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Following a visit to Centre Regional AGRHYMET, the EO4SD team continued the African user consultations with back-to-back workshops in Djibouti and Lusaka from 20th to 30th of September 2017.

In Djibouti, the team met with key stakeholders to the Regional Groundwater Initiative (RGI) on Africa Horn including World Bank, The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), and Centre de Recherche et des Etudes de Djibouti (CERD). The discussion and consolidation of the EO demonstrations for Africa Horn concerned how EO can support and improve ongoing modelling efforts on water resources, provide decision makers with region-wide maps on groundwater drought vulnerability and finally as a tool to guide investments on groundwater related infrastructure.

In Lusaka, the team joined the annual Zambezi Basin-wide Stakeholder Forum and subsequent review meetings on the Zambezi Basin Strategic Plan (ZSP) and the ZAMWIS Decision Support System (DSS) before having our own EO4SD review meeting. In Zambezi, the EO demonstrations will focus on support to key basin issues such as ensuring food and energy security through investments in irrigation and hydropower as well through improved flood management and mitigation. The meeting in Lusaka was rounded off with a first training workshop for ZAMCOM and members from all of the riparian states (i.e. Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe). Among the participants were also representatives from University of Zambia and the private sector.

More information on the EO4SD – Water Resource management project

Greenland, the largest island in the world, is not the easiest one to map. Prone to extreme weather conditions along with scattered villages and housing, the country has never been entirely mapped within a single campaign.

As an example, part of the existing maps date back to the 1930s, and others to the 1980s. As a result, none of them are accurate enough to be used with GPS. Outdated maps combined with a melting ice sheet definitively require new and updated digital mapping for the country.

Since 2015, the Danish Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency (SDFE), in close cooperation with Greenland’s Government, has been conducting a pilot project in order to define the best way to map 16% of the ice-free area of Greenland at 1:50,000 scale, which represents about one and a half times the size of Denmark. The project creating new digital maps using satellite imagery over 4 geographical areas, Zackenberg, Tasililaq, Narsaq and Disko, that is a total area of about 82,000 km². To achieve this, DHI GRAS , Denmark partnered with Airbus Defence and Space to create mapping products derived from SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 imagery.

“Airbus Defence and Space was our client’s first choice, due to the tri-stereo capabilities of SPOT 6/7 that allow for precise mapping in the steep and remote terrain of Greenland.” Says Rasmus Eskerod Borgstrøm, Managing Director of DHI GRAS, and adds, “It has been an absolute pleasure working jointly with Airbus on this challenging and important project. I would like send my warmest gratitude towards both the technical, legal and sales team at Airbus Defence and Space and pass on my recommendations for everyone.”

Thanks to SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 high resolution imagery, and their rapid coverage capacity, images have been acquired within a short time frame, allowing the production of Orthophotos, Digital Elevation Models as well as vector layers which will be shared among a wide community of users. Indeed, it was an important part of this project to ensure users had the widest possible access to the data. Orthophotos, Digital elevation Models and vector layers over the four geographical areas will be freely available for users in Denmark, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, EU and EEA countries. Other countries will have the capacity to visualise these two datasets.

This new cartographic data will contribute to supporting Greenland’s infrastructure management as well as its economic development. Precise and detailed maps are also important in connection with climate and environmental monitoring, rescue preparedness and business development. With these updated maps, police and rescue organisations will be able to use satellite navigation with accurate mapping.

At the end of 2017, the results will be evaluated, and the Greenland Self-Government and the Ministry of Energy, Supply and Climate Affairs will make a decision on a complete survey of Greenland.

13 September 2017. The Bathymetrics Data Portal, the first dedicated commercial bathymetry portal of its kind, has been launched.

The portal allows users to search, purchase and automatically download the best available water depth information directly from the online store to their computer.

It is the result of a partnership between DHI GRAS – DHI’s own experts in satellite derived bathymetry, TCarta – a global provider of marine geospatial products, and DigitalGlobe – the world’s leading provider of high-resolution satellite imagery.

