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Germany, September 18, 2014: The obsAIRveYourBusiness project, funded by the European Commission (EC) will be started by bavAIRia and its partners GAF AG, DLR and Regio Augsburg Wirtschaft from Germany, Airparif from France, and the research networks CORILA and INNOVA from Italy.

The project will provide a customer-specific service for cities and regions by offering high-resolution air quality forecasts EC has given funding for this project in order to further develop the Copernicus downstream service obsAIRve. While obsAIRve already disseminates European-wide air quality information, obsAIRveYourBusiness will enhance the service with high resolution air quality model data for selected cities. An key aim of the project is to provide detailed air quality information on the city level. Using the latest mobile technology and numerical models, the service will translate environmental data into individually localised information for citizens.

The air quality service will deliver near real-time information via mobile apps and builds on experiences from the obsAIRve project and the European Copernicus programme.

Air pollution is one of the major health hazards faced by humans. A recent study by the WHO, released in March 2014, reports that air pollution resulted in around 7 million deaths in 2012. This is double the previous estimates and “confirms that air pollution is now the world’s largest single environmental health risk”. As Europe is no exception in this regard, the European Commission has provided funding for obsAIRveYourBusiness in order to further develop the Copernicus downstream service obsAIRve (www.obsairve.eu) and thereby address specific stakeholders and potential customers of the service in Europe. While obsAIRve already disseminates European-wide air quality information, obsAIRveYourBusiness will enhance the service with high resolution air quality model data for selected cities.

obsAIRveYourBusiness focuses on dedicated mobile apps for selected cities in Europe. An important objective of the project is to provide easily comprehensible and detailed air quality information on the city level. Using numerical models and the latest mobile technology, the service will translate environmental data into individually localised information for citizens. Key air pollutants are ozone, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. Information about and forecasting of these pollutants, as well as a general air quality index, will be accessible via each mobile app. In order to stay closely connected to the project stakeholders, workshops and user forums are planned throughout the project. This will allow the consortium to involve city representatives and other potential customers at an early stage in the service development and provide a platform to exchange information.

obsAIRveYourBusiness offers numerous possibilities for Europe by preparing the air quality service for the market. It will enable cities, regions and other stakeholders to start using high-resolution data for air quality management within cities in order to raise the awareness of citizens or for integration into other applications. In acknowledging the importance of air quality to human health, the challenge is to combine data from various sources and provide an easy to use and meaningful service for citizens and cities. The obsAIRveYourBusiness project is funded by the European Commission as part of its Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) and is part of the European Mobile and Mobility Industries Alliance (EMMIA). EMMIA aims to support European’s mobile and mobility industries using policy analyses and funding instruments.

Source: GAF AG

Crowdsourcing satellite imagery for big geoint represents a new and powerful tool for those addressing questions such as how many people are affected by the conflict in South Sudan? What is the extent of damage caused by the revolution in Syria? Where should the US Navy focus its search for malasian Airlines Flight 370?

Such questions are addressed on a daily basis by geospatial intelligence professionals in their work of mapping buildings and infrastructure, identifying vehicles, people or objects, and searching for needles in a global haystack.

Extracting this geospatial intelligence at a planetary scale is an enormous challenge. For example, the Arab Spring in 2010 inspired protests in Syria in early 2011, which spilled over into revolution by 2012 and is now a full-blown civil war. Tracking the evolution of these events, mapping them across an entire nation and understanding the real-time consequences are daunting tasks for any one analyst.

However, with global challenges comes a global solution. The international community connected online, now rallies around challenges like reporting damage, counting vehicles, tracking events and mapping war zones. Using new forms of data, including satellite images, photo-sharing and social media, the “crowd” has become an indispensable producer of geospatial intelligence. But, as with any new form of data, gathering, understanding and assessing the reliability of crowd-sourced information is a new frontier for GEOINT.

Satellites and eyeballs

Satellites collect millions of square kilometers of earth imagery every day, gathering amazing data about our planet. This relentless influx of pixels contains valuable information about important locations, objects, and events across the globe. Potentially, every home and office, every car and plane, every flood and fire may be captured, recorded and extracted by satellite imagery.


Crowdsourcing satellite imagery after the devastating tornado in Moore, OK pinpointed every destroyed home (orange) and damaged roof (blue)

While we gain increasing sophistication utilizing algorithms to analyze imagery, nothing to date matches the perception and intuition of the human brain. Humans excel at identifying locations that look “interesting”, objects that are “new”, or events that seem “important”. These complex cognitive tasks, while simple for us, are very difficult to automate with machine algorithms. Exploiting human analysis at the volume and velocity of any constellation is a huge task: much of the valuable insight that is locked inside these pixels is never realized simply because of the overwhelming challenge of looking at them all.

