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(Written by Pierre Bahurel on 29 December 2016 in Thought Leader) 2017 is set to be Malta’s year for the oceans, explains Pierre Bahurel.

Malta is about to take over the presidency of the Council of the European Union at a time when, although there are more environmental, economic and societal issues concerning the ocean than ever before, the world’s attitude to these questions seems to have shifted.

Until a few years ago, the oceans appeared to interest only a handful of specialists and small groups of experts dispersed around the world. Today, their immense efforts seem to have created a dynamic groundswell.

The United Nations had opened the way some time ago, and the oceans now feature on the agendas of other major global forums, such as the COP21 andCOP22 climate change conferences and the last G7 in Tokyo, and the nextG7 in Italy.

Meanwhile the OECD has published a fascinating and informative report entitled “The Ocean Economy in2030”. The oceans are the subject of numerous initiatives and global conferences such as “Our Ocean”, whose next edition will take place in Malta in 2017.

The challenges raised by the oceans affect the entire planet, but the European Union has had them on its policy agenda for a long time.

The European Parliament, through its committees and intergroup, is strongly involved in ocean-related initiatives. The European Commission is actively engaged in improving international governance of the oceans and seas, to promote sustainable blue growth. It has also set up a service unlike any other in the world: The Copernicus Marine Service.

The progress that has been made since the fi rest attempts at operational oceanography more than 20 years ago and the recent achievements of the Copernicus Marine Service, operational since May2015 are tremendous.

Today it delivers free ocean information to more than8000 users around the world; information that is up-to-date, scientific call qualify demand valuable for commercial companies and scientists, public services and NGOs, European and national policy makers.

The EU’s vision is as follows: the Copernicus Marine Service, one of six in the Copernicus programme, creates value by distributing useful ocean information like ocean forecasts and indicators for the entire world, making the EU an international leader in the field and contributing tithe development of downstream ocean related services in all member states.

In the year that Malta holds the presidency of the Council, the Copernicus Marine Service is gearing up to work with Maltese experts to determine the needs of national users, in the private, public and scientific sectors, and will be contributing to an event to be held in Malta on 27 June 2017 gathering Maltese stakeholders of the blue economy.

The capabilities of the Copernicus Marine Service and its innovative services covering all the world’s oceans provide input for the developers of specialised downstream applications (offshore energy, ports, fishing, aquaculture, transport, etc.): A virtuous alliance boosting Blue Growth and Sustainable Oceans.

About the author

Pierre Bahurel is Director of Mercator Ocean, the French global ocean analysis and forecasting centre entrusted to operate the Copernicus Marine Service
Source

(12/01/2017) Deimos Engenharia has been selected by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) for the provision of RPAS-based pollution monitoring services

Remotely-piloted aircraft system (RPAS) surveillance of the maritime environment is a service that the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has been tasked to set-up on behalf of EU and EFTA Member States as from 2017. Accordingly, EMSA has signed four framework contracts with RPAS service providers. The first contract was signed with a consortium led by the Portuguese Air Force (FAP), together with Deimos Engenharia and UAVision. It is for an operational service to monitor ship emissions in support of the implementation of Annex VI of MARPOL. This establishes legally-binding international standards to regulate specific emissions and discharges generated by ships e.g. SOx.

Following a request from a Member State authority, the consortium will be responsible for monitoring the atmospheric pollution caused by maritime traffic up to 50km from the shore of an EU country. EMSA, in close liaison with the MS concerned, will define the operational framework. The areas of operation can be extended outside EU adjacent seas upon common agreement.

The consortium will be responsible for monitoring the atmospheric pollution caused by maritime traffic up to 50km from the shore of an EU country

The flight proven UAVision platforms, combined with extensive operational experience of FAP, will be used for measuring the SO2 and CO2 levels emitted by ships, using different sensors ranging from optical cameras (with visible and infrared payloads) to gas sensors for air quality monitoring. The platform will also include an AIS transponder for vessel detection and identification. Deimos Engenharia is responsible for coordinating and handling all the data generated by the sensors and for the interfaces with EMSA and other users, and also supports FAP in all operational activities and service management.

