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Rapid growth in the types and diversity of sensors available to collect data — from ground sensors, to drones, to rapid advancements in satellite technology — and the application of machine learning and AI is set to radically change the way geospatial data is used.

Richard Blain, CEO, Earth-i, UK

The increase in demand for location-based services, and the need to analyze, understand and interpret geospatial data from many different sources, plus the urgent need to address fundamental environmental and economic challenges on our planet, shows how critical a pillar location is in this period of change. Just think of the revolution automated cars will bring and the importance of location in realizing that opportunity. Or the importance of location data in analyzing and understanding critical supply chains and energy security. There will also be a radical increase in the application and usage of social, mobile, analytics and Cloud (SMAC) and location data to power a wide range of analytics, insights and new governmental and commercial services.

There is not a single industry today that is not touched by geospatial. We have also seen information technology companies and large industrial houses developing own geospatial capabilities or acquiring companies with mapping or spatial analytics abilities. This trend is driven by the increasing need to anchor data analytics and insights into a geospatial framework. Customers are increasingly turning ‘data agnostic’, and looking for analytics and insights, not the raw data or imagery. As data and technology becomes more affordable, intelligent platforms are developing fast to deliver data as a service and insights-ready products.

Inevitably, the geospatial industry must adapt to and adopt the technological changes. Partnering and collaborative working have long been a part of our industry, but new commercial opportunities and greater innovation will inevitably accelerate the need for more collaboration. The geospatial industry is already on the threshold of a transformation and I think the reason is a mix of the industry innovating from within and the impact of new ideas and start-ups from outside. Many of these start-ups have come from within the industry rather than completely fresh from outsiders. Earth-i itself is a collaboration of outsiders and industry experts.

Small satellites a big game changer

In the earth observation space, the single biggest technology game changer in recent times has to be the change in the economics of commercial space brought about by the radical reduction in the size and cost of EO satellites. This enabled us plan to build a large constellation of small EO satellites. The Earth-i constellation — first to offer full-color, full-motion video — will collect high resolution imagery with high frequency revisits to anywhere on Earth, and rapid tasking and download of data in near real time.

Together with the development of our analytics and insights platform, utilizing machine learning and AI, this stream of high spatial and temporal resolution data will enable the application of planetary Big Data to unlock powerful insights about our planet for a wide range of industry sectors and governments.

Our outlook is very strong and carefully planned. We are set to deploy the first batch of five satellites next year. It is a hugely exciting time in our industry; we expect growth to be rapid in the technology, the applications and in the types of customers for data and derived insights.

KSAT, Norut, and PPO.labs have entered a strategic partnership to establish operational services of spaceborne radar technology to provide ground motion monitoring services.

Analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1 radar data (Feb 2015 – Nov 2016) show ground displacement of the San Francisco Bay Area, with millimetric accuracy. A number of hot spots are clearly observed, including subsidence of reclaimed land in San Rafael Bay, just north of San Francisco. [Credit: Norut/PPO.labs]

The Earth Observation business is going through a rapid change. As space based monitoring data is becoming easily accessible worldwide, the need for a robust yet scalable service providing
national or even continental scale products, emerges across many sectors.

There is a high demand for reliable space based ground monitoring services. Stakeholders and applications are very diverse: from urban planning applications in the context of modern smart cities, to governments trying to identify critical areas prone to subsidence or natural hazards.

With this partnership, we aim to contribute to the global trend in commoditization of Earth Observation data. KSAT-GMS will ofer a unique service to our customers worldwide, specifcally tailored for ground deformation monitoring applications.

KSAT Ground Monitoring Services (KSAT-GMS): Global, Scalable, Reliable

Tackling the challenges of operational ground motion mapping requires a multidisciplinary approach and experience to cover the entire lifecycle of the service, from satellite data retrieval to
added value products.

KSAT-GMS partners are key players in the EO market with a well-established track-record and decades of experience. This partnership stems from an already ongoing cooperation in strategic
projects, in which unique know-how and services are being developed by partners for selected global players.

