Category: Earth Observation News

DigitalGlobe’s WorldView 3 satellite captured this image of Sydney, Australia in January 2015. Photo: DigitalGlobe

Working with organizations such as NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Group on Earth Observations, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, and private companies around the world, Radiant Earth Foundation’s platform brings together billions of dollars’ worth of satellite imagery and makes it available to the global development community. Additionally, the platform provides user-friendly analytical tools and support, empowering a range of users to consume and analyze the data in their everyday work.

During its beta phase, Radiant Earth Foundation served more than 100 organizations including the World Bank and Catholic Relief Services and developed use cases that will be available to the public at large. The platform’s open Application Programming Interface (API) also allows users to integrate non-imagery data, including air quality, population, and weather statistics. With funding from Omidyar Network and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Radiant Earth Foundation serves as a neutral, not-for-profit organization helping the growing satellite imagery industry balance bottom lines and higher purpose, according to the release.

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PlanetWatchers composite SAR image of agriculture fields
World-renowned remote sensing specialist Professor Dirk Hoekman recently joined PlanetWatchers’ radar team and directs the company’s new SAR initiatives. With global experience stretching across North America, South America, and Asia, he is committed to maximizing the efficacy of research into the physical aspects of remote sensing and microwave remote sensing, and developing effective remote sensing applications in forestry, agriculture, agro-hydrology, and environmental change climate studies.

Dr. Hoekman actively engages with PlanetWatchers’ clients in forestry, sugarcane, energy, and agriculture. “Natural resources managers are now highly dependent on data, analytics, and insights to help make better informed business decisions and address risk effectively,” he observes.

“I look forward to collaborating with the team, leading the new SAR initiatives, and working with our growing client base around the world to deliver meaningful, actionable business intelligence.”

Ariel Smoliar, CEO of PlanetWatchers, adds, “Managers base key decisions on data. Until recently, their ability to gather useful data was constrained by environmental factors such as massive cloud cover and heavy prolonged rains; smoke, gases, and wildfires; poor light conditions for satellite imagery; availability of airborne systems and drones; etc.

“After studying the issue extensively, we have developed a new proprietary solution with Artificial Intelligence proven to overcome these challenges.

“Data can now be obtained, as needed, without having to wait for optimal visibility. Analytical insights can be implemented right away—to stop a bad situation from getting worse.”

PlanetWatchers has already successfully completed a number of major engagements around the world using its SAR-based Analytics Platform in a variety of vertical industries including forestry, sugarcane, and energy. “Numerous clients received exceptional field intelligence, and implemented it with measurable gains,” says Smoliar.

The SAR Analytics Platform tasks multi-source SAR sources combined with optical imagery and AI-driven analytics to provide the ‘Last Mile of Analytics, – actionable intelligence critically important to operations, supply chain, risk management, and planning departments at natural resource companies.

The platform identifies a wide array of parameters, such as crop uniformity and environmental damage caused by wildfires, pests, and weather anomalies that directly impact yield, risks, and profitability.

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The event has been organised by the European Commission DG GROW as a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Baveno Manifesto, the document which gave birth to the Copernicus Programme.
To mark the launch, on the evening of 20 June Roberto Mulatti, General Manager for Serco Italia, addressed an audience of several delegates from the European Commission, European Space Agency and industry.

Watch the ONDA presentation at Baveno here.

Visit the Marketplace to know more about the available results using the ONDA platform

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CREODIAS was presented by members of the consortium: CloudFerro, Creotech Instruments SA, Sinergise, WIZIPISI, Eversis and Geomatys. Over 200 participants of the Baveno+20 event had the opportunity to discuss the CREODIAS platform with our representatives, many of whom found the EO Browser and EO Finder to be the tool capable of pushing their business forward.

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Attended by over 100 delegates representing research, private and public stakeholder from across the region, the workshop offered an opportunity for key actors across the Earth Observation [EO] value chain to share and exhange insights on the long-term actions that can help maximize the impact of EO and leverage EU investments. Your thought and inputs were very valuable to the GEO-CRADLE project team and their efforts to develop a roadmap for the improved implementation of GEO/GEOSS in the region.

GEO-CRADLE at the 3rd joint EARSeL/NASA LULC Workshop “Land-Use/Cover Change Drivers, Impacts and Sustainability within the Water-Energy-Food Nexus” on 11-12 July 2018 in Chania, Greece.

GEO-CRADLE partners from NOA, iBEC, CUT, TUBITAK, TAU and CEDARE participated the Mediterranean Regional Information Network (MedRIN) Kick-off Meeting in Chania, Greece, 13 & 14 July 2018. MedRIN will serve as a liaising network of remote sensing scientists working on land cover/land use change and stakeholders in the Mediterranean region.
GEO-CRADLE partners presented the the Soil Spectral Library which was created in the context of the GEO-CRADLE project in the region of Balkans, Middle East and North Africa, the SENSE system :Access to solar energy applications using EO data through GEO activities and THE “Photosynthetically active radiation climatology in Greece for optimal vineyard planning and exploitation”.