So how can we extract rapid, reliable, human insight from trillions of pixels? By scaling the data analysis challenge across a massive human network, all working in synchrony, we can expand our understanding of what imagery tells us about the world. The idea that “many hands make light work” is the essence of crowdsourcing. Large, interconnected groups of humans, working in a coordinated effort on a shared goal can uncover insights and accomplish feats that would be impossible for a single individual.

The “ideal” is achieved by combining the efficiencies of technology with the intelligence of human analysis. One company, DigitalGlobe achieves this ideal with Tomnod, an online crowdsourcing network of thousands of volunteers who all contribute to analysis of satellite imagery.

Anyone who has ever used their smartphone to map their commute or looked up their house on Google Earth is familiar with basic GEOINT and satellite imagery interpretation. An intuitive web interface builds on this widespread familiarity and empowers almost anyone to contribute to imagery analysis campaigns. Tomnod divides massive image datasets into many small “tiles” and sends each tile to multiple individual users. Each member of the crowd is asked to identify relevant features in the tile: maybe locating homes damaged by a tornado, pinpointing cars in a parking lot or mapping religious sites in a city.

It’s impossible to guarantee that every individual in the crowd has the experience, expertise and energy to identify all the complex or subtle features in a satellite image. But crowdsourcing works by identifying consensus among multiple, independent people, each working on the same image. As users examine each pixel from each image tile and provide their interpretation of the imagery, the “wisdom of the crowd” begins to emerge. Each member of the crowd works in isolation but when multiple individuals agree about a particular location or feature, we can have confidence that something relevant has been detected.

To date, the Tomnod crowd has been deployed on hundreds of satellite imagery exploitation campaigns, including:

  • Situational awareness for Humanitarian Assistance & Disaster Response (Typhoon Haiyan case below),
  • Search and rescue support for missing people, planes and ships
    (Malaysia Airlines flight 370 case below),
  • Building damage detection for post-disaster Insurance &
    Reinsurance assessment,
  • Vehicle and human activity detection for Defense & Homeland Security,
  • Wide-area surveying for Oil & Gas Exploration, and
  • Mapping and monitoring of crucial Supply Chain Infrastructure

CrowdRank™ is a geospatial consensus algorithm that quantifies the
degree of confidence in crowdsourced information. CrowdRank works by calculating the agreement between all the individual contributors in the crowd. Every click from every user on the Tomnod website is analyzed by CrowdRank to compute two scores:

1. The confidence in each location, based on consensus among the crowd and
2. The reliability of each individual, based on their agreement with
the rest of the crowd

By assessing confidence and reliability of the crowd’s contributions, CrowdRank takes hundreds of thousands of unverified inputs and transforms them into qualified, consensus detection. The result is a ranked list of important locations that decision makers, field responders or expert analysts can exploit to understand the information contained in the pixels. CrowdRank insight is delivered or integrated into existing GEOINT workflows via shape file, KML, GeoJSON API, web feature service (WFS), spreadsheets or custom analytics reports.

Big Data problems can often be characterized by having four challenges: Volume, Velocity, Variety and Veracity. Here’s how crowdsourcing meets each of these challenges:

THE FOUR V’S OF BIG DATA
Volume Crowdsourcing mobilizes a team of hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of volunteers who can cover vast areas of imagery many times over. Using crowdsourcing as a first pass over the imagery, provides expert analysts and response teams with the clues they need to hone in on the most important regions
Veracity Everyone makes mistakes. But when consensus emerges between tens or hundreds of individuals, all pinpointing the same feature in imagery, we extract true insight from crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing gathers input from a crowd of independent humans and identifies the locations of maximum agreement. An algorithm such as CrowdRank™ computes the reliability of each person in the crowd and statistically determines the most relevant locations
Variety A machine algorithm can learn to recognize cars but it will fail to detect planes, ships, or any of the infinite variety of other interesting objects on the earth. Crowdsourcing is flexible to match the needs of the analysis by tasking the crowd to identify a variety of features such as buildings, infrastructure, objects, and natural or man-made events
Velocity Exploiting satellite imagery with human analysts is an expert process that takes time. By applying hundreds or thousands of people to the problem, crowdsourcing increases the scale and speed of analysis immensely, while still retaining the accuracy of human insight. The task of analyzing 250,000 km2 of imagery that might take a single analyst weeks, can be competed in a day using crowdsourcing

Case Study: Haiyan Typhoon

In November 2013, devastation hit the Philippines when Super Typhoon Haiyan made landfall, becoming the strongest typhoon ever recorded in terms of wind speed.

DigitalGlobe satellites immediately began to document the devastation, and captured over 100,000km2 of imagery in the week following the storm. This real-time imagery was immediately loaded onto the Tomnod
platform as it came in. The call was sent out to the Tomnod crowd, asking for their help to map thousands of affected locations and rapidly assess the damage.

Within minutes of getting access to imagery, thousands of damaged buildings, destroyed homes and blocked roads were identified. These crowdsourced results provided situational awareness to aid first responders and humanitarian groups, and delivered rapid damage assessments to assist reconstruction efforts and advise on future disaster mitigation planning.