KSAT is an industry leader in maritime time-critical earth observation services performed with multimission SAR satellites and runs a global network of downlink stations that enable Near-Real-Time deliveries. Together with expertise of Norut in applied EO research and development, combined with PPO.labs as a highly specialized provider of interferometric methods and services, this partnership aims at ofering full operational capability and scalability in order to respond both to local and supra-national ground monitoring needs.

This partnership is uniquely positioned to capture growth in the global market demand for operational ground deformation monitoring services.

Staying ahead in the ground motion monitoring business

Jan Petter Pedersen, KSAT Vice President, noted that: “During discussions with our customers, frequently the following questions would come-up: How can we complement our maritime services
with ground monitoring products? And if so, can such a product be fexible, scalable, and reliable to meet our current and future needs? With this partnership we are confdent we are able to address these questions.”

Norut’s research director for earth observation, Kjell Arild Høgda, said: “As research institute, we are at the point where further scaling up from our current Research & Development status to more efcient use of data from European Commission Copernicus programme requires additional investment. We see this partnership as a great way to make more efcient the path from successful
R&D results to operational use. And this is only the start.”

“This is a tremendous opportunity for us to extend our reach globally to new clients of all sizes”?? said Petar Marinkovic, Founder and Chief Scientist at PPO.Labs. ??“We are excited to partner with KSAT and Norut to bring our products and technology to another level, and contribute towards making
spaceborne deformation mapping a commodity tool.”

Press contacts

For all inquiries and further information, please contact:
Carles Debart – Project development KSAT-GMS
carlesd@ksat.no
+47 77661325

Nina Soleng – Marketing Director KSAT
nina@ksat.no
+47 77600277

In January 2018, GAF successfully established a Geological Data Management and
Information system (GDMIS) for the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy & Mining
in Malawi.

A modern and reliable management of geological and mining data is an essential
asset to better understand existing natural resources, recognize mineral potentials,
and attract investments of the extractive industry. The GDMIS project, funded by the
World Bank Group, established such a management and geographic information
system for the Geological Survey Department (GSD) of Malawi. The system is based
on web-technology, allowing the administration and evaluation of non-public data
(Intranet) and the promotion of public data (Internet) to attract potential investors of
the extractive industry. The new website will be published soon – after pending
clearance of some data copyright issues.

Currently, the GSD holds approximately one Terabyte of digital geo-data and digitized
documents. Additional data will be available in the near future from ongoing field
works. The new system is the main tool to publish, archive, manage, evaluate, and
cross-relate the various information layers. In particular, the geographic information
system (GIS) component of the system allows the combined analysis of spatial and
attributive data. This is of major importance for the identification of prospects for
mineral deposits.

GAF, a German technical consultancy company, used its modular and scalable
software GeMinIS (Geological and Mineral Information System,
https://www.gaf.de/content/geminis) to realize this project. GAF proved once more
its capacities in technical consulting for the implementation of complex spatial data
management projects.

ON A TRIP to Silicon Valley last year, Defense Secretary James Mattis openly envied tech companies’ superior use of artificial intelligence technology. To help close the gap, one Pentagon unit is now offering $100,000 in prizes to develop algorithms that can interpret high-resolution satellite images.

Oroville Dam in California in September 2016. Photo: Planet
The contest is called the xView Detection Challenge, and starts next month. Entrants will use a trove of hand-annotated satellite images released by the Pentagon to train algorithms to identify details relevant to disaster relief or humanitarian missions. Objects of interest include damaged buildings, utility trucks, and fishing boats.

The project is being run by DIUx, an organization started by former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to make it easier for his department to work with technology companies, particularly startups. The need to close the Pentagon’s AI gap with industry was a major motivation for the creation of DIUx, says Brendan McCord, head of machine learning at the organization.

