basins where there is no information,” Gutérriez-Magness said.

The GloFAS case study in Nepal shows that the system underestimated the flow in the Narayani river basin but the system accurately predicted the timing of peak flows. Despite underestimating peak flows, GloFAS provides a 15-day lead time on high river flow events.

Basanta Raj Shrestha, director for strategic cooperation at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, said that because of Nepal’s rugged topography, Earth observations are vital for remote, hard-to-access areas. ICIMOD is responsible for implementing NASA SERVIR activities in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region to integrate Earth observations into environmental decision-making.

“Hindu Kush Himalayas has the largest concentration of snow and glaciers beside the two poles,” Shrestha said. “Water is very intertwined with our life systems, but brings calamities and disasters. Floods have been catastrophic. Millions of people have been displaced, there is loss of agriculture. In that context, Earth observations, technology and innovation need to be more centric to a community or a national system.”

Shrestha said having confidence in an early-warning system at a national level provides actionable information to policymakers. GloFAS can be improved by in situ measurements and local citizen science efforts.

“We need to orient our science toward the challenges on the ground,” he said. “Even if you save one life it’s worth the cost. The key message is to be able to put the use of the model, of knowledge into practice. While designing the system we need a holistic approach and more pragmatic way of seeing how we can address these problems.”

Forecasting streamflow around the world continues to be a GEOGLOWS priority.

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The European Space Agency (ESA) and Radiant.Earth announce their agreement to jointly enhance geospatial data literacy in the global development community to support tracking the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The ESA and Radiant.Earth cooperation focuses on merging the rapid innovation in machine learning and cloud computing with traditional remote sensing science to support global development objectives in addition to the SDGs. This cooperation will include 1) capacity building and outreach activities linked to the analysis and measurement of the SDGs using satellite data; 2) technical collaboration, including access to each others platforms, data and tools; and 3) methodological components to develop shared applications and services to feature the value of geospatial data and to help develop a better workflow for practitioners.

About 17 years ago, United Nations member countries committed to upholding individual and societal progress. Global leaders pledged to eradicate poverty and hunger, improve global health, ensure environmental sustainability and foster global partnerships. This bold plan, which is the precursor to the SDGs, helped to leapfrog many countries out of poverty. The SDGs are designed to usher in the next stage of global accomplishments towards improving human lives.

Radiant.Earth Founder and CEO Anne Hale Miglarese noted geospatial information is central to accurately tracking and measuring the global progress of the SDGs and added that Radiant.Earth works with a diverse group of actors to ensure the global development community has greater access to Earth imagery, as well as to put the innovation in geospatial technologies to work for the community. As a neutral entity that collaborates with a variety of sources, the company can offer an unbiased perspective to implementation and evaluation decision-making processes.

Josef Aschbacher, ESA Director of Earth Observation Programs, added that global and open Earth Observation data from space will help to better guide development practitioners in managing natural resources in a sustainable way. The cooperation between ESA and Radiant.Earth will also contribute to increasing the uptake of EO data by the wider development community, thereby helping to deliver the full societal value of open data.

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This book was realised under the auspices of the “Institut Français de l’Histoire de l’Espace” (IFHE) and is entitled « Observation spatiale de la Terre – Optique et Radar- La France et l’Europe pionnières ». It provides a comprehensive overview over a period of 50 years (1965-2015) of Earth observation activities and applications performed in Europe.

The book is focused on high resolution optical and SAR imagery and covers both civilian and military space systems. Several chapters deal with EU and ESA Earth Observation cooperation programmes starting from the early days with Earthnet till today with the Copernicus Sentinels satellites. It also covers cooperative programmes between the EU and some Member States (e.g. Belgium, Sweden and France for the Vegetation instrument flown on Spot satellite missions).

The book results of contributions of more than 80 space « pioneers », all being or having been key players from Space agencies (ESA, CNES, ASI, DLR, CSA…) and Space industries (Airbus Space and Defense, Thales Alenia Space, etc.), from European Commission DGs (DG Research and DG GROW) and the Joint Research Centre as well as from the scientific and application communities.