Before and after: one of the most damaged areas identified by crowdsourcing, near Tacloban city

Case Study: Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Flight 370 left Kuala Lumpur at 12:41am on Saturday March 8 2014 with 239 passengers and crew en route to Beijing. An hour later, the transponder stopped working and the plane’s location became a mystery that captured the world’s imagination. Was it hijacked? Did it crash? Was there a malfunction or was foulplay involved? Most importantly: where was the plane or its wreckage? By Sunday March 9, satellite images were captured over the Gulf of Thailand, close to the last-known position of the plane. The call went out to the Tomnod crowd and, within minutes, thousands of people were identifying evidence of oil slicks on the water or possible signs of wreckage. As search boats and planes were mobilized, new information came in revealing that the plane was likely airborne for many more hours after the transponder stopped. The search zone widened to include the Strait of Malacca to the west, the South China Sea to the east and the Indian Ocean to the south.

As more and more imagery poured in, more and more volunteers joined the Tomnod site to contribute their insight about any possible clues. At time of writing, almost four million volunteers have viewed over 120,000km2 of high resolution satellite imagery. Every pixel has been viewed by at least 10 volunteers and millions of possible clues have been tagged. CrowdRank collects these inputs and produces a daily ranking of the most likely search spots which are then vetted by expert analyst and search teams.


Search area for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Green rectangles represent areas of satellite imagery collection while yellow circles indicate the top locations of thousands of crowdsourced detections. View this map at tomnod.com

Join the Crowd!

The phenomenal response to Tomnod crowdsourcing campaigns as engaged a new kind of analysis where millions of volunteers use high-resolution imagery to search vast areas with incredible precision. Crowdsourcing illustrates a new direction for GEOINT where individuals are both producers and consumers of data, experts and novices work side-by-side and human insight is augmented by machine
automation.

Crowdsource satellite images yourself by visiting Tomnod.com. You can view results from previous crowdsourcing campaigns and, with more pixels pouring in all the time, contribute to understanding new images of our ever-changing planet.

This article was originally published by Earth Imaging Journal, Jan/Feb 2014. Find out more digitalglobe.com

The PanGeo Alliance, announced in September in Paris, is the first global alliance of Earth Observation satellite operators. With four members, the Alliance provides access to imagery and tasking opportunities from a unique and growing fleet of Earth Observation satellites, providing multispectral imagery in a range of resolutions (from 20m to 75cm per pixel), and a daily global imaging capability. All PanGeo Alliance members can provide access to the full products portfolio of the whole satellite fleet, so that customers can benefit from a global network of resellers and a unified access point to new tasking and archive imagery.

Elecnor Deimos, the technological branch of the Elecnor group, announced in September during the annual Euroconsult’s Summit on Earth Observation Business in Paris, the launch of the PanGeo Alliance, the first global alliance of Earth Observation satellites operators. The PanGeo Alliance currently federates 4 satellite operator entities from around the world: Dauria Aerospace (US/Russia), the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science & Technology (UAE), Elecnor Deimos (Spain) and Beijing Space Eye Innovation Technology (China).

The PanGeo fleet is composed of 9 satellites currently in orbit. Six are multispectral imaging satellites (DubaiSat-1, DubaiSat-2, Deimos-1, Deimos-2, TH-1-01 and TH-1-02) and three provide AIS data (Perseus-M1, Perseus-M2, Dauria-DX-1). This fleet will be expanded to more than 30 satellites in the next years with the launch of KhalifaSat, of the Perseus-O and Auriga constellations, and with the expansion of the TH-1 constellation, plus satellites brought into the alliance by prospective new members that may join in the future.

The PanGeo fleet provides multispectral imagery in a wide range of resolutions (from 20m to 75cm per pixel), with a daily global imaging capability, and it complements this offer by providing AIS data for ship identification and maritime traffic control. All PanGeo Alliance members can provide access to the full satellite fleet and product portfolio from all members.


The satellite fleet of the PanGeo Alliance

PanGeo multisatellite mission planning allows to assess imaging opportunities for all satellites in the alliance, and to directly request imaging tasking to the satellite operator. PanGeo Alliance will also coordinate the access to the archives of all members, so that each member can see what is available and directly request images from the entire Alliance archive.

The PanGeo satellite fleet provides unmatched revisit capabilities for high frequency targets, and customers can benefit of a global network of resellers and of a unified access point to new tasking and archive imagery of the complete fleet plus an extensive range of final user and data fusion products.