DIUx’s challenge is a partnership with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which serves the US military and intelligence apparatus. The competition is modeled on the NGA’s work after events such as hurricane Irma, which swept a trial of destruction and flooding from the Bahamas to Florida last year. Each day, a team of 10 analysts scrutinized hundreds of high-resolution satellite images of the disaster zone, grading damaged or destroyed buildings, and annotating details like impassable roads or bridges. The data was passed onto other agencies helping with the clean up, including FEMA.

One goal of the challenge is to automate such work. McCord says algorithms developed for the xView challenge could help NGA after future disasters. If software could make a first pass at annotating new images for damaged buildings and the like, for example, analysts could be more productive.

Algorithms good at tagging items of humanitarian interest might also be re-trained to aid other work, such as NGA’s core mission of supporting U.S. warfighters and intelligence analysts. The contest rules grant NGA license to both use and build on winning software. DIUx says winners may be offered the chance to do follow-on work on other defense missions. It is also offering a special prize of $5,000 for the best open source entry, to encourage sharing of ideas created for the contest. The satellite images for the contest are released under a public, noncommercial license for anyone to use.

Anyone hoping to win money in the challenge should start by checking their nationality. Contest rules disqualify entrants from several countries, including Cuba and Iran. For those whose papers are in order, the next step is to download a cache of satellite images covering 1,400 km2 from locations around the world at a resolution of 30 centimeters (1 foot). The images cover both visible and infrared light, and have been hand-annotated with a million examples of 60 different objects. Entrants will use the labeled images to train their algorithms; their software will be tested against a collection of images not made public. The contest will be judged on accuracy, but DIUx also wants the software to be practical, says McCord.

Software competing in the challenge must identify and distinguish objects such as trucks with tanker trailers and cement mixers. The objects were chosen to be relevant to humanitarian projects, and push the limits of existing image-processing algorithms.

Stefano Ermon, a professor at Stanford, says that the challenge and dataset could become an important contribution to both machine-learning research, and humanitarian projects worldwide. His research group has developed machine-learning software that maps areas of poverty in African countries using clues such as roads and waterways.

The most mature image-recognition technology is focused on online consumer and product photos, thanks to the piles of readily available data, and strong commercial interest from internet companies such as Google. Much less work has been done on interpreting satellite imagery, and the data needed to do so is scant, says Ermon. “We don’t have a lot of labeled data, which is crucial,” he says.
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Sinergise: A Slovenian company is creating new business opportunities by optimizing data mined by the EU’s Copernicus programme from outer space.

The European Union’s Copernicus Earth Observation Programme is probably the best mapping system in the world. It is also a great tool for innovative entrepreneurs. They can use the data gathered by the programme to create new products and new services — and the jobs and customers that go with them.

But first they have to know how to optimize the incredible mine of information provided by Copernicus’ satellites. That’s where Slovenian SME Sinergise comes in.

Backed by European funds from the Horizon 2020 programme, company founder Grega Milčinski and his teams have developed a solution called Sentinel Hub.

“With Copernicus, the amount of data has changed significantly, and these data, which are free and good quality, and useful for many cases, are also data which are technically complex,” Milčinski says. “With Sentinel Hub, we made it easier and more efficient to use”.

Sinergise’s customers include the global manufacturing giant Claas, a German company that makes agricultural machinery.
Thanks to Sentinel Hub, Milčinski has developed Crop View, an application that allows new generation agricultural machines to be even more efficient.

“Crop View uses Copernicus data to detect differences in vegetation health and development state within any farmers’ fields boundaries,” explains Friedemann Scheibler, who works on specialist precision farming for Claas e-services.

“With this information, users get the opportunity to create application maps in a very easy and efficient way, download them, and put them directly on their machine”.

Scheibler says he is very happy with the application. First, because it was developed in just six months; and second, because it provides real added value for its customers.

“You will produce higher yields and better crop quality. You increase the efficiency of applied resources, such as fertilizers. And you limit your environmental (impact), through a more sustainable working practice”.

As for the Sinergise, it hasn’t stopped expanding: From eight employees 10 years ago, that number has grown to 45 today.

It also has customers all over the world.