Buy just what you need

The Bathymetrics Data Portal offers a global database with a continuously expanding 2m Bathymetry dataset in shallow water areas, in addition to a worldwide database of interpolated 90m Bathymetry. Data is priced by the square kilometre; the customer pays online with credit card and can download the data shortly after.

‘We are very excited about this launch, as we have made direct access to off-the-shelf bathymetry data very easy and intuitive. The shop marks an important milestone in our continued quest to develop and offer offer high quality, affordable bathymetry data.’
- DHI COO, Jacob Høst-Madsen.


The Bathymetrics Data Portal allows users to search for data in their area of interest and purchase what they need. © DHI, TCarta, DigitalGlobe

Bathymetric products are used extensively by organisations involved in energy infrastructure development, port construction, environmental monitoring, aquaculture planning and hydrodynamic modelling.

‘The per-kilometre pricing model puts high-quality bathymetric data within easy reach of organisations of any size in all industries. One-person engineering shops, academic entities and other organisations with limited budgets can now engage in complex offshore projects.’
- TCarta CEO, David Critchley

The portal is constantly being updated with new and improved data, providing users with the best available bathymetric information around the world. We would be excited to hear from you if you have an area of interest that is not currently in our database.

Access the portal

Visit The Bathymetrics Data Portal now at: bathymetrics.shop

This is the third survey performed by EARSC. The industry survey help us to analyse the state of the EO Services Industry and to understand the issues that are important for its future.

The survey was conducted during the 1st quarter of 2017; figures are for the Financial Year (FY) 2016. EARSC first conducted this survey in 2013 (FY2012) with a second one in 2015 (FY2014). The series of data is allowing a good indication of trends to be developed.

The responses show that the EO services industry is employing over 7800 highly skilled staff and turns over some 1247m Euro per annum. These and many more results are explained in the brochure which can be downloaded here.

We plan to revisit the industry facts and figures every two years. Regular survey will be essential to develop a full understanding of the impact that policy decisions are having on the industry.

For more information see the EARSC surveys

The pre-operational Forestry Thematic Exploitation Platform (F-TEP) is now live. F-TEP has been created to provide an online data processing and dissemination resource for the forestry community that enables benefit to be derived from the volume shift in data in the Copernicus age.

Introduction

With the very large volumes of Earth Observation (EO) data now being provided from the multiple Sentinel missions and other satellites (in the order of Terabytes per day), the limitations for effective science and value adding business are becoming less about lack of data, and more about using effective tools and resources to find, process and analyse the data. Such large data volumes mean that longer download times, larger storage devices, advanced processors and high powered computing are all needed to help maximize the information that can be extracted.

The ESA TEP programme

In 2015, the European Space Agency (ESA) has helped users by commissioning a series of Thematic Exploitation Platforms (TEPs), intended to be online facilities for the searching and processing of large volumes of EO data. There are currently 7 TEPs, each of which is focused on a different thematic area (Forestry, Urban, Coastal, Hydrology, Polar, Geohazards and Food Security). All of the TEPs are based on the concept of providing online data access and processing tools for EO data exploitation that is accessible via an easy to use web portal. The ultimate aim is to reduce or remove technical or computational limitations for effective data exploitation by a wide variety of users.

A key goal of the TEPs is to provide a means to move away from each user working in their own ‘silo’ to a more common environment. Users no longer need to download and process data on their own hardware, instead the processing is done on the TEP utilizing the computational resources the TEP can access. The collaborative nature of the TEPs also allows users to keep up to date with, and share knowledge about, data and processing techniques with the wider community in their thematic area. This includes the ability of TEP users to create and share their own processing tools and algorithms. TEPs can also help to reduce the difficulties of data procurement, by providing access to processing for miscellaneous data sources through a single online portal.