This is a framework contract awarded for two years, renewable, and is the result of an open Invitation to Tender launched by the Agency in April that included two batches: lot-1 (mainly for sea surface oil pollution monitoring up to 80km) and lot-2 for vessel’s air emissions monitoring. It is in the latter that a contract was won by FAP, Deimos Engenharia and UAVision.

The first flights are expected in the first quarter of 2017. This activity is expected to be EMSA’s first step to use RPAS for the provision of integrated maritime and pollution response services within the Agency’s operational tasks.

Source

The recently released Copernicus Market Report, prepared by the European Commission and PwC, shows how the Copernicus programme, launched barely three years ago, is already generating economic value and will keep on increasing benefits for the space industry, the downstream sector and for society.

Based on interviews with over 140 people, representing institutional stakeholders as well as the private sector (micro-companies, SMEs and large companies), the Copernicus Market Report presents how the European market benefits from the availability of free and open Copernicus data and services to generate economic growth and increase employment.

The analysis demonstrates that the Copernicus programme significantly boosted the European space sector, through investments in the Sentinels satellites and the Copernicus services with overall investments in the programme reaching EUR 7.4 billion over 2008-2020. During the same period, the cumulated economic value of the programme is estimated up to EUR 13.5 billion, thus far beyond investment.

Despite a short lapse of time since the launch of Sentinel-1A in April 2014, figures on the Copernicus programme are already impressive: Copernicus data accounted for 10% of EO data used by EO service suppliers in 2015 and are expected to increase their benefits by 31% per year up to 2020.

The Copernicus Market Report also investigates the European market through the lense of 8 promising sectors: agriculture, forestry, urban monitoring, insurance related to natural disasters, ocean monitoring, oil & gas, renewable energies and air quality management. For each sector, economic, social and environmental impacts enabled by Copernicus are presented and case studies of successful activities exploiting Copernicus are provided.

By enabling the development of many commercial applications benefiting both service suppliers and end users, the Copernicus programme is therefore strongly contributing to the development of the society.

To go further
The Copernicus Market Report is publicly available on the Copernicus.eu website. Download the report

It is building on the main results of two other publicly available studies:

  • A report on the Copernicus downstream sector and user benefits (360 pages) which characterises the benefits of and the barriers to the EO downstream and end user markets in Europe, with the objective to identify the levers that can support the development of economic activity exploiting Copernicus.
    Download the report
  • A report on the overall socio-economic impact of Copernicus up to 2021, which presents an assessment of the economic impact derived from public spending on the Copernicus programme in both conservative and optimistic scenarios.
    Download the report
PwC is a world leading firm in audit, advisory and legal services. With a team dedicated to advisory for the space sector, PwC built a strong expertise covering space-specific strategy studies, socio-economic impact assessments, programme management and operations implementation. PwC is a privileged partner of the European Commission on different assessments and studies on the Copernicus programme. To find more about our offer and expertise www.pwc.com and www.pwc.fr/space

More info at Copernicus website

APOLLO aims to bring the benefits of precision agriculture to farmers through affordable information services, making extensive use of free and open Earth Observation data.

APOLLO is an EU project aiming to develop agricultural advisory services targeting primarily, but not exclusively, smallholder farmers. The project aims at introducing the benefits of precision agriculture to farmers through affordable information services, making extensive use of free and open Earth Observation data, such as these provided by the EU’s Copernicus programme. APOLLO services will monitor the growth and health of crops and will offer to the farmers a set of farm advices with information on when to irrigate and till their fields, as well as estimation on the size of their harvest. APOLLO will help farmers with decision making and ultimately these interventions should lead to less waste, higher yields – and therefore increased profitability and competitiveness.

The APOLLO project brings together nine partners from five European countries (Greece, Spain, Austria, Belgium and Serbia), and combines expertise in agronomy, agricultural services, soil science, numerical weather prediction, remote sensing and Earth Observation. The consortium is proud to include two farmers’ associations – the Agricultural Cooperative of Pella in Greece, and the Association of Farmers of the Municipality of Ruma in Serbia, who will pilot and test the early versions of the services. A third pilot will be carried out in Spain.

