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Austria and many other European countries can build on a long experience of successful activities on land cover and land use (LC/LU) monitoring. However, in Austria these datasets have been produced with different standards, lack comparability or are in most cases outdated. Stakeholders from public administrations and the private sector demand up to date, more detailed, and harmonised LC/LU information, in order to fulfil the required reporting obligations arising from new European directives and regional / national legislation.

In order to overcome the shortcomings of existing LC/LU data sets for regional, national as well as European management and reporting requirements, the project Land Information System Austria (LISA) was initated by GeoVille together with other Austrian stakeholders. The project is funded by the Austrian Space Application Program (ASAP), and was successfully kicked off on June 15th in Vienna at the Austrian Institute of Technology.

Aims

The objective of LISA is to achieve a consensus on a new Austrian land information and monitoring system and demonstrate its benefits offering improved spatial and thematic content. LISA will be designed to serve common land monitoring needs providing information on the status quo and the changes occurring in Austria’s landscape. Thereby LISA will enable a wide range of downstream sectoral applications and user groups.

The goal of LISA is to apply cutting edge science, innovative technology and provide cost efficiency by combining satellite imagery with high resolution in-situ data, to achieve economics of scale and sustainability of funding through a shared effort across different administration units.

The efficiency and user applicability is further extended to the planned distribution of LISA through geoportal’s at local, regional, national and international level. The focus of the first phase of LISA will be laid on the correct transcription of user needs into user requirements and technical product specifications, as well as the verification of their technical and economic feasibility. Representatives of the provinces and the federal government will determine the user requirements. These will be verified by a scientific / technical advisory board and lead to binding technical specifications for production. The content of the LISA catalogue will be agreed at national level and drawn up according to the demands of European initiatives such as INSPIRE and GMES.

Project Partners

The project is supported by funds from the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (bmvit) through the Austrian Space Applications Program (ASAP 6) of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).

Geoville Group

GeoVille Group is a private sector enterprise located in Austria and Luxembourg. GeoVille Group specialises in products and services related to Earth Observation (EO) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications.

GeoVille is Europe’s leading company in using satellite data for spatial planning applications.

GeoVille’s services provide the bridge from user needs to technical implementation – merging geospatial explicit data with statistics – to the analysis of what on-going processes and trends mean for real world applications

Ph: +43-512-5620210
Fax:+43-512-56202122
Email: info@geoville.com
Web: www.geoville.com

GeoVille Austria is a key producer and provider of digital land use (clutter) maps to the telecom industry in Austria and other nations around the world for improved radio network planning. Typically the minimum mapping unit of these maps is in the 1 to 5 ha range.


With its in-house developed processing chain RegioCover©, GeoVille produced and now serves a nationwide digital land use map, termed Regiomap Austria, with an unsurpassed price-quality ratio. RegioCover©,is a highly-automated land use mapping application, that further increases the reliability and efficacy of traditional processing approaches. It was awarded with the 2007 Definiens GMES Innovation Award.

Regiomap Austria

Regiomap Austria was produced using an object oriented image analysis and interpretation approach based on 2007-2009 15m TERRA ASTER satellite data. Class labelling was supported through orthophotos. The resulting digital land use map has 25 classes with a minimum mapping unit of 0.25ha. This means an improved spatial resolution by a factor of 16 compared to previous clutter maps available for Austria. The thematic accuracy is >95% and the geometric location accuracy is specified with ±1 pixel size.

Regiomap Austria is an off-the–shelf, GIS-ready product with a delivery time of a few days. More information and product specifications can be found on GeoVille’s website

geoville group

GeoVille Group is a private sector enterprise located in Austria and Luxembourg. GeoVille Group specialises in products and services related to Earth Observation (EO) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications.

GeoVille is Europe’s leading company in using satellite data for spatial planning applications.

GeoVille’s services provide the bridge from user needs to technical implementation – merging geospatial explicit data with statistics – to the analysis of what on-going processes and trends mean for real world applications.