“We have almost 5,000 users, ranging from a small orchid farm in South Africa to the large organisations like the EU satellite centre,” Milčinski says. “All of them are using Copernicus data to empower their business models. I like it!”
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EARTH-i, one of Europe’s most prominent New Space companies, has been awarded a grant of £2.7 million from the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme, which supports UK space firms tackling global challenges.

The grant will enable Earth-i to launch the ACCORD programme in Kenya and Rwanda. ACCORD has been specifically developed to help smallholder coffee farmers in Africa improve crop quality and yield. It combines Earth-i’s very high-resolution satellite imagery with WeatherSafe’s data platform, to provide extensive crop, weather and pest analysis, and share the information via a mobile app.

ACCORD will enable farmers to identify where more water, fertiliser or pesticides are needed to address unpredictable weather, pests, diseases, nutrient depletion or other factors which reduce coffee quality and quantity.

ACCORD evolved from work carried out by Earth-i and Weathersafe in Burundi. Together the two companies performed surveys of Burundi coffee farms using very high-resolution satellite data, conducted crop yield analysis and developed bespoke web applications to deliver the results of this analysis.

The ACCORD project was one of only ten programmes to receive funding as part of a joint initiative between the Government’s Industrial Strategy and the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme, which uses UK space expertise to deliver innovative solutions to real world problems across the globe.

Richard Blain, CEO of Earth-i, said “Coffee is the second most traded commodity globally and vitally important to the economies of some of the poorest countries in the world. Agriculture is just one of a multitude of sectors where our imagery – and the insights drawn from those images – is improving lives on Earth.”

Science Minister Sam Gyimah said “The UK’s space sector is going from strength to strength. It pioneers new technology and provides jobs for 40,000. Today I can announce that the space sector’s capabilities are being put to use to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges.

“The UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme will help developing countries tackle big issues like disaster relief and disease control, while showcasing the services and technology on offer from our leading space businesses.”

Today’s news follows January’s successful launch of Earth-i’s VividX2 satellite, a service demonstrator for the Vivid-i Constellation, the world’s first full-colour, full-motion video satellite constellation.

The new commercial constellation will be the first of its kind to provide full-colour video; and the first European-owned constellation able to provide both video and still images.

Vivid-i will be a major leap forward for the Earth Observation industry significantly increasing the ability of companies and institutions to monitor, track and analyse activities, patterns of life and changes at any location on Earth. It will provide a number of innovative capabilities including:

The provision of high-frame rate images with resolutions better than one metre for any location on Earth.
The ability to film moving objects such as vehicles, vessels and aircraft in Ultra High Definition colour video.
Revisiting the same location multiple times per day with agile satellites that can be pointed to image specific areas of interest.
Rapid tasking of satellites to take images or video, and fast data download within minutes of acquisition.
Footage will be available for analysis within minutes of being captured and will improve decision-making and response times in a wide variety of scenarios from change detection to object identification, from disaster response to infrastructure monitoring.
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(7 February 2018) e-GEOS, a joint venture of Telespazio (80%) and the Italian Space Agency (20%), strengthens its international presence with an important agreement signed in Australia for the supply of data generated by the Italian COSMO-SkyMed satellites.

e-GEOS won an international bid for the supply of geo-information services to the AMSA (Australian Maritime Safety Authority), the government body tasked with guaranteeing shipping safety and the protection of the country’s marine environment, as well as the coordination of emergency operations at sea. Services shall be provided by e-GEOS through their local partner Geospatial Intelligence Pty Limited.

In particular, e-GEOS will support the monitoring of oil spills thanks to the use of the COSMO-SkyMed radar constellation, which is capable of continuously controlling, in any visibility, the affected areas. The satellite data will allow for more detail in identifying illegal oil dumping in the seas and the ships causing pollution, allowing for timely intervention.

The agreement also includes the evaluation of future partnerships between e-GEOS and the AMSA, for the use the satellite data in other applications, such as search and rescue operations.