Elecnor Deimos
Elecnor Deimos is Elecnor’s technological area that specialises in engineering solutions in the aerospace, information systems and telecommunications sectors. Its main business areas are remote sensing, aerospace and defence systems, air and maritime navigation, satellite systems.
www.elecnor-deimos.com

Elecnor
Elecnor develops projects involving infrastructure, renewable energies and new technologies. It has 12,500 employees and operates in over 40 countries.
www.elecnor.com

DEIMOS-2, the first Spanish very-high resolution satellite and the highest-resolution fully private satellite in Europe, was launched last June. It has now successfully completed its in-orbit commissioning and it is entering the operational and commercial phase of its mission. DEIMOS-2 acquires panchromatic and 4-band multispectral images over a 12-km swath, producing pan-sharpened or stereo images with a resolution of 75 cm. DEIMOS-2 will declare Initial Operational Capability in November 2014 and will enter into Full Operational Capability in January 2015, marking the start of full-fledged, 24/7 commercial service.

Elecnor Deimos, the technological branch of the Elecnor group, successfully launched DEIMOS-2, Spain’s first very-high resolution satellite, into orbit last June 19th.

DEIMOS-2, with a mass of 300 kg and over 2 meters long, is a very-high resolution multispectral satellite which produces pan-sharpened images with a resolution of 75 cm per pixel. Its advanced imaging camera acquires panchromatic and 4-band multispectral images over a 12-km swath (which can be increased to 24 km in its wide-area mode), with a sustained production capacity in excess of 150,000 km2/day. DEIMOS-2 is also capable of acquiring single-pass stereo pairs, which allows creating 3D models of the imaged area.


Artistic impression of the DEIMOS-2 satellite in orbit.

DEIMOS-2, developed by Elecnor Deimos in collaboration with Satrec-I (South Korea), is the highest-resolution fully private satellite in Europe, and one of the very few privately-owned submetric satellites in the world.

The satellite is expected to have an operational lifetime in excess of seven years, and will contribute to projects in various applications fields, from agriculture, environment and climate change monitoring, to monitoring of natural crisis and civil protection (fires and floods), as well as defence, intelligence and borders control.

After the by-the-book launch and early orbit phase, DEIMOS-2 has successfully completed its in-orbit commissioning, which included the orbit maneuvers campaign to reach its nominal operational orbit, and the in-flight calibration of the payload.

During this period, DEIMOS-2 has acquired more than 2,000 images to support its payload calibration and to test all operational acquisition modes across their envelope.

To demonstrate its capacity of mapping large regions in a short time, DEIMOS-2 has acquired the full Community of Madrid (more than 8,000 km2), cloud-free, within the month of August. The production of the resulting 75-cm pansharpened mosaic (14,300 megapixels) also served as a stress test for its process4EO processing chain, which has been fully developed by Elecnor Deimos as part of its gs4EO® (Ground segment for Earth Observation) suite of products.

Elecnor Deimos will declare DEIMOS-2 Initial Operational Capability in November 2014 and will enter into Full Operational Capability in January 2015, marking the start of full-fledged, 24/7 commercial service.


Mosaic of the Madrid region (8,030 km2), composed of DEIMOS-2 75-cm pansharpened images acquired in August 2014.


Detail of the Four Towers of Madrid, the highest buildings in Spain. Pansharpened DEIMOS-2 image acquired in August 2014.

Elecnor Deimos
Elecnor Deimos is Elecnor’s technological area that specialises in engineering solutions in the aerospace, information systems and telecommunications sectors. Its main business areas are remote sensing, aerospace and defence systems, air and maritime navigation, satellite systems.
www.elecnor-deimos.com

Elecnor
Elecnor develops projects involving infrastructure, renewable energies and new technologies. It has 12,500 employees and operates in over 40 countries.
www.elecnor.com

Gisat has been awarded as one of the EO information service providers within the joint ESA and World Bank initiative EOWORLD2.

The project follows up its successful precursor EOWORLD where Gisat was involved into mapping of metropolitan cities in Bangladesh and India. Now, the focus moved to other metropolitan cities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The World Bank is currently performing number of studies to better understand the extensive urban growth in the metropolitan areas in South Asia. Urbanization in South Asia is expanding rapidly as increasing numbers of people migrate to towns and cities in search of economic opportunity. Slums now account for 1/4 of all urban housing and many are situated near employment centers in the inner city, unlike in most other developing countries. Meeting the needs of soaring urban populations is and will therefore continue to be a strategic policy issue both for the World Bank and South Asia region countries.

In this context, the service case requested aims to contribute to these activities in selected four metropolitan areas in the region by generating land use mapping products with focus on urban expansion, its spatial and temporal patterns and land use change dynamics. Exploiting satellite imagery represents ideal and efficient source of such information while providing the necessary spatial attributes at the city level, which could be combined with Bank’s database on social and economic indicators, environmental attributes and demographic statistics. Similarly to the former project, the service will provide information on the land use dynamics within last decade (between 2000-2002 and 2010-2013 time horizons) but thanks to availability of very high resolution optical images also at better spatial detail. Improved granularity enables detection of desirable land use classes also at higher accuracy.