Ph: +43-512-5620210
Fax:+43-512-56202122
Email: info@geoville.com
Web: www.geoville.com

PCI News on Geospatial Leadership Award, ESRI’s Business Partner Program and Geospatial Web Conferencing Technology

PCI Geomatics Wins Geospatial Leadership Award

PCI Geomatics has won the Geospatial Innovator Award from GeoTec Media for its ProLines GeoImaging Server, as announced at the GeoTec Event in Vancouver, BC. The category of the ‘Geospatial Innovator Award’ recognizes geospatial tool developers that have created new software or hardware that expands the possibilities of the geospatial industry. Final nominees were selected from a large pool of applicants nominated by the GeoTec media audience.

Launched in April 2009, the ProLines GeoImaging Server is based on a GPU/CUDA implementation, and has successfully demonstrated the ability to automatically orthorectify 3TBs of imagery per day (approximately equivalent to all of Europe), with plans to demonstrate an 11TB per day system by the end of 2009.

http://www.pcigeomatics.com/pressnews/2009_PCI_geotec.html

For more information on the ProLines GeoImaging Server

PCI Geomatics Joins ESRI’s Business Partner Program

PCI Geomatics has joined the ESRI Business Partner Program. Together with ESRI, they will provide users with optimized desktop and server based workflows for correcting commercial satellite imagery along with tools for processing and analyzing radar imagery.

PCI Geomatics will produce software that is integrated closely with ArcGIS. This will allow both ESRI and PCI users to capitalize on their imagery investments and expand their use of geo-imaging and geospatial data.

http://www.pcigeomatics.com/pressnews/2009_PCI_esri_partner.html

PCI Geomatics Releases GeoConference® – Geospatial Web Conferencing Technology

PCI Geomatics announced the release of its geospatial web conferencing technology, GeoConference Version 3.0, a software solution which enables groups to share and view maps and images interactively over the web, in real-time. The benefits of GeoConference include: a cost-effective way to share maps, exchange information and simultaneously receive feedback from colleagues in real-time, reduce travel expenditures, easy set up and implementation, secure distribution of geospatial data without replication, use of open data standards and integration with other geomatics technology.

http://www.pcigeomatics.com/pressnews/2009_PCI_geoconference.html

For more information on GeoConferencing

(26th June, 2009) INNOVA Consorzio per l’Informatica e la Telematica has assisted ASI (Italian Space Agency) in a detailed study of how the COSMO-SkyMed system responds to an emergency situation, looking into the specific case of the 5.8 Ml magnitude earthquake that hit central Italy on Monday 6th of April 2009.

The COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) constellation has been designed and developed to maximise its flexibility and innovative data acquisition capabilities, taking into account three operational modes:

Routine mode, the nominal operation of the system, in which the planning is scheduled every 24 hours;

Crisis mode, where planning is done every 12 hours. In this mode it is possible to specify the areas of acquisition. Any crisis acquisition requests have absolute priority;

Very urgent mode, asynchronous acquisition activated under exceptional circumstances in order to obtain acquisitions of a specific area in the fastest possible manner.

The acquisition schedule can be rapidly changed to ensure the prompt response of the system to a crisis or emergency situation. When added to the special characteristics of the constellation, its ground segment, the high resolution products generated and their usability in applications to prevent, monitor and manage natural disaster and emergency situations, CSK becomes a sensor of maximum importance to supply essential information to entities in charge of planning and carrying out assistance, first aid and detailed evaluation of the damages caused by an emergency situation.

The detailed study carried out by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in collaboration with INNOVA is based on the analysis of historical COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) data of the disaster area acquired by the system before the event and the large number of images acquired of the Abruzzo area after the earthquake of the 6th of April. The object of the study is to carry out a detailed interferometric analysis of all available CSK of the disaster area, provide detailed information of the seismic events that have taken place in the Abruzzo area, and assess the value of CSK data to monitor and manage natural disaster and emergency situations and to produce mathematical models of the physical phenomena behind them.