This 400-page well-illustrated book is currently in French and, at the occasion of several presentations to diverse audiences, the need for an English language version was strongly advocated to enable a wider distribution, for instance within ESA and EU Member States, Canada, European space industry, national space institutions abroad, associations (such as EARSC, EARSeL, CEOS …) and at the occasion of major forthcoming space Earth observation events (such as the 20th anniversary of GMES Baveno Manifesto in 2018, CEOS General Assembly meeting…).

Pre-purchase orders are available at a preferential unit price!

For more info please contact:
Guy Duchossois / iPhone : 0033-(0)6 75 03 60 79 / email : guy.duchossois@libertysurf.fr

Remote Sensing Application Center – ReSAC in a consortium with partners published a scientific study on the project “FEMA: Fresh water ecosystem services mapping and assessment in Bulgaria”

In relation to the FEMA project completion “Fresh water ecosystem services mapping and assessment in Bulgaria”, financed by the BG03 Program “Biodiversity and Ecosystems” of the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area (FM / EEA 2009-2014), a new scientific study has been developed and published providing an information on the mapping and assessment of Freshwater and Marine ecosystems in Bulgaria, located outside the NATURA and the protected area system in Bulgaria (national and nature parks, strict and maintained reserves, protected localities, natural landmarks).

Content:
List of abbreviations… 5
Preface… 6
Methodology for mapping of ecosystem condition and their services… 7
Scope and coverage of mapped aquatic ecosystems (freshwater and marine)… 9
Data sources and information for ecosystem condition and their services of the aquatic (freshwater and marine) ecosystems…10
Used data for mapping of freshwater (river and lake) ecosystems…13
Mapping of the freshwater ecosystem subtypes…15
Used data for mapping of Black Sea ecosystems…19
Nomenclature of the river ecosystems and water bodies from category “rivers”… 20
Nomenclature of the lake ecosystems and water bodies from category “lakes”… 22
Nomenclature of the marine ecosystems, including coastal seawater bodies… 23
Selected indicators for assessment of condition and services, provided by freshwater and marine ecosystems… 27
Presentation of the Web GIS portal and freshwater and marine ecosystems maps…41
Presentation of the project website… 42

The project Partners are:

  • Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IBERBAS);
  • Remote Sensing Application Center – ReSAC;
  • Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe – branch Bulgaria;
  • Club “Economika 2000”.


A digital copy of the scientific study in Bulgarian (47 pages) can be downloaded here:
Freshwater and Marine ecosystems: state, services, perspectives
ISBN: 978-954-90138-5-6
First Edition, Sofia, 2017
Publisher: Club “Economika 2000”
© All rights reserved!

For more information:
Remote Sensing Application Center – ReSAC – www.resac-bg.org
61, Tzar Assen Str., fl. 2, 1463, Sofia, Bulgaria. Tel/Fax: +35929800731
E-mail: resac@techno-link.com