Forestry-TEP: a user-driven processing platform for forestry users

The F-TEP has been developed and deployed by an international consortium led by VTT of Finland. Partners include CGI and STFC from the UK, Spacebel from Belgium and Arbonaut from Finland.
The F-TEP portal provides a self-service environment in which users can undertake a number of key activities including:

  • Search for a variety of EO and reference data relevant for Forestry-related activities, including Sentinel and Landsat data. Users can also upload their own reference data and search for forestry data products processed by other users.
  • Process EO and reference data using a variety of processing services to create various forestry products such as land cover maps, biomass estimations, species analyses and track deforestation. During the current pre-operations phase this includes access to propriety software such as VTT’s Autochange.
  • Create, test and share new forestry-focused processing services.
  • Share products, processors and reference data with peers and the wider forestry community.
  • Analyse EO data, derived products and reference data within the F-TEP platform using a variety of EO applications including the Sentinel Toolbox (SNAP), QGIS and Monteverdi.

To provide such functionality in a cost-effective manner that can be scalable F-TEP needs to deliver a smart ICT-based solution. To ensure efficient processing of large data volumes modern container-based technologies such as Docker™ are an integral part of F-TEP. Openness and integration are also key aspects of the solution, enabled with the use of Open Source Software and adherence to standards such as OGC Web Services. This will help ensure that future collaboration across TEPs and other platforms is possible.

Current status of F-TEP

F-TEP is currently in the pre-operations phase and accessible to all users. It is the second of the 7 TEPs to reach pre-operations. During this phase users are encouraged to explore and use the platform and a number of key pilot projects are being run. These include:
• Mexico (Chiapas & Durango states), with a focus on utilization of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 forest cover mapping for the REDD+ program. This includes developing methods to support forest management in Durango.
• Finland (Finnish Forestry Centre), with a focus on mapping degree of shrub damage on regeneration areas using Sentinel-2 data.
Other uses of F-TEP currently being evaluated or envisaged are land cover and forest mapping at a regional or national scale, change detection, biomass estimations and regeneration.

The future

F-TEP will come to the end of its pre-operations phase in the first half of 2018. It is intended that the platform capabilities will continue to be available thereafter as commercial services on a pay-per-use basis

Contacts
Tuomas Häme – VTT Project Lead for F-TEP (Tuomas.Hame@vtt.fi)
Clive Farquhar – CGI Project Manager for F-TEP (clive.farquhar@cgi.com)

Nowadays, the advanced uses of EO data are being brought within the reach of multiple players. EO offers added-value cost-effective solutions to several business problems, enlarging its potential market. However, to scale up the market, the EO community will need sound business models, realistic business plans and effective approaches to estimate and communicate benefits to end-users. To undertake these activities, ALPHA Consult created a group of leading independent experts, increasingly active across several supporting and related EO markets (chiefly Aerospace, Transportation, Agribusiness, Emergency response and management, and Climate Change). With its business, technical, and communication/ dissemination background, coupled with the experience reached during successful projects, ALPHA is able to support a vast range of actors in the articulated processes aimed at engaging end-users’ and commercialising high technological solutions.

In the recent past, the main beneficiaries of EO data have been mainly large-scale projects or companies. However, as suitable software and information platforms become more widely available, advanced uses of EO data are being brought within reach of smaller businesses and niche markets worldwide (1) . In line with this trend, according to the European Commission (EC), the global EO midstream turnover is projected to reach 3.4€ billion by 2022.

The main challenges to catch these opportunities able to enlarge the EO potential market are:
1. to develop appropriate business analyses and business cases to showcase EO added-value in practice, and
2. to inform potential customers on the benefits brought by EO-based products/ services.