A brief preview

Fig. 1 shows a CSK Stripmap Interferogram of the earthquake area, based on a pre-event master dated 23rd March and a post-event slave dated 23rd April. The topographic phase has been removed using SRTM DEM.

Fig. 2 shows the 204 shelters that form one of the homeless tent camps put up by aid workers to house 40,000 of the 66,000 people left homeless by the earthquake. The left hand side of the figure shows a CSK Spotlight Multi-temporal image using RGB technique. The colour blue shows the changes that have taken place in the area after the earthquake. The individual tents are clearly visible to the naked eye, as clearly evident when comparing to the optical equivalent from a DigitalGlobe image.

The full paper of the study will be presented during the 15th Ka and Broadband Communications Navigation and Earth Observation Conference, that will take place from the 23rd to the 25th of September in Cagliari, Italy.

All activities have been carried out within the ASI-INNOVA contract “ASI-GRID”.

Figure 1 – CSK Stripmap Interferogram 23rd March – 23rd April and Figure 2 – CSK Spotlight Multi-temporal RGB & DigitalGlobe Optical equivalent

About INNOVA

Headquartered in Matera, Italy, INNOVA Consorzio per l’Informatica e la Telematica s.r.l. is a technology provider in the remote sensing field, with experience in the development of Fleet Management and Geographical Information Systems (GIS), know-how and expertise geared towards the Earth Observation industry and the Public Administration Sector, and highly specialized knowledge of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), High Performance Computing (HPC) and GRID technology.

For more information, please contact our International Relations Manager, Marina Doubell:
Email: doubell@consorzio-innova.it
Phone: +39.0835.1852129
Website: www.consorzio-innova.com

Satellite Services BV of The Netherlands announces the release of is Versatile High Rate Earth Resources Demodulator (ERSDEM-3 VHRM) which is capable of operating up to 1.2Gbps.

The ERSDEM-3 VHRM is targeted at the Earth Observation market and provides users with both single and multi-channel options in a single system. The ERSDEM-3VHRM supports the standard coding schemes plus up and coming standards such as 4D-PSK.

The control and monitoring software delivered with the system provides the user with facilities to control and monitor the system and include real-time (multi-channel) demodulator scatter diagram display and product confidence data tagged of the incoming data.

The ERSDEM-3 VHRM can be integrated with Satellite Services BV Data Ingestion / Processing systems that support a range of industry standard DAS / NAS solutions.

For further information please visit www.spacelinkngt.com

(Source Satellite Services BV)

Project focused on identification and monitoring of abandoned land succesfully concluded

The REAL project aimed to explore potential of the state-of-the-art remote sensing techniques for monitoring of land abandonment in the Czech Republic.

The process of land abandonment has become widespread in the last decades in all CEEC reflecting substantial political and economical changes in this period. Nowadays, it represent a serious issue and if not solved in time, the abandonment of productive agricultural lands would further grow. These lands would then gradually degrade together with their cultural landscape, soils will lose their productive potential, and jobs would be lost with consequent further migrations and further land degradation in a vicious circle that would deepen the social and economic problems of these regions. Besides the major social and economical impact, the process of land abandonment can have also serious ecological consequences.

Sustainable use and management of abandoned areas and prevention of abandonement land area enlargement is one of the policy targets both on European [e.g. Agro-Environmental Regulation, Council Regulation (EEC) No 2078/92, Rural Development Regulation, Council Regulation (EEC) No 1257/99] and national level (e.g. Biodiversity Strategy of Czech Republic [MŽP,2005], Post-accession Rural Policy 2004 – 2013 [MZE, 2005]). Nevertheless, the assessment of the policy strategies requires clear measures based on the figures on status and evolution of abandoned land area. Unfortunately, there are currently no actual statistical data available on the extent of land abandonment so only rough estimates are used (e.g. total area of abandoned land about 300 000 ha, that is 7 percent of the total agricultural area (Ministry of Agriculture, 2001).