ESA and the World Bank has already long and successful track in collaboration to explore the potential of Earth Observation for the Bank’s operations. Based on the previous promising outcomes, Earth Observation information support is continuously scaled up and more and more incorporated into World Bank activities in the marine environment, water resources management, urban development, urban and disaster risk management, and agriculture and forestry.

In this assignment, Gisat capitalizes its long standing worldwide expertise in EO based land cover / land use applications in urban domain as well as previous practical experiences with EO based support of international financial institutions (e.g. World Bank, EIB, ADB,…)

Gisat provides wide range of geoinformation services based on Earth Observation technology. It focuses on operational application of satellite mapping to monitor various aspects of our environment and development of dedicated web based platforms for geoinformation analysis and assessment Web // E-mail // Tel:+420 271741935 // Fax: +420 271741936

The tropical rain forests round the sprawling Maya site of Calakmul (Mexico) was recognised as natural world heritage site at the UNESCO summit held in Qatar in June. Calakmul joined the select circle of places that can call themselves “mixed cultural and natural world heritage” sites. This new recognition was made possible thanks to an advanced information system for heritage sites, made in Belgium.

Challenge

Managers of major heritage sites are often faced with the same challenges:

how do you manage efficiently the enormous amount of information about the site?
How do you document how the site has evolved through time?
What actions are necessary to ensure the preservation of the site?

Initiative

To provide an answer to such questions, the Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO) concluded a framework contract with UNESCO. This agreement provided for a series of research and development projects geared to managing UNESCO heritage information better.

Heritage in 4D

A Belgian consortium headed by GIM, a Belgium-based firm specialised in GIS software and Earth Observation services, delved into improving the information management for the Calakmul site in Mexico.

Together with the Universities of Leuven, Ghent and Liège, GIM developed an instrument that enables the managers of Calakmul to collect, manage and disseminate all available information on the site. The geographic information system uses technology such as satellite images and 3D models to map the sprawling heritage site and its natural environment.

One unique feature is that the time dimension can be integrated in spatial analyses. This gives managers insight into the ecological and archaeological developments through time. Because of this extra dimension, the system was christened “Calakmul 4D GIS.”

Temporal evolution analysis

High resolution land use maps (representing the situation in 2002-2003 and 2008-2009) of the entire Biosphere Reserve were generated by GIM, based on new Formosat 2 and archive SPOT satellite images. These land use maps can be used to analyse the temporal evolution of the land use/land cover in the area. The new land use maps were compared to each other and to the available old land use map (1996-2000) to detect the changes and identify potential threats.

Formosat-2 imagery was also used to investigate the potential of remote sensing to document Maya ruins and detect evidences of the presence of archaeological remains in a tropical forest environment. This data set has been processed using innovative object-based image analysis techniques.

About Clakamul 4D

Calakmul 4D GIS is based on the GIM GeoCMS, an advanced Content Management System (CMS) that combines the traditional properties of a web CMS (management and publication of information via the Web) with the spatial analysis and display features of a Geographic Information System.

Results

Calakmul 4D GIS enables managers of large heritage sites to document, monitor and manage the archaeological and ecological situation of the heritage site. The system features a virtual visit to the site as well as support for the time dimension. A special module was recently created to compile a comprehensive nomination file for UNESCO world heritage. Managers can now create their nomination file in the format required by UNESCO at the push of a button. This was demonstrated with two successful UNESCO world heritage nominations in 2014: the Calakmul site in Mexico and a first transnational portion of the Silk Roads in Central Asia.

Contact

Vincent Tigny, Team Manager Earth Observation, GIM (Geographic Information Management nv). vincent.tigny@gim.be. telephone +32 16 40 30 39

Brigitte Decadt, International Cooperation, Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO) / Joost Vandenabeele, Space Research and Applications, STEREO Programme, Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO)

Links

Ancient Maya City and Protected Tropical Forests of Calakmul, Campeche: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1061

CALAKMUL BELSPO project: Development and use of a 4D Geographic Information System to support the conservation of the Calakmul site: http://eo.belspo.be/Directory/ProjectDetail.aspx?projID=838

About GIM

GIM – Geographic Information Management nv – specialises in products and services for the management of geographic information. It pools its expertise in geographic information systems, geomarketing, geo ICT, geo data and Earth Observation to provide unique insights into the spatial dimension of its customers’ activities. A multi-disciplinary team of nearly fifty geographers, engineers, physicists and IT scientists at the facilities in Leuven and Gembloux works on smart geo products and solutions for companies and governments. (www.gim.be)

About Belspo

The Belgian Science Policy and the ten federal scientific institutes are tasked with capitalising to the maximum on Belgium’s scientific and cultural potential for the benefit of policymakers, industry and citizens: “a policy by and for science.” BELSPO has been supporting the “Earth sciences” at UNESCO for several years, pursuant to a UNESCOEAS agreement geared to encouraging the use of earth observation satellites for the monitoring of world heritage sites. The involvement of BELSPO means not only direct support for the World Heritage Centre, but also through the financing of projects, namely the national Earth Observation programme STEREO, which enables scientists and Belgian companies to develop their expertise and apply it in innovative fields (use of satellite images, GIS and GPS, 3D modelling, etc.). (www.belspo.be)

Opportunities remain in the EO market for manufacture and data export; short-term growth for commercial data driven by defense, enterprise markets also faster emerging.