In line with this need, ALPHA Consult (www.alphacons.eu), a European management consultancy focused on services in GNSS and EO- related industries in Europe and Africa, is supporting various industry players in fully exploiting their potential by providing high quality business/ strategy consultancy about all aspects of EO concepts and technologies. The following services are offered:

Aware of the challenges and difficulties faced by innovative EO-based solutions and services to scale up the market, ALPHA leveraged its experience to be a key connection between innovation developers and providers and related end-users in all its projects. Some examples of projects recently undertaken by ALPHA in the EO domain are cited below:

  • Advanced Snow plough and salt Spreader based on Innovative Space Technologies (ASSIST) (2). ASSIST project has been co-funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) (3). Exploiting the insights from the feasibility study (undertaken in 2014-2015), the ASSIST demonstration project validates a set of advanced “assistance services” for winter maintenance, involving relevant European users and stakeholders. In this context, ALPHA has been in charge of the • Viability Analysis (before) and Business Plan (after), undertaking costs-benefits analyses (CBAs) and preparing the ground for the market roll-out;
  • Improving Resilience to Emergencies through Advanced Cyber Technologies (I-REACT) (4) is a Horizon 2020 3-year project (2016-2019) funded by the European Commission under the Secure Society Work Programme (DRS-1-2015). I-REACT integrates existing services, both local and European, into a platform that supports the entire emergency management cycle. Within this project, ALPHA is leading the business assessment and exploitation phase, including the preparation of dedicated CBAs, business plan and roadmap;
  • Vineyards Integrated Smart Climate Application (VISCA) (5) is a Horizon 2020 3-year project (2017-2020) aimed at making South-European wine industries resilient to climate changes, while minimizing costs and risks through an improvement of the production management (quality and quantity of final product). In particular, a Climate Service (CS) and Decision Support System (DSS) will be developed and tested on three demo sites belonging to three wine stakeholders from Spain, Italy and Portugal. In the frame of VISCA, ALPHA will guide the innovation management, the engagement with the Project Advisory Board (PAB) and end-users. Moreover, it will prepare a realistic business plan for further solution uptake.

To conclude, with its business, technical and communication/ dissemination background, coupled with the experience reached during successful projects, ALPHA is able to support a vast range of actors, such as businesses, regulators and European institutions, in the articulated processes aimed at engaging end-users’ and commercialising high technological solutions.

**
(1) https://www.directionsmag.com/article/1194; http://earsc.org/news/new-approaches-bring-earth-observation-data-to-wider-market
(2) The Consortium is led by the Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB) and includes: ALPHA, Giletta, Geoville and SAET.
(3) Within its Business Applications Programme
(4) The Consortium is led by ISMB and includes Geoville, Eoxplore, Terranea, Alpha Consult, UNESCO, Politecnico di Torino, Celi, JoinPad, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Meteosim, Bitgear, Ansur Technologies, Technical University of Vienna, Scienseed, CSI Piemonte, Aquobex, Answaretech, and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission
(5) The Consortium is led by Meteosim and includes Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Codorniu S.A, Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries (IRTA), ISMB, Universita Degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (UNAP), Mastroberardino spa, Symington – Vinhos S.A., Universidad do Oporto (UPORTO), Unite Technique du Semide Geie, Alpha Consult

Speedy delivery and quality imagery mark European Space Imaging’s acquistions for EU’s CAP.

Agricultural region by the ocean in Denmark – Image collected by WorldView-2 © European Space Imaging

(Munich, 05/09/17). Early last week European Space Imaging finalized the collection of nearly half a million square kilometers of satellite imagery for the European Commission. This marks the completion of its VHR Image acquisition for the 2017 Controls with Remote Sensing (CwRS) program with a 100% success rate – demonstrating once again the company’s capacity and reliability as Europe’s leading very high resolution satellite image provider.

The CwRS program monitors agricultural land for which farmers have been granted subsidies under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which amount to around €40 billion per year. European Space Imaging has been the major provider of very high resolution satellite data to the program since 2003.

“We are extremely proud to once again achieve a success rate of 100% in this challenging and important campaign,” said Adrian Zevenbergen, European Space Imaging’s Managing Director. “Our staff worked around the clock to achieve this goal.”

EU Member States give European Space Imaging an individual collection window for each of the 842 agricultural zones spread all over Europe, and on average it has 51 days to gather the data. This year cloudy weather over Latvia, the United Kingdom, and Ireland made the operation particularly challenging.