October 2017
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
October 24, 2017 October 26, 2017 Bremen Germany
October 25, 2017 United Kingdom
October 26, 2017 October 27, 2017 Bucharest Romania
October 30, 2017 October 31, 2017 Venice and Padova Italy
October 30, 2017 November 2, 2017 Samara Russia
October 31, 2017 November 1, 2017 London United Kingdom
November 2017
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
November 2, 2017 November 3, 2017 IEOS2017 and Copernicus Training and Information Session Kildare Ireland
November 3, 2017 Ireland
November 3, 2017 November 9, 2017 Tallinn Estonia
November 6, 2017 November 8, 2017 Stockholm Sweden
November 7, 2017 November 8, 2017 Brussels Belgium
November 7, 2017 Hinxton, Cambridge United Kingdom
November 7, 2017 Nov
ember 9, 2017
Maryland USA
November 8, 2017 November 9, 2017 Aarhus Denmark
November 8, 2017 November 9, 2017 Brussels Belgium
November 8, 2017 November 9, 2017 Las Vegas, Nevada USA
November 9, 2017 Tallin Estonia
November 10, 2017 Darmstadt Germany
November 13, 2017 November 16, 2017 Sioux Falls, SD USA
November 13, 2017 November 17, 2017 Rome Italy
November 14, 2017 Tallin Estonia
November 15, 2017 Otawa Canada
November 15, 2017 November 16, 2017 ExCel, London United Kingdom
November 16, 2017 November 16, 2017 Brussels Belgium
November 20, 2017 November 24, 2017 Brussels Belgium
November 21, 2017 November 23, 2017 Rome Italy
November 21, 2017 Liège Belgium
November 21, 2017 November 22, 2017 ESTEC, Noordwijk Netherlands
November 22, 2017 November 25, 2017 Sousse, Tunisia
November 22, 2017 November 24, 2017 Bonn Germany
November 23, 2017 November 24, 2017 Amsterdam Netherlands
November 23, 2017 November 24, 2017 Paris France
November 23, 2017 November 24, 2017 Abuja, Nigeria
November 27, 2017 December 1, 2017 Brussels Belgium
November 28, 2017 November 29, 2017 Gormanston Ireland
November 28, 2017 November 30, 2017 Toulouse France
November 29, 2017 Brussels Belgium
December 2017
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
December 4, 2017 December 6, 2017 Reading United Kingdom
December 7, 2017 Tunis, Tunisia
December 7, 2017 December 8, 2017 Paris France
December 11, 2017 December 15, 2017 New Orleans, LA USA
December 11, 2017 December 14, 2017 Stellenbosch South Africa
December 13, 2017 December 15, 2017 Lisbon Portugal
January 2018
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
January 16, 2018 January 19, 2018 Hyderabad, India
January 22, 2018 January 24, 2018 London United Kingdom
January 23, 2018 January 24, 2018 Brussels Belgium
February 2018
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
February 13, 2018 February 15, 2018 Rotterdam Netherlands
February 27, 2018 March 1, 2018 Frascati Italy
March 2018
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
March 17, 2018 March 19, 2018 Funchal, Madeira Portugal
March 27, 2018 March 30, 2018 Cambridge, MA USA
April 2018
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
April 3, 2018 April 8, 2018 Santiago,Chile
April 17, 2018 April 19, 2018 El Jadida Morocco
April 24, 2018 BeGeo 2018 Brussels Belgium
May 2018
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
May 14, 2018 May 16, 2018 Punta del Este, Uruguay
May 15, 2018 May 16, 2018 Luxembourg Luxembourg
May 22, 2018 May 23, 2018 London United Kingdom
May 28, 2018 June 1, 2018 Marseille France
May 29, 2018 May 31, 2018 Belgium
June 2018
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
June 11, 2018 June 16, 2018 Longyearbyen Norway
June 18, 2018 June 23, 2018 Sofia Bulgaria
July 2018
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
July 14, 2018 July 22, 2018 Pasadena, California USA
July 23, 2018 July 27, 2018 Valencia Spain
August 2018
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
August 28, 2018 September 3, 2018 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
September 2018
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
September 2, 2018 September 7, 2018 La Valletta Malta
October 2018
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
October 1, 2018 October 5, 2018 Bremen Germany
October 9, 2018 October 11, 2018 Amsterdam Netherlands

Geoff Sawyer presented the Industrial View for the Evolution of Copernicus at the Space Working Party Meeting organised by the Council of the EU on 6 October 2017.

The Working Party on Space handles work on the development of the European space policy and the related legislation but in particular it deals with: Copernicus, the space surveillance and tracking and the EU relations in space with ESA but also international.

One of the topics discussed was to start to prepare for a new regulation on Copernicus defining the next phase of work from 2012 to 2027.

EARSC presentation is available online

Read Geoff’s blog on the subject