PARIS, MONTREAL, WASHINGTON D.C., OCTOBER 9, 2014 – According to Euroconsult’s newly published report, Satellite-Based Earth Observation: Market Prospects to 2023, 353 Earth observation (EO) satellites are expected to be launched over the next decade compared to 162 over 2004-2013. This will result in $36 billion in manufacturing revenues over the period, an 85% increase over the previous decade. Organizations from 41 countries are expected to launch EO satellite capacity by 2023, compared to 33 over the previous decade. Government supply continues to grow strongly as more countries expand their portfolios of EO satellites to meet various policy needs. In addition, newcomers are launching EO satellite capacity to develop a local industrial base, create the building blocks for a space program, obtain greater autonomy in data acquisition, and/or meet local demand for data and services. As a result, investment in EO and meteorology programs reached a high in 2013 at $8.7 billion, a 13% increase over 2012. This represents the 8th year of continued investment growth, with EO remaining a primary concern for government space expenditures.

Commercial supply is also expected to go through a significant expansion, both from private sector initiatives (the expansion of fleets, and new entrants) and government commercialization of proprietary systems. New entrants such as Skybox Imaging have launched their first satellites, and others, particularly in the domain of commercial meteorology and environment monitoring solutions, could follow suit in the next decade. “With this expansion in commercial supply, differentiating positions of the operators will come to the fore, with trade-offs in ground resolution, revisit, geolocation accuracy, and data prices,” said Adam Keith, Director of Space & Earth Observation at Euroconsult and editor of the report. “Nevertheless, competition is increasing and with new entrants possibly pricing data and solutions very competitively, there is the potential for disruption in the market.”

COMMERCIAL DATA MARKET GROWTH STAGNATION DISGUISES OPPORTUNITIES

Supply of EO solutions continues to expand and diversify despite an overall slowing of commercial data demand; this slowing is a result of reduced U.S. government defense spending on commercial data compared to previous years. The commercial data market totaled $1.5 billion in 2013; this represents stagnant (0%) growth from 2012 as the impact of reduced U.S. government spending takes effect.

The level of the U.S. defense outlay however disguises growth elsewhere in the market, in particular in sales to non-U.S. defense users. The commercial data market to non-U.S. defense organizations totaled $560 million in 2013 and has grown at a 14% CAGR over the last five years. In order to meet this demand, commercial operators are successfully providing direct-access satellite contracts to defense users. Emerging enterprise markets are also expected to further develop, particularly location-based services and support to engineering and infrastructure projects.

In 2023 the market for commercial EO data is expected to reach $3.6 billion (8% CAGR over 2014-2023). Regionally, the Asian markets, Latin America and Africa are expected to have strong growth profiles with expected growth at over 10% CAGR to 2023. Natural resources management, engineering & infrastructure, and again defense are expected to be the main application areas supporting growth.

MANUFACTURING EXPORT OPPORTUNITIES TO INCREASE, POSES DILEMMA TO THE INDUSTRY

Satellites launched from emerging programs will account for a growing part of the manufacturing market. Between 2004 and 2013, $1.9 billion of the total EO manufacturing revenues were derived from these programs; this is expected to increase to $4.4 billion between 2014 and 2023. Such programs, which may lack proprietary manufacturing solutions, are expected to be a key driver for the upstream industry looking to export solutions.

The majority of export activities to date have focused on lower-cost technology transfer missions to help develop a national industry and/or space program. Partnerships have been a successful mechanism to build up emerging manufacturers’ expertise. However, further countries have chosen to procure high-cost EO systems to meet more immediate national requirements, particularly for defense. For countries lacking a national manufacturing infrastructure, more direct procurement is required from existing “high-end” solutions. In this case, capacity building is dropped in favor of obtaining a high-performing satellite delivered in a shorter timeframe. The dilemma for the established manufacturers capable of designing “high-end” systems is whether they expand into the development of lower-cost solutions, or remain with high-end provision, despite the more limited number of export opportunities.

There is however already strong competition to address these opportunities as most major prime manufacturers look to expand their business. In addition, by 2023, 26 countries are expected to have full manufacturing capabilities (acting as a prime and/or integrator); this will add further competition in the longer term for the developing EO satellite export market.

About the Report

Satellite-Based Earth Observation, Market Prospects to 2023 is the only report providing industry forecasts, assessment of business opportunities and analysis of the entire value chain for this growing segment of the satellite industry. The 7th edition of this landmark report includes a detailed breakdown of application sectors within each region along with consolidated forecasts per application sector and per region. For more information on this report, please visit www.euroconsult-ec.com/shop.

