On Thursday, 30th of January, EARSC launched the User Uptake webinar series within the SDGs-EYES project, running from January to May 2025, with the aim to engage stakeholders, foster collaboration, and promote Copernicus-based services across five pilot areas. The first webinar focused on âGHG Emissions from Forest Fires: Advancing SDGs Indicators Monitoring, Reporting, and Accountingâ.
The User Uptake webinar series builds on previous SDGs-EYES co-design workshops and test validation activities, where potential users contributed to shaping and evaluating the pilot services. The Users Uptake webinars mark a crucial step in bridging the gap between development and operational deployment, ensuring the services meet users needs. Each webinar features a moderated panel discussion and targeted breakout sessions, offering a space for productive expert dialogue to refine the pilotâs service, identify synergies with existing services, and explore opportunities for wider adoption across other communities and EU countries.
The webinars are open to a broad audience connected to the thematic domains of the SDGs-EYES activities in relation to the monitoring of the SDGs. Participation is encouraged from primary, secondary, and tertiary stakeholders, to foster a moderated dialogue among diverse groups, enriching the outcomes and ensuring the relevance of SDGs-EYES solutions across sectors, including: data providers and trade associations, policy makers, research institutions, private and commercial users.
Key Takeaways and Next Steps
The first webinar âGHG Emissions from Forest Fires: Advancing SDGs Indicators Monitoring, Reporting, and Accountingâ facilitated a shared understanding among participants that, while EO-based emissions tracking for GHG emissions offers significant advantages, its successful adoption depends on addressing technical, institutional, and methodological barriers. Strengthening capacity, ensuring long-term data reliability, and developing hybrid models that blend EO insights with traditional statistical methods will be essential steps in improving GHG emissions monitoring in the EU.
There was broad agreement on the need for closer collaboration between research institutions, national statistical offices, forestry experts, private companies, and policymakers to advance EO-based emissions monitoring systems.
Looking ahead, the webinar also highlighted opportunities for collaboration between the pilot GHG emissions initiative and its defined user community. The session successfully sparked interest from potential users who are keen to test the pilotâs platform and apply it within their own frameworks.
If you have missed the live session, you can watch the recording and download the full report at this link.
Save the date for the upcoming webinars to engage with the SDGs-EYES user community and explore how to scale up the integration of Earth Observation solutions developed under the projectâs pilots:
- 15th of April, 14-16hCET "Extreme Temperature Risks: Advancing on SDGs-EYES Indicators Monitoring, Reporting and Accounting" This webinar will present a Copernicus-based tool that maps climate hazards and health risks, offering new and more representative heat-related indicators. It will explore how the tool supports risk assessment for the heat-health nexus in urban areas by integrating hazard data with demographic, socio-economic, health, and built environment factors. Join us and register here.
- 29th of April, 14-16hCET "Tracking climate security impacts in the Sahel region: Advancing on SDGs indicators monitoring, reporting and accounting" This session will introduce an Earth Observation-based tool that tracks disaster impacts, including affected buildings and communities in the Sahel region, to support climate security and disaster resilience policy-making. It will discuss how the toolâs datasets enhance understanding and response strategies for disasters in fragile countries. Join us and register here.
Don't hesitate to get in touch with francesca.piatto@earsc.org and laurine.tertre@earsc.org for more information on the above topics.