APOLLO responds to a series of challenges facing the agricultural sector as a whole, and smallholder farmers in particular. Global population growth means that farmers will need to grow twice as much as they do today in order to feed the planet’s 9 billion inhabitants. At the same time, there is less land available for agricultural production, thanks to the expanding population, soil erosion and water scarcity. Finally, there are social and regulatory pressures on farmers to reduce their environmental impact: in other words, to use less pesticides, fertilizer, water and fuel.

Precision agriculture can help to address these challenges. Detailed information about the state and health of crops allows farmers to apply chemicals and water in the precise quantities required, where and when they are needed. This approach is extensively used by large-scale farm managers, but is still relatively new to small-scale farmers, who often cannot afford heavy investments in new technologies. APOLLO aims to open up the precision agriculture market by making affordable and easy-to-use agricultural advisory services available to farmers, farmer associations and agricultural consultants.

APOLLO is one of the two strategic earth observation projects that DRAXIS Environmental coordinates, and through these the company is aiming to make the big step from providing geospatial services for the environmental sector, to providing earth observation services for the precision agriculture sector.

ReSAC together with partners from Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem research (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), Biosphere Consult and Bulgarian Society for Protection of Birds, are finalizing the project “Assessment and mapping of GRASSLAND ecosystems condition and their services in Bulgaria, Contr. Д-33-90/03.09.2015”. The project duration is 19 months and started in Aug. 2015. The projects is financed by Program BG03 “Biodiversity and Ecosystems” and co-financed by the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area (EEA FM 2009-2014)

GRASSLAND: Assessment and mapping of GRASSLAND ecosystems condition and their services in Bulgaria. Duration: 27.08.2015 – 30.04.2017

The project will contribute to the overall objectives of the Programme for concise inventory of ecosystem services in the implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy of the EU. The main task of the project is to describe and evaluate the grasslands in Bulgaria or, more precisely all pastures, meadows and other grasslands, which falls outside NATURA 2000 territories.

The project has three main tasks: mapping of grassland areas with MMU 0.1ha in scale 1:10 000; mapping the grassland ecosystem condition; mapping the ecosystem services which the grassland ecosystems provide.

The existing national datasets for grassland areas are not sufficient and precise in order to be used for such precise mapping. During the mapping procedure datasets such Land Parcel Identification System and cadaster were used as source information. With the use of aerial orthophoho and ancillary data from Landsat and Sentinels more than 100 000 grassland polygons were mapped. Detailed interpretation keys were developed in order to differentiate the existing in Bulgaria five types of grassland (according EUNIS nomenclature): Dry grasslands, Mesic grasslands, Seasonally wet and wet grasslands, Alpine and subalpine grasslands and Inland salt steppes.


Fig.1 Grassland ecosystem types, ReSAC/ IBER (BAS), 2017

In order to assess the condition of the grassland ecosystem 23 indicators were chosen and each grassland polygon was examined according to indicators for biotic and abiotic heretogeneity, matter storage – according to the classification developed by MAES group.

Ecosystem services which grassland ecosystem provide are assessed for the first time in Bulgaria in national scale. More than 30 indicators for ecosystem services were selected in order to measure the real provision of services in the 3 main categories of CICES: Provisioning, Regulation & Maintenance and Cultural.

In order the analyses to be traceable and repeatable in the future, for each indicator a detailed mapping protocol was developed, with a description of data used, mapping approach and threshold of ranking categories.
The project ends in April 2017, and the work completed by the project partners will be assembled in a special database according to the national methodology for mapping of ecosystem condition and services.
The datasets will become a part of the national system for Ecosystem Services in Bulgaria, which will be hosted in the Executive Environment Agency.

More for the project on Project website
Source Remote Sensing Application Center – Bulgaria

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is luring young entrepreneurs to utilise massive amounts of geo-spatial data procured through its series of earth-mapping satellites to launch start-ups and earn in millions in the years to come via consultative services to respective users.