“The contract acquired with the AMSA and the partnership signed with Geospatial Intelligence Pty Limited constitute a milestone in the activities of our group in the Australian space market,” stated Massimo Claudio Comparini, Head of Business Line Geo-Information of Telespazio and Chief Executive Officer of e-GEOS. “This confirms yet again the validity of the services offered by e-GEOS in the Earth observation sector.”

COSMO-SkyMed is the only dual-use radar Earth observation constellation currently in existence worldwide and is used for civilian and military purposes. Ten years after the launch of the first satellite, in 2007, the system has captured over one million images from all over the world, monitoring the Earth 24 hours a day under any weather and visibility conditions and ensuring crucial information essential for security, land monitoring, and the sustainable management of resources, as well as dealing with natural events and emergencies, and combating the effects of climate change.

Financed by ASI, the Italian Defence Ministry and the Italian Education, University and Research Ministry, COSMO-SkyMed was created by the Italian space industry together with Leonardo and its joint venture, Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio. Data from COSMO-SkyMed are marketed throughout the world by e-GEOS.

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Toulouse, 30 January 2018 – Airbus has launched near real-time satellite imagery capabilities together with its 24/7 Emergency Image Delivery Service to aid those facing emergency situations. By leveraging the Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) polar ground station in Svalbard, Norway, Pléiades and SPOT constellation images are now retrieved at every orbit, resulting in ultra-fast image deliveries after collection, anywhere in the world.

In addition to this advanced reactivity, the 24/7 Service gives customers easy, immediate and round-the-clock access to a dedicated team of satellite experts who provide timely support in case of unplanned events.

“When facing crises, time is critical. With our 24/7 Emergency Service, offering an image delivery time averaging two hours after acquisition, emergency situations can be treated with an even higher priority and our customers and partners will receive their mission critical satellite images much faster,” said François Lombard, Head of the Intelligence Business at Airbus Defence and Space.

The 24/7 Emergency Image Delivery Service, relying on advanced Near-Real Time capability, was developed to answer customers’ specific requirements when facing unplanned events, geopolitical crises, natural or man-made disasters. It provides timely, reliable and accurate satellite images to assess damage and help mitigate the impact on those affected. The service ensures that satellite resources, such as the wide-swath SPOT or very high-resolution Pléiades constellations, are booked with the highest tasking priority, guaranteeing accelerated access to data worldwide. The service is also designed to be flexible, providing the possibility of last-minute modifications or cancellations. With this improved performance and capability, Airbus further enhances its ability to deliver timely and accurate satellite images using its smart and complete optical and radar constellations consisting of Pléiades & SPOT 6/7 satellites, DMC Constellation as well as TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X radar satellites.

For more information on the 24/7 Emergency Service please visit: http://www.intelligence-airbusds.com/en/8001-247-emergency-service

Launched in October 2017, RUS (Research and User Support for Sentinel Core Products) was designed to support overcoming the difficulties generated by the huge amount of the downloaded data, the highly performant capacity required to process such data and finally, the capability to handle the data with an ad-hoc training offer, tailored to fit the needs of a wide community of users. This service (funded by the EC and managed by ESA), is offered at no cost to meet the requirements (in terms of technical and scientific support, computing resources and disk space identified by ESA) of different types of users: basic users calling for downloading support, R&D users wishing prototyping support and proficient users, in need of processing support.

1/Introduction to the Copernicus programme

Copernicus is the European Union’s Earth Observation (EO) Programme, looking at our planet and its environment for the ultimate benefit of all European citizens. Copernicus offers information services based on EO satellite and in situ (non-space) data. The Copernicus services deliver near-real-time data on a global level which can also be used for local and regional needs, to help us better understand our planet and sustainably manage the environment we live in. The Programme is served both by a set of dedicated satellites, the Sentinels and contributing missions.

The Sentinel satellites are specifically designed to meet the needs of the Copernicus services and their users. Since the launch of Sentinel-1A in 2014, the European Union set in motion a process to place a constellation of almost 20 more satellites in orbit before 2030.