The project focused to develop and test new methodology for identification and monitoring of abandoned land via the state-of-the-art remote sensing techniques. Two pilot areas were used for demonstration of developed mapping approach – object-based classification combining three basic strategies for abandoned land monitoring: spectral (hyperspectral), textural and temporal (both long term and seasonal).

The project was done under the support of the EUPRO programme of Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic in the frame of the ERA-STAR GMES Pilot Project “Brownfields” led by INDRA, Spain.

Project presentation

Source GISAT

EUROSENSE created a “historical” Urban Atlas map over the Metropole Area Lille within the GSE Land project. The production was based on a change detection methodology comparing recent with historical satellite imagery.

Land use is driven by the interplay of economic, social and environmental factors. Good land management aims to find the right balance of these, often competing, factors, leading to a sustainable urban & regional land use. To achieve this, cities and regions need land use information. This information must not only cover the current state of the land, it should also evaluate the evolution over the last years and predict future trends.

Remote sensing methods can be employed to detect different land use types in a practical, economical and repetitive fashion, without facing typical problems with borders to cross or areas that are difficult to reach. This makes satellite data and its resulting applications an important input for reliable and timely land monitoring tools.

As metropolitan areas are growing and changing at unprecedented rates it is important to provide spatio-temporal data which can illustrate where changes have occurred and quantify the rate of urban sprawl and thus loss of green space. This kind of data can be used as a basis for understanding urban growth changes within a historical perspective.

Fig.1 shows the land use evolution – urban sprawl in the periphery of Lille. The images show the construction of a new highway and some residential areas. © SPOTimage

In that upset, EUROSENSE created a “land use change map” of the “Metropole Area Lille”. A comparison in soil occupation between 1993 and 2006 was performed using archive SPOT imagery. A SPOT5 image mosaic (2.5m resolution) from 2006 was compared to a corresponding dataset from 1993 using SPOT2 10m resolution satellite images.

The changes over this 13-year period were mapped using on-screen change detection methods, providing an accurate delineation and interpretation of land use evolutions. Combining these changes with the formerly created Urban Atlas 2006 resulted in a “historical” Urban Atlas map of 1993 over the Metropole Area Lille.

Fig.2 shows the land use evolution between 1993 and 2006, clear changes are visible between both Urban Atlas maps. The land use changes are delineated in black. © EUROSENSE

The production of this change map was realised by EUROSENSE within the project “GSE Land” (GMES Service Element), funded by ESA – www.gmes-gseland.info.

“Urban Atlas” is a European initiative; its purpose is to map the largest European cities according to a fixed procedure and legend. This legend consists of 26 different classes (derived from the CORINE and MOLAND nomenclature) with focus on artificial areas. Through this initiative it will be possible to compare the land use of different European cities and follow it up in time. The Urban Atlas constitutes also the basis for the calculations of different Urban Audit indicators/statistics.

The realisation of the project was a cooperation between the Intercommunale Leiedal, the province of West Flanders, l’Agence de Développement et d’Urbanisme de Lille Métropole and EUROSENSE.

EUROSENSE has a great expertise in the processing of satellite images. EUROSENSE has no limitations concerning satellite type or resolution. We have profound experience in the processing of a large spectrum of optical and radar satellite images (FORMOSAT, KOMPSAT, SPOT, IKONOS, Landsat, TerraSAR-X …).

For more information on these services, we refer to the following contact information:
EUROSENSE Belfotop N.V Belgium
Address: Nerviërslaan 54, B-1780 Wemmel, BELGIUM
Phone: +32 (0)2 460 70 00
Fax: +32 (0)2 460 49 58
Website: http://www.eurosense.com

(April 2009) RapidEye, the only geospatial solutions provider to own and operate their own satellite constellation, has reached a new contractual agreement with MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA). This partnership will allow MDA to be the sole supplier of direct downlink solutions for RapidEye’s international ground station customers.