“Despite the clouds we managed to collect images for over 70% of the zones within two weeks of the window opening, which helps the EU Member States manage their own deadlines,” said Dr. Melanie Rankl, Project Manager at European Space Imaging.

From its ground station in Munich, European Space Imaging takes into account real-time weather conditions before directly tasking the world’s most advanced satellite constellation: WorldView-1, GeoEye-1, WorldView-2, WorldView-3, and WorldView-4. Direct tasking allows it to minimize cloud cover and increase collection efficiency – it was able to deliver the vast majority of imagery with less than 10% cloud cover.

“The addition of WorldView-4 to the satellite constellation in May 2017 really boosted our collection capacity,” said Dr. Rankl. “It gathered over 79,000km2 of imagery in less than four months.”

European Space Imaging is looking forward to continuing its role as a dependable imagery partner of the EU Commission and Member States into the future

About CwRS
Since 1993, the European Commission (EC) has promoted the use of “Controls with Remote Sensing” (CwRS) as a system to control agricultural subsidies granted under the EC’s Common Agricultural Policy. Following the real time evaluation in 2003 and the successful operational application since 2004, the EC’s Joint Research Centre (Director General (DG) JRC), in agreement with DG AGRI, provides VHR satellite remote sensing data to the EU Member States (MS) administrations for their CwRS area-based subsidies.

The DG JRC provides technical guidance regarding the CwRS methodology as well as managing the image acquisition, ordering and communication with the member state administrations and image providers. Also, in close cooperation with the member states, it supports the definition of the imagery required. Satellite imagery is acquired through third party suppliers selected by the DG JRC like European Space Imaging who has been a key third party imagery supplier to these campaigns since the programs’ inception.

Find out more about the CAP here

About European Space Imaging
European Space Imaging (EUSI) is a leading supplier of global very high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery, direct satellite tasking and derived services to customers in Europe, North Africa and CIS countries. They offer customers access to the highest resolution imagery (50-30 cm) from the largest constellation of sub-meter satellites and to the most extensive worldwide VHR data archive. With a reputation for expert and personalized customer service they have been providing tailored VHR imagery solutions to meet their customers’ diverse project requirements since 2002.For more information, visit www.euspaceimaging.com.

To learn more please contact:
Claire Wilson or Skye Boag
Marketing Department
European Space Imaging
Arnulfstrasse 199, Munich 80634
Tel: +49 (0) 89 1301420
marketing@euspaceimaging.com
www.euspaceimaging.com

From satellite navigation to Earth observation programmes, space policy brings tangible benefits to EU citizens while helping boost investments, jobs and growth

Members of the European Committee of the Regions have given their support to Andres Jaadla (ET/ALDE) by adopting his opinion Space Strategy for Europe.
The CoR is in line with the European Commission vision on space published in November 2016. Yet it asks to further develop its regional dimension so to bring space technologies closer to citizens. Space technologies, data and services ensure communication, surveillance, border and security control, rapid response to natural disasters and support for agriculture, fisheries and transport management.

Space technologies, data and services have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. In Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), space technology allows information exchange in real time. In digital services, it leads to continuous high-resolution surveillance systems. Space satellites advantage rapid responses to natural disasters and contribute to better urban administration and public transport management. Space-related capabilities and services play an important role in terms of European defence and security as well as in environmental monitoring, the protection of biodiversity and the fight against global warming.

‘Space policy can help boost jobs, growth and investment in Europe while it pushes the boundaries of science and research’ said rapporteur Andres Jaadla. The member of the Rakvere city council added: ‘we must develop the regional dimension as to bring space benefits closer to citizens. The EU space policy and strategy does however need to better convince society of all the potential benefits. Users should be at the centre of Europe’s space policy’.