About Euroconsult

Euroconsult is the leading global consulting firm specializing in space markets. As a privately-owned, fully independent firm, we provide first-class strategic consulting, develop comprehensive research and organize executive-level annual summits for the industry. With 30 years of experience, Euroconsult is trusted by over 570 clients in over 50 countries. Euroconsult is headquartered in Paris, with offices in Montreal, Washington, D.C., and permanent representation in Japan.

PRESS CONTACT
Andrew Smith
+1 (514) 903-1001
smith@euroconsult-na.com
www.euroconsult-ec.com

Airbus Defence and Space and Exelis are teaming up to provide users of ENVI image analysis software an exclusive, limited time voucher offer for new imagery as well as easy access to the Airbus Defence and Space imagery archive through an application programming interface (API) plug-in integrated within Exelis’ ENVI software. The partnership between Airbus Defence and Space and Exelis helps to expand the network that makes imagery easily accessible to GIS (Geographic Information System) users.

The voucher program will offer a specific amount of Airbus Defence and Space imagery free of charge with any new ENVI license purchase, starting October 1, 2014. ENVI combines advanced spectral image processing and proven geospatial analysis technology with a modern, user-friendly interface. ENVI users will be able to integrate the Airbus Defence and Space imagery they receive through this program seamlessly into the ENVI software for use in applications such as feature extraction, change detection analysis, target identification, and much more.

The growing partnership has enabled Exelis and Airbus Defence and Space to develop and integrate an extension in ENVI software that directly connects to the Airbus Defence and Space imagery archive via an API. This allows ENVI users the opportunity to search and discover the Geo-Intelligence imagery archive directly within their ENVI environment. Users will have access to a full range of fresh optical and radar imagery including: 1.5m SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 and 50cm Pléiades data.

This agreement between Airbus Defence and Space and Exelis gives ENVI users easy access to a full range of fresh optical and radar imagery, providing them with more accurate results for their projects and helping them make better decisions. We are excited to see new opportunities developing with this growing partnership.”
Bernhard Brenner Head of the Geo-Intelligence Programme Line of Airbus Defence and Space

This integrated approach modernizes the way that people will discover data and access new imagery in conjunction with their existing imagery or GIS layers. By letting ENVI users easily identify and geo-locate thumbnail previews of available imagery within an area of interest without leaving the ENVI environment, our customers will save time and make better decisions in mission and project planning and execution.” Stuart Blundell General Manager at Exelis Visual Information Solutions

The voucher program will be available to new ENVI users as of October 1, 2014, and soon after all ENVI users will be able to search and discover the Airbus Defence and Space imagery archive. To learn more about this partnership, please stop by the Airbus Defence and Space booth #C3.049 or the Exelis booth #B3.036 at InterGEO, October 7-9, 2014 in Berlin.

Munich / Tianjin 24 September 2014 – ChinaRS Geoinformatics Co., Ltd. (ChinaRS) is partnering with CloudEO AG the provider of a unique geo collaboration platform. Objective of this cooperation is the worldwide provision of complementary geo data, software and services on a pay-per-use or revenue sharing basis. On September 5th the cooperation agreement was signed in Tianjin, China.

Dr. Ren Fuhu, CEO of ChinaRS, and Deputy Director of the Cloud Computing Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences says “We would like to provide all those who work with geo data and software with an easy and affordable remote sensing cloud service platform. Our new cooperation with CloudEO is a great endorsement for our users as Chinese companies will be able to use the software and services provided by CloudEO partners on a pay-per-use basis.”

Dr. Manfred Krischke, CEO of CloudEO summarizes “ChinaRS and CloudEO had the same business idea at the same time more than 20,000 kilometers away from each other. This is a perfect fit. Together we will become the new global force in the geo data market.”

At the National Annual Remote Sensing Conference from 20th to 22nd of September RSChina launched its new online store RSCloudMart – CloudEO services included. And the next cooperation steps are already fixed. CloudEO will set up an own infrastructure in China supported by ChinaRS.


About CloudEO

CloudEO – the unique portal for all those who create, interpret and use geodata. CloudEO offers to its customers a secure and highly scalable geo infrastructure to develop, produce and market geo services. It brings data, software and processing power together within a private cloud service and a certified hosting environment. Within CloudEO’s geo collaboration platform content providers, software developers, service providers and geodata users become partners within one ecosystem providing affordable geo services for commercial applications.
www.cloudeo-ag.com

About ChinaRS

ChinaRS was founded in 2007 by the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Tianjin Municipal Government to accelerate the transformation and industrialization of the technologies developed by RADI. The company is headquartered in Tianjin and has five subsidiaries respectively located in Tianjin City, Beijing City, and provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu and Hebei.
http://www.rscloudmart.com

Press Contact:
Dr. Sonja Sulzmaier
press@cloudeo-ag.com

British satellite imaging company DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii) today announced the completion of its Flagship project to develop a global system using Earth Observation (EO) satellite data to measure land carbon storage and how it changes over time.