MDA, RapidEye’s prime contractor, conducted the commissioning period on both the space and ground segment in which system performance and product quality have been thoroughly measured, analyzed and verified.

As part of the agreement with MDA, RapidEye’s international ground station customers will be provided with ground systems capable of programming, receiving and processing imagery from RapidEye’s constellation of five satellites.

Wolfgang Biedermann, CEO of RapidEye, commented, “The expansion of RapidEye’s range of services to include direct data downlink services will complement our core products and services business and will allow us to serve even more customers with near real-time imaging requirements.”

David Hargreaves, one of MDA’s Vice Presidents in the Information Systems group, said: “The strategic cooperation agreement established between MDA and RapidEye will enable our team to provide our operational defense and intelligence customers with secure, near real-time direct access to the broad area surveillance capabilities of the RapidEye constellation.”

About RapidEye AG
RapidEye is an ISO-certified geospatial information provider focused on integrating customized and industry specific solutions into the workflow of global customers in agriculture, forestry, energy, infrastructure, government, security, and emergency.

RapidEye experts and the satellite system – a constellation of five satellites capable of downloading over 4 million km² of high resolution, multi-spectral imagery per day, and a ground segment for processing and archiving data – allow for cost-effective customized services. The unique combination of large area coverage, high spatial resolution and the possibility of daily revisit to an area provide for superior management information solutions. Currently, more than 100 experts from more than 20 countries are employed by RapidEye, with plans to grow the team to 140 by early 2009.

RapidEye benefits from a public-private partnership with the Space Agency of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which is supported by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. RapidEye is also cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

For more information on ERDF please contact efreinfo@mw.brandenburg.de

For more information about RapidEye, please visit www.rapideye.de

RapidEye AG Contact
Molkenmarkt 30, 14776 Brandenburg a. d. Havel, Germany
Toll Free (US): +1 800 940 3617 | Phone: +49 3381 8904-0 | Fax: +49 3381 8904-101 |press@rapideye.de| www.rapideye.de

RapidEye is a “Selected Landmark in the Land of Ideas” and therefore part of the event series “365 Landmarks in the Land of Ideas”. This program is run by the initiative “Germany – Land of Ideas” and Deutsche Bank. Being a “Selected Landmark” RapidEye will stand for Germany being a “Land of ideas” in 2009 and will demonstrate Germany’s spirit of innovation. The initiative is under the patronage of Germany’s federal president Horst Köhler. www.land-of-ideas.org

In Santa Maria, Azores, EDISOFT is responsible for the management and operation of a dual-mission Station: the ESA Tracking Station and EDISOFT’s Earth Observation Station.

In Santa Maria, Azores, EDISOFT is responsible for the management and operation of a dual-mission Station: the ESA Tracking Station and EDISOFT’s Earth Observation Station.


SMA Station

Santa Maria’s Launchers Tracking Station is the first station of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Portuguese Territory and the first of ESA for tracking launchers. It has performed its first mission in March 2008, for the launch of the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), by Ariane 5 launcher, to the International Space Station (ISS). The management and operation of the Station of Santa Maria is a responsibility of EDISOFT, leading a consortium involving the regional companies GlobalEda and Segma.

In the last year, EDISOFT invested in expanding the station’s capacity for receiving EO SAR images from Remote Sensing Satellite, thus enabling the Station to combine two missions: launchers tracking and Earth Observation.

This new capability allows EDISOFT to complement its offer in the area of Remote Sensing with applicability in different areas, namely in Ocean Monitoring.


SMA Footprint

Santa Maria accompanies daily (day and night) the trajectories of several remote observation satellites, collecting data for monitoring oil spills and other operational services, including:

Acquisition and processing in NRT of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data

Santa Maria’s Station allows the acquisition of ENVISAT and RADARSAT-1 SAR data in the North Atlantic region in any weather conditions, both day and night.