_Rapporteur Jaadla added ‘Local and regional authorities have the competence and the will to be involved in the implementation of EU’s space policy. While many regions have joined the Network of European Regions Using Space Technologies (NEREUS), pointing to the growing importance of space for regional economies, these actions need to be highlighted more and foster integrative partnerships between civil society, business, public institutions and the science community.’_Rapporteur Jaadla called for the space strategy to be further interlinked and integrated into other EU policies, such as the Urban Agenda, smart cities and climate policy.

Andres Jaadla added: ‘education and public awareness in connection with better trained specialists, more engineers and scientists should empower the European public to play a central role in developing the complex systems of tomorrow, both on earth as well as in the skies with satellites, through programmes such as Galilei and Copernicus.”

Referring to the Copernicus programme, the European Committee of the Regions is keen in proving support for its development and implementation. The CoR proposes to provide a full permanent member to be part of the programme’s user forum. ‘Such direct participation would feed the forum with the perspective of local actors in terms of the use of Copernicus data’ said Andres Jaadla.

“The CoR can be a pivotal partner in connecting the European Commission, member states, the European Space Agency, academics, local governments and users so to build new partnerships with other EU policies”, concluded Andres Jaadla.

Notes to editors

  • 26 November 2016. A space strategy for Europe . Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic And Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
  • Contact: David Crous | david.crous@cor.europa.eu | +32 (0) 470 88 10 37

Source

The Airbus built, pollution monitoring satellite Sentinel-5 Precursor has been successfully launched on a Rockot from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia

Sentinel-5 Precursor is part of the global monitoring programme “Copernicus”, a joint European Commission–European Space Agency undertaking which aims to acquire continuous and accurate Earth observation data and provide services to improve the management of the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change, and ensure civil security.

Sentinel-5 Precursor will provide essential atmospheric chemistry data to the Copernicus programme before the Sentinel-5 instrument becomes operational in 2021 on the MetOp Second Generation satellite.

Airbus was prime for Sentinel-5 Precursor, with four sites involved in development and manufacturing of the satellite and its components: Stevenage (UK – prime contractor), Toulouse (France), Friedrichshafen (Germany) and Leiden (Netherlands).

Colin Paynter, Managing Director of Airbus Defence and Space in the UK said: “Today’s successful launch again moves forward the European Sentinel programme in which Airbus is playing a key part. Sentinel-5 Precursor was built in record time using the commercially successful AstroBus platform, and demonstrates Airbus’ ability to adapt its range of hardware to new missions to meet important operational needs.”

The UK’s Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson MP said: “The successful launch of the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite is a clear demonstration of the UK’s valuable contribution to improving global knowledge through satellite data, and the heights we can reach by collaborating with our European partners. Our ongoing investment in the UK space sector forms a key part of our Industrial Strategy, and we are committed to ensuring that we have the infrastructure and skills in place to support our ambition to capture 10% of the global space market by 2030.”

“With Sentinel-5 Precursor in orbit, we have achieved another important milestone that takes the European Commission-led Copernicus programme into a new area: observing the air that we breathe,” said Josef Aschbacher, Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes. “Without the substantial contribution of the Netherlands to the TROPOMI instrument on board this satellite, we would not have been able to build this satellite. And it was a European collaboration of 30 high-tech companies under the leadership of Airbus Defence and Space which made the mission possible.”

Sentinel-5 Precursor features the TROPOMI (TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument) instrument, developed by Airbus DS Netherlands for the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Netherlands Space Office. TROPOMI will measure ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, methane and other atmospheric pollutants at a higher resolution than previous instruments. Having more accurate atmospheric data will enable improved climate models and pollutant tracking and forecasting. The MetOp Second Generation spacecraft will feature a different Sentinel 5 instrument.

Successful separation of Sentinel-5 Precursor from the launcher was achieved at 10:46 GMT.

Notes for editors

R&D achievements of CMEMS

Mercator Ocean (Global Ocean Forecasting Centre) based in Toulouse is happy to inform about the publication of the special issue of the Mercator Ocean Journal #56 focussing on the R&D achievements of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS).

Available at the following link