The project, supported by Innovate UK (formerly known as the Technology Strategy Board) was developed with consortium partners Rezatec Ltd Landscape Intelligence data services provider and University College London (UCL), world-renowned remote sensing and carbon sequestration researchers.

The consortium was able to develop and deliver a unique approach to assimilating and transforming EO data from different sources and resolutions to calculate tropical forest carbon stock worldwide and provide a platform for carbon fluctuation modelling.

The project developed an online model representation of the tropical forestland class on a global scale.

The model uses Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) outputs, from the NASA MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument, combined with ground data to emulate contemporary forestland classification distribution across the tropical portions of the globe.

The model was designed to form the baseline for monitoring trends in forest cover and associated carbon stock quantification over time. The model software environment has been developed to assimilate ground data from multiple sources so that carbon stock calculations for a given area of interest can be further trained for enhanced local accuracy using minimal ground plots.

The challenge the project sought to overcome was in reducing the high levels of error and uncertainty inherent in using coarse resolution EVI/NDVI inputs to drive quantitative assessments of carbon stock.

Using a combination of highly optimised statistical processing algorithms developed by Rezatec on the CEMS (Climate, Environment and Monitoring from Space) facility at the Satellite Applications Catapult in Harwell and EO data modelling approaches developed by UCL and DMCii, error and uncertainty in this area has been substantially reduced.

Accurate carbon stock measurement is critical to effective landscape management in the bio-fuels, agriculture and forestry sectors. Using the model for online processing of user ground data can significantly lower the costs of carbon stock measurements and overall landscape monitoring. This is of particular economic benefit for use in supporting auditing mechanisms such as MRV (Monitoring, Reporting and Verification) where physical audit costs are high relative to the tradable value of the underlying asset.

DMCii, focused on the data transformation element of the project, developing an EO processing system to produce high resolution surface reflectance data supported by a data and metadata repository which interfaced through an API to the main platform.

Rezatec was responsible for the construction of a global tropical forest carbon stock model using surface reflectance satellite data at varying resolutions as a key input for processing alongside other data sets such as digital elevation model outputs and biomass data

UCL focused on the scientific analysis of the carbon data at both the model level and the data sources used as inputs to the model to quantify the uncertainties involved and supply users with valuable quality assurance information.

DMCii Managing Director, Dave Hodgson, says: “We are committed to enabling better monitoring of global change from space. Together with a great team we’ve made big steps in pushing forward real products that can be applied to monitoring and measuring land carbon with commercial and national satellites.”

Patrick Newton, Chief Executive Officer of Rezatec, commented, “We are very pleased to have been invited to participate in this highly innovative project. The carbon stock data we have developed as a result of completing this initiative represent key components in our overall library of landscape intelligence data products and have use across all the sectors in which we operate.

Professor Mark Maslin of University College London, concluded, “This project has allowed us to develop an accurate and cost effective means of annually monitoring tropical forest carbon storage and fluctuation. This will not only stimulate the global market in land carbon credits but will provide a means of measuring our effectiveness in protecting existing forest and reforestation. Both of which are essential if we are to prevent environmental degradation and reduce the effects of climate change.”

— ends —

About DMC International Imaging Ltd

DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii) is a UK based supplier of remote sensing data products and services for international Earth Observation (EO) markets. DMCii supplies programmed and archived optical satellite imagery provided by the multi-satellite Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). DMCii’s data is used extensively in a wide variety of commercial and government applications including agriculture, forestry and environmental mapping.

DMC International Imaging Ltd is not affiliated in any way with Intergraph Corp., Z/I Imaging Corp., or their registered trademark DMC.

About Rezatec

Rezatec was formed in 2012 to help businesses better manage their land-based assets by making use of the increasingly sophisticated but complex array of Earth Observation (EO) imagery and data available. We do this through our unique landscape intelligence platform aggregating large amounts of diverse data from satellites, airborne and ground instruments, applying relevant modelling and using our mapping, measuring and monitoring techniques with best-in-class technology to provide critical decision support for our customers. Customers today are spread across the Agribusiness, Biofuels, Energy, Water, Forestry and FMCG sectors. www.rezatec.com.

Notes to editor:This press release can be downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/dmciipr

Press contacts:
DMCii: Nathalia Santos, BCM Public Relations, www.bcmpublicrelations.com
Tel: +44 (0)1306 882288 Email:n.santos@bcmpublicrelations.com
Dave Hodgson, Managing Director, DMCii, www.dmcii.com
Tel: +44 (0)1483 804299 Email: d.hodgson@dmcii.com

Rezatec: Philip Briscoe, Rezatec,
Tel: +44 (0)1235 567396 Email: philip.briscoe@rezatec.com