In October 2017, RUS (Research and User Support for Sentinel Core Products) was launched, with the purpose to support overcoming difficulties generated by the massive volume of the downloaded data, the very performant computing capacity required to process such data and, finally, the capability to handle the data with an ad-hoc training offer, tailored to fit the needs of a vast community of users. Offered at no cost, this service (funded by the European Commission and managed by the European Space Agency (ESA)) meets the requirements (in terms of technical and scientific support, computing resources and disk space identified by ESA) of different types of users: basic users requiring downloading support, R&D users requiring prototyping support and proficient users, requiring processing support.

2/ICT Solutions

The service was set up to smooth out physical issues like downloading, storing and processing by exploiting Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Processing as a Service (PaaS). The IaaS includes network access, Virtual Machines (VM) with Computing Processing Units (CPU) and a scalable storage capacity. The PaaS includes data access (direct access to Copernicus Hub), communication tools (for chatting, mailing, sharing audio and videoconference with the Helpdesk), processing and viewing tools, development tools, collaboration tools, all necessary and relevant documentation and internet links. Free Open Source Software (FOSS) is pre-installed on demand on the VM, but users can also install their own Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software on the machine. The infrastructure relies on three types of virtual environments:

  • Collaboration environment hosting a platform to offer services such as video-conference and chat, the Front Desk, the Administration Desk and the Service Management Desk
  • User environment hosting the development and processing platform: each RUS user could access to a dedicated cluster of user environments.

All this technological capacity makes it possible for RUS users to access Sentinel data, process it, develop algorithms and benefit from the interactive support provided by the RUS Operators, through the collaborative platform.

Use of Copernicus datasets as the main source of information is a prerequisite to access the RUS service, but EO and other data can be freely imported to be handled. The VMs provided by RUS work on a Linux environment where either free open-source either commercial off-the-shelf software can be installed and also includes programming and scripting environments. Default Processing libraries account for: GDAL, Sentinel Toolboxes, Orfeo Toolbox and SNAPHU; pre-installed processing tools include QGIS and SNAP, whereas current software development utilities are: Oracle JDK 1.8, Apache Ignite, Eclipse, GCC, CMAKE, Maven, GIT, Python 2.7/3.5, R 3.3. The ICT for the user is defined based on an analysis of the received service request: such analysis defines the scaling of the work environment in terms of duration, disk space and size (number of Virtual Machines, number of cores per machine, RAM per core).

More information on the RUS Service and access to the VM is available on https://rus-copernicus.eu/portal

3/Building Knowledge

To complement the ICT offer, training and outreach activities are implemented to create and increase a community of Copernicus users, focusing on a large portfolio of applications. Using the RUS VMs with pre-installed FOSS facilitates handling of such events, where participants can use their own laptops to manage the processing. Processing on the same configuration for each VM discards any pre-existing difference between the used laptops and operating systems. It facilitates the smooth running of the event. Face-to-face events are organized to meet the requirements of small groups of users: they receive specific training on EO theory and then are guided by the trainers, step by step, in the application of the learned theory in practical case-studies. The assigned VM remains accessible to the user, for several months after the training, so as to allow repeating or completing the exercises (or performing other processing activities).

Large webinars are organized on a monthly basis to attract new potential users. Tailored to provide in a condensed format, the instructions to perform some basic processing steps for exploiting Sentinel data, on specific applications. The trainings are closed by a Q&A session, allowing the participants to interact with the trainer. The sessions are recorded and made publically available for re-play on a dedicated youtube channel. Users interested to repeat the exercises can practice their own software. Or, they ask RUS the access to the VM pre-configured with all the material needed to perform the exercise. The theory lectures given during the face-to-face events are recorded and assembled with questions and multiple-choice answers. They are made available on RUS E-Learning portal. Scores are assigned for each completed course and badges are given to the users.

More information and access to the RUS Training Resources can be found at: https://rus-training.eu

4/Examples of utilisation

A few examples of processing results focusing on different applications, obtained by exploiting the service to prepare training sessions are provided in this section. The data and software needed to re-play the exercises are freely available within the RUS environment, together with the step by step instructions to generate most of the presented results.