Director of ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Dr YVN Krishna Murthy told Bangalore Mirror at the 104th Indian Science Congress in Tirupati that they have gathered up to a whopping 17 million gigabytes (or 17 petabytes as 1 petabyte is 1000000 gigabytes) of geospatial data, which is set to cross 50 million GB (50 petabytes) in the next five years with the addition of a more sophisticated constellation of satellites in space to map the Indian sub-continent.

Geospatial data is information about physical objects (in terms of land, crops, water resources, agricultural information, etc) that can be represented by numerical values in a geographic coordinate system. These data have been collected using 21 remote sensing satellites so far – IRS-1A being the first one to be launched on March 17, 1988, and Resourcesat-2A, the last to be launched on December 7, 2016.

The data from Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites are used for various applications of resources survey and management under the National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS), which include space-based inputs for decentralised planning; national urban information system; ISRO disaster management support programme; biodiversity characterisations at landscape level; pre-harvest crop area and production estimation of major crops; drought monitoring and assessment based on vegetation condition; flood risk zone mapping and flood damage assessment; hydro-geomorphologic maps for locating underground water resources for drilling wells; irrigation command area status monitoring; snow-melt run-off estimates for planning water use in downstream projects; land-use and land cover mapping; urban planning; forest survey; wetland mapping; environmental impact analysis; mineral prospecting; coastal studies; and integrated mission for sustainable development (initiated in 1992) for generating locale-specific prescriptions for integrated land and water resources development in 174 districts.

“There is an immense scope for start-ups. With time, the cost of technology will go down while its scope will only increase,” Murthy said. “Young entrepreneurs can look at our portals to launch start-ups on a consultative basis for users and rake in millions of rupees.”

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12 January 2017 – Transmitting large volumes of data in near real time through space at a rate of 1.8 gigabytes per second based on laser technology since November 23rd, the “SpaceDataHighway” is one of the most ambitious and forward-looking communication systems in operation today.


*Aims to foster innovation for its brand-new laser-based space communication system

  • Winner will be awarded €75,000 investment and will get support of Airbus BizLab

To foster further innovation and enlarge the application portfolio, Airbus is issuing a call for ideas for the “Enter the SpaceDataHighway” challenge. This challenge is open to SMEs, start-ups, entrepreneurs and students who would like to embark on this adventure with their business ideas for the utilization of the “SpaceDataHighway”.

The winning project will receive a prize in the form of a € 75,000 investment, and will be able to draw on the expertise and support of Airbus Bizlab, the Group’s innovation powerhouse. Airbus Bizlab is a business incubator in which entrepreneurs or start-ups participate in a six-month programme. They will be accompanied by engineers, business development experts or even by coaches to support them in the realisation of prototypes, market studies or the launch of a product. The project that comes second will receive a prize of € 25,000 to launch a crowdfunding campaign on the brand-new SpaceStarters platform which enables space related businesses and start-ups to raise money in order to turn their innovative ideas into business reality.

The SpaceDataHighway is a unique space communication system combining ultra-broadband laser communications in geostationary orbit to deliver a unique, secure, near real time data transfer service – making data latency a thing of the past. It can help revolutionise a number of areas, including the handling of humanitarian crises, maritime security and environmental protection by receiving satellite imagery in near real time. The Sentinel satellites of the European Union’s Earth observation programme Copernicus will be the first to benefit from these next-generation services. However, the SpaceDataHighway will also be able to connect other platforms such as aircraft, UAVs or the International Space Station.

“In general, space communications are the only way to establish broadband communications between humans and machines, whether they are in urban or remote areas, at sea, in the air or even in space. The SpaceDataHighway is like the first optical fiber in space, but with the added advantage of mobility. Therefore, the scope of possible applications is vast”, said Hughes Boulnois, head of the SpaceDataHighway business at Airbus Defence and Space. “With the generalisation of space technologies and the emergence of new stakeholders in the sector, Airbus wants this initiative to engage with and listen to the end-users market needs and to develop ideas to support this extended space ecosystem.”