Identification of oil spills and ships using SAR data

One interesting image acquired by the Santa Maria Station was this image of Cape Verde which identifies the track of a vessel pollution. The length of this spill was over 80-km and the polluter vessel is clearly visible through the bright spot in the far northeast of the spill.

Extraction of winds and sea agitation from SAR data

From the SAR data it is also possible to extract information concerning the wind and the agitation sea conditions.

The maritime monitoring and surveillance services provided by the Station already support the CleanSeaNet project, managed by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), and the MARISS (Maritime Security Service) project, this one an important part of the European Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program.

As a prime promoter of research and science, EDISOFT addresses synergies with different systems, new (SAR or optical) concepts and techniques, and the integration of data from Remote Sensing with in-situ observations, in order to streamline the creation of new products and value-added services, framed within the future national and European initiatives related to GMES and GMES-Africa.

Contact

EDISOFT
Empresa de Serviços e Desenvolvimento de Software, S. A.
Rua Quinta dos Medronheiros – Lazarim-
2820-486 Caparica, Portugal
Bárbara Guerra Manso, Head of Business Development & Marketing
Tel.:(+351) 212 945 900 /Fax:(+351) 212 945 999
E-mail: barbara.manso – at – edisoft.pt // www.edisoft.pt

-EEA officially recognizes quality of delivered mapping product
-Infoterra GmbH leads European Service provider network

A homogeneous map of high resolution core land cover data for built-up areas, including degree of soil sealing, for 38 countries in Europe has now been completed and delivered to the European Environment Agency (EEA).

In line with the project schedule, a European service provider network led by Infoterra GmbH, Germany, submitted the last of the datasets in late 2008. The products have passed the intensive checks by EEA and the respective user organisations with very good results:

“We are extremely satisfied with the results of this project”, states Chris Steenmans, Head of Programme Shared Environmental Information System Support at the EEA. “The quality and accuracy of the final mapping product as well as its timely delivery, along with a reliable compliance with our specifications and deadlines, fully meet our expectations. We are convinced that a great number of public authorities across Europe – on both national and European level – will significantly benefit from these data in their daily work.”

The product comprises raster datasets of built-up and non built-up areas including degree of soil sealing in full spatial resolution (20m x 20m) for 5.8 mio square kilometres across Europe, the reference year being 2006. The datasets will be made available to users on all administrative levels.

“Our concept of gathering essential expertise from all over Europe has proven successful and although the task was challenging, the cooperation has been extremely pleasurable”, explains Marek Tinz, responsible project manager at Infoterra. The service provider network consists of GeoVille GmbH (Austria), GISAT s.r.o. (Czech Republic), Metria (Sweden), Planetek Italia srl. (Italy), Tragsatec SA (Spain), and Infoterra GmbH (Germany).

_An element of the “fast track service precursor on land monitoring 2006-2008”, this project is among the first operational geo-information services within the GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) initiative of the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA). _

About Infoterra

Infoterra, wholly owned by Europe’s leading space company EADS Astrium, is a leading provider of geo-information products and services for managing the development, environment and security of our changing world. With entities in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Hungary, its customers include international corporations, governments and authorities around the globe, and organisations such as the European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Infoterra operates across a comprehensive range of markets – communications, environment, security, agriculture, defence, oil & gas exploration and many more. Furthermore, Infoterra holds the exclusive commercial exploitation rights for the high-resolution radar satellite TerraSAR-X, and plays a leading role in geo-information services within the European GMES initiative of the EC and ESA.

Infoterra, together with Spot Image, form the Earth Observation Division of EADS Astrium Services.

Images

IMG1_Europe: Visualization of sealing across Europe: Yellow coloring indicates a degree of sealing of 20% or more (representing a significant land consumption) in the 38 EEA member states.

IMG2_Subset_MetropolitanAreas: Subset of the European coverage: London and Paris metropolitan areas and the densely populated Netherlands, Belgium and Western Germany’s Rhine-Ruhr area. Yellow coloring indicates a degree of sealing of 20% or more (representing a significant land consumption).