  • Ship detection with Sentinel-1 enables detection of vessels not carrying Automatic Identification System (AIS) on board such as smaller fishing ships or ships that might be in the surveyed area illegally (illegal fishing, piracy, etc.). As SAR is not reliant on solar illumination and is rather independent of weather conditions, frequent monitoring is possible. The exercise exploits ESA’s Open Source Sentinel-1 Toolbox to process Sentinel-1 data, detecting targets larger than 30m in the Gulf of Trieste. Final output is exported as a point layer to an Open source GIS (QGIS). RUS VMs are used to run this exercise.


Figure 1. Ship detection in the gulf Trieste. Sentinel-1 products can be easily used for ship monitoring. In this case a single Sentinel-1 product was used and the kml derived from the analysis is shown on Google Earth. Each detected target is associated to information about estimated target length.

  • Burned area mapping: Two Sentinel-2 products acquired before and after a series of wildfires which affected central Portugal in June 2017 are used to map location and intensity of damage (burn severity). The exercise exploits ESA’s Open Source Sentinel-2 Toolbox to process Sentinel-2 data, comparing pre and post-imagery and calculating the Relativized Burn Ratio (RBR). Processed results are then exported to an Open Source GIS (QGIS), where post-processing (classification of severity level, following USGS suggested classification) is performed. RUS VMs are used for running the exercise.


Figure 2. Burned area detection in Portugal. Two Sentinel-2 products acquired before and after the wildfires of 17–18 June, 2017 are used to locate the area affected by the fires and assess burned severity. The image shows the output map visualized with QGIS (installed on the RUS VM).

Tutorials to reproduce the results described above exploiting the RUS service are being made freely available on the dedicated RUS Youtube channel. Furthermore upcoming training events are announced through social media, such as Twitter (@RUS_Copernicus) and Facebook .

5/Conclusions

RUS Service is a new, free service carried by an international team led by C-S France and involving Serco SPA, Noveltis, Along-Track and C-S Romania. The main aim of RUS is to promote uptake of Copernicus satellite data. This is achieved by facilitating user access and exploitation of the data through the use of VM with associated processing power and by carrying out training and education activities.

6/Contacts

Outreach: outreach@rus-copernicus.eu
Training: training@rus-copernicus.eu

November 21, 2017 saw the official kick-off of MySustainableForest, a project funded under the European Union’s framework research and innovation program, Horizon 2020, which aims at phasing increased use of Earth Observation technology and tools into the forestry sector to ensure a more sustainable use of our woodland.

Europe is about 40% woodland. For two decades now initiatives, agreements and policies have been underway to ensure a balanced development of these crucial woodland ecosystems.

The MySustainableForest initiative is being carried out by a GMV-led consortium including the Portuguese Navigator Company (Instituto de Investigaçao da Floresta e Papel: RAIZ), the Hrvatski Sumarski Institut (Croatian Forest Research Institute: CFRI), the University Forest Enterprise (UFE) of the University of Mendel of the Czech Republic (Mendelova Univerzita V Brne), the Forestry Association of Navarre (Asociación forestal de Navarra: FORESNA), the Lietuvos Misko Savininku Asociacija (Forest Owners’ Association of Lithuania: FOAL), the French National Forestry Ownership Center (Centre National de la Propriete Forestiere: CNPF), the Spanish companies Madera Plus Calidad Forestal SL (MADERA+) and Föra plus the European Forest Institute.

Forests are the lungs of our planet. But their key environmental role is not their only boon; their economic and social knock-on effects are coming into their own too. Direct and indirect benefits are in fact equally important. Conserving our forests and, above all, ensuring a sustainable use of them is therefore a pressing need at worldwide level.

Evaluating biomass, mapping timber quality, developing a climate-change strategy and pinpointing vulnerabilities are, among others, the applications to be developed during the course of this long-term, 36-month research project.

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