This initiative has been launched with the support of the European Commission and the European Space Agency, which, together with Airbus, developed the SpaceDataHighway programme as part of a public–private partnership. To take part in the “Enter the SpaceDataHighway” challenge, visit.

Between 2001 and 2014, the annual forest loss rate in Cambodia increased by 14.4 percent: a total of 1.44 million hectares—5,560 square miles—of forest.

In broad swaths of the country, densely forested landscapes—even those in protected areas—have been clear-cut during the last decade for rubber plantations and timber. Scientists from the University of Maryland and the World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch have been using Landsat satellite data to track the rate of forest loss, demonstrating that changes in global rubber prices and a surge of land-concession deals have played key roles in accelerating Cambodia’s rate of deforestation. Concession lands are leased by the Cambodian government to domestic and foreign investors for agriculture, timber production and other uses. Researchers found that the rate of forest loss within concession lands was anywhere from 29 to 105 percent higher than comparable lands outside the concessions. Work by Matthew Hansen and his University of Maryland Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) lab played a key role in revealing the scope of deforestation. In conjunction with the World Resources Institute, GLAD developed a weekly alert system: deforestation is detected by satellites with each new Landsat image, and users can subscribe for email updates. The freely available alert system already is operating for Congo, Uganda, Indonesia, Peru and Brazil. The researchers hope to have the system operating for Cambodia and the rest of the tropics in 2017.

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The Spanish satellites DEIMOS-1 and DEIMOS-2 are now available for scientific research and application development projects, as part of the European Space Agency’s Third Party Missions programme.

Since August 2016, both Deimos Imaging’s satellites DEIMOS-1 and DEIMOS-2 are part of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Third Party Missions (TPM) fleet. Hence, access to their full archive and new tasking data are offered free of charge for scientific research and application development.

The TPM programme has been in effect for over 35 years and it is funded under ESA’s Earthnet activity. Earthnet is a cornerstone in ESA’s Earth Observation (EO) actions. It ensures international cooperation and it supports the scientific user community for EO data in Europe by providing access to a large portfolio of non-ESA international missions via standardised interfaces. The data collections are distributed under specific agreements with the owners or operators of such missions, respecting the data policy of each of them. Now, all the data captured by DEIMOS-1 and DEIMOS-2 are also available upon submission of a project proposal.

DEIMOS-1 was successfully launched on 29 July 2009 from the Baikonur Launch Complex (Kazakhstan) in the Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr launcher. It provides 22m/pixel multispectral imagery with a very wide (650-km) swath, assuring very-high-frequency revisit on large areas, especially tailored for agriculture, forestry and monitoring applications in mind.

DEIMOS-2 is a very-high resolution (VHR) multispectral satellite which produces 75-cm pan-sharpened imagery and 3-m multi-spectral images with a 12-km swath that can be increased to 24 km in its wide-area mode. DEIMOS-2 is also capable of acquiring single-pass stereo pairs, which allows creating 3D models of the imaged area. Launched on 19 June 2014, it is the first Spanish Earth Observation VHR satellite and the highest-resolution fully private satellite in Europe.

Deimos Imaging
Deimos Imaging, a subsidiary of the Canadian UrtheCast Corp., is a private Spanish provider of Earth Observation products and solutions, headquartered in Tres Cantos (Madrid) and with satellite control and processing facilities in Boecillo (Valladolid) and Puertollano (Ciudad Real). http://www.deimos-imaging.com/

Figures:


Oil fires near Qayyarah, Iraq. DEIMOS-1 image acquired on January 5, 2017.


Agricultural structures in Kansas, USA. DEIMOS-2 image acquired on February 20, 2016 for precision agriculture applications.


Ju’aymah bulk plant, Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia. DEIMOS-2 image acquired on December 19, 2016.

News flash! On the 30/03/2017 ICube-SERTIT will celebrate its 30th birthday.

SERTIT became ICube-SERTIT, integrating ICube Laboratory end 2015.

ICube Laboratory is a very large University of Strasbourg Laboratory comprised of 600 members.. ICube was created in 2013 bringing together researchers of the University of Strasbourg, the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research), and engineering schools (ENGEES and the INSA) in the fields of engineering science and computer science, with imaging as the unifying theme. In research ICube is a major driving force concentrating on biomedical engineering and sustainable development.
SERTIT delivers from EO data services in natural resources monitoring, land management, urban planning, environmental survey, plus natural disaster and risk management.
It was founded with the arrival of the SPOT programme working on applied research and service development. SERTIT is both an R&D centre and a service provider accompanying French and ESA satellite development (now Sentinel) programs, being PI for many space agencies. SERTIT’s new position allows it to benefit from an array of research within ICube.

Tuned in to user needs, SERTIT compares user requirements and expectations with EO data potential and processing methods to conceptualise and implement customised products and services. As an independent entity, it uses space for Earth’s benefit and helps spread Europe’s influence.

A pioneer in the rapid mapping of natural disasters, SERTIT’s service has covered close to 180 activations worldwide since 1996, pushing for operational services starting with the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters”, helped by ESA Market Development, CNES R&D, and GMES/Copernicus ESA and European Commission programs. Today, SERTIT is a key European Rapid Mapping (RM) actor and is involved in the EC Copernicus Emergency Management Services collaborating within the e-GEOS led consortium.

SERTIT encourages Rapid mapping collaboration and sharing of expertise at an international level and as such is a founding member of the International Working Group on Satellite-based Emergency Mapping (IWG-SEM), being supported by the CNES.

SERTIT was first to bring Rapid Mapping services to the insurance market through ESA EO Market Development programs working with the insurance sector, notably Swiss Re, on developing customised products and delivery mechanisms. Also, in this light it has signed a multi-annual contract with the CCR (Caisse Centrale de Réassurance).

SERTIT’s reliable and expert rapid mapping service always receives top marks. Taking client/user confidence seriously, this service was certified ISO 9001 in August 2011 and is currently integrating the 2015 version of ISO9001.

SERTIT has a very active forestry service being involved in R&D work and providing services to the forestry sector in windfall damage and forest infestation plus logging, clearing and tree-type mapping. Initiated in the 1990s, the collaboration with foresters and policy making institutions at a regional scale is continuously developing through major projects/contracts, for instance in the aftermath of Lothar storm. As a result, forestry managers and decision makers now consider Earth Observation remote sensing as an operational tool, complementary to field work and other sources of information. Combining expertise in forestry and rapid mapping, SERTIT is implementing a high resolution (HR) burnt area mapping service using Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 data.

In the bio-diversity field SERTIT has mapped for many years the cropland habitat of the endangered common hamster and ecological corridors in Alsace.

Systematic water body mapping: With the advent of the Copernicus Sentinel constellation, the systematic mapping of water bodies using radar and optical HR data is currently a major development axis with SERTIT. The work leverages nearly 20 years of water body monitoring within ESA Dragon projects with the R&D work currently being supported by the CNES, targeting the development of a service in the near future.

SERTIT is a consultant in remote sensing generally with some focus on 3D satellite and drone applications. The work involves also being a scientific coordinator in developing a generic photogrammetric processing chain dedicated to drone images and the investigation of satellite/drone synergies for decision support system in the field of security, infrastructure monitoring and environmental studies.

SERTIT delivers customised training programs worldwide. Benefiting from its position within the University, SERTIT delivers workshops and training courses on-site or at the clients’ premises. The training courses are tailored to fit clients’ needs and can cover some of the following subjects: GIS, remote-sensing and image processing, satellite and drone imagery, application of remote-sensing such as emergency mapping, hydrology, forestry management, disaster risk reduction. We have an extensive experience delivering training to private and institutional clients around the world using both open source and proprietary software. Don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss together your training needs!

SERTIT is a founding member of the EUGENIUS Association (a European Group of Enterprises for a Network of Information Using Space) which is set-up to provide, through regional hubs, regional institutional and commercial users with operational, sustainable and cost effective geo-information services by maximising benefit from Copernicus data and core services for territory monitoring and management. The deployment of this network of regional services is supported by the H2020-Space-EO1-2016 EUGENIUS project, which started on October 1st, 2016.