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It proves that Space is a key asset for Europe and has a growing importance for innovation in the European economy. To foster a globally competitive European space sector and ensure European autonomy in accessing and using space in a safe and secure environment, it is necessary to stimulate the integration of space into European economy and society. At the same time, the global space industry is experiencing profound developments due to new technologies and innovations. One of the main challenges for the sustainability of the European space industrial fabric and the delivery of cutting-edge scientific achievements is to maintain highly qualified scientists, engineers, and technicians including their lifelong learning. Recent EU projects and the study “Space market uptake in Europe” emphasized the fact that a lack of specialized skills in the EO/geospatial sector could be a barrier for the Copernicus space data market’s development. The EC’s Blueprint for cooperation on skills in the space data (geoinformation) sector (2017) aims at meeting these challenges. Following the EU Space strategy [COM 705 final], the Commission has launched, as part of the New Skills Agenda for Europe, a dedicated sector skills alliance for space/Earth observation gathering key stakeholders from industry, research, universities and public authorities to tackle new skills requirements in the sector. To this end, the Commission will strengthen activities and projects to promote space in education and sciences. In the longer term, the Commission will encourage the uptake of space solutions through standardization measures and roadmaps so that to open up space to non-space entrants and non-space industries.

General societal/technical trends

Following O’Sullivan et a al. (2018) the existing interdependence of data economy and the GI/EO sector are based on a variety of aspects. The key drivers of change in the data economy impacting the EO market include:

-Rise of the platforms: leveraging cloud computing infrastructure and stimulating applications development.

-Data as a Service: user manages the application, everything else is delivered as a service.

-Open data policies: demand from users and government policies changing towards improved access to data and tools.

-New business models: people can easily gain access to and use a multitude of data analysis services quickly.

-Sensor use growing: IoT and sensors intelligently working at the edge of networks, the complementarity of spaceborne and terrestrial data.

-Crowdsourcing: citizen science platforms and their commercial capability.

-Disruptive innovation: introduces a new value proposition. They either create new markets or reshape existing ones.

The evolution of the market shows the following trends: more commercial satellites will be launched (over 400 satellites from 35 countries), including lots small satellites using COTS components, over 50 countries investing in Earth observation technology with environmental monitoring, food security and climate change are global top political priorities; the market for commercial EO data will rise until 2025 to over $3 billion, for value-added services to $5,3 billion, in particular, the Asian market, as well as African strong growth (ibid.).

“EO development is closely linked to the worldwide digitalization of our societies, with an endless appetite for information, increasing number of data sources and need for interoperability, finance and economics, interconnected ecosystems (governments, industry, commerce) and last but not least security issues, national prestige, and soft power. “ (Denis et al. 2017, p 424)

In the communication on “Rethinking education” [COM 669 final], the European Commission stresses that investment in education and training for skills development is essential to boost growth and competitiveness. In the long-term, skills can trigger innovation and growth, move production up the value chain, stimulate the concentration of higher level skills in the EU and shape the future labor market. And it concludes that the skills mismatches are a growing concern for European industry’s competitiveness.

Copernicus workforce future scenarios

The Space sector in Europe has been boosted by the Copernicus programme, bringing significant socio-economic and environmental benefits to the public sector, businesses, and citizens. For the maximization of the impact of Copernicus effective user uptake activities are required. The provision of free, open and full-access to Copernicus data & information certainly is a paradigm change, but can only have an impact if the potential benefit in thematic and economic terms has been communicated and understood.

The evolution of Copernicus services – an improvement of Core Services and the development of Downstream Services in particular – requires the continuous innovative input and constructive feedback from academia. Service provision remains the domain of industry; research and development for innovation and adaptation to meet user requirements originates predominantly from academic institutions. Embedded in local networks, universities and research organizations are often the first point-of-contact for local and regional administrations or institutions needing solutions tailored to their specific workflows. The vision of a Copernicus ‘ecosystem’ entails technology transfer, translating between space-based information technology and local needs, and build on the existing capacity. For Copernicus to make an impact and to run on a sustainable level, requires, a demand & service culture to be built between all actors involved.

Stakeholders in this context comprise the EC, the European Entrusted Entities, numerous large companies from the EO domain, national delegates, national EO institutions, universities as well as national to local authorities, NGOs, initiatives, and SMEs dealing with EO data and geoinformation.

From our perspective, the ultimate aim is to facilitate the emergence of a new generation of young scientists and technicians with a service-oriented entrepreneurial mindset, who are exposed to the best practices in EO/Copernicus related research and advanced technologies. All Copernicus-related activities are to be designed to inspire and motivate next generation of scientists and technologists, as well as to catalyze the development of an entrepreneurial culture among researchers in the Copernicus space application sector.

The EO4GEO mission

EO4GEO is an Erasmus+ Sector Skills Alliance gathering 26 partners from 12 countries from academia, private and public sector activity in the education/training and space/geospatial sectors. EO4GEO aims to help to bridge the skills gap between supply and demand of education and training in space/geospatial sector by reinforcing the existing ecosystem and fostering the uptake and integration of space/geospatial data and services in end-user applications. The project will define a long-term and sustainable strategy to fill the gap between the supply of and demand for space/geospatial education and training. The strategy will be implemented by: creating and maintaining an ontology-based Body of Knowledge for the space/geospatial sector based on previous efforts; developing and integrating a dynamic collaborative platform with associated tools; designing and developing a series of curricula and a rich portfolio of training modules directly usable in the context of Copernicus and other relevant programs.

The EO4GEO consortium believes that by working together with all the relevant partners, the alliance can help to bridge and resolve the observed gaps and mismatches. By doing so, the uptake of Copernicus data and services, as well as geospatial data, will be stimulated in various fields through a more systematic, qualitative and innovative training offer.

Demand survey – first insights

A survey currently carried out by EO4GEO on demand on skills and occupation requirements. This so-called demand survey aims at retrieving information about the skills and tasks relevant in organizations as well as demanded occupational profiles. The description of occupational profiles based on a rating of relevant skills sets is one of the core objectives of the survey.

The preliminary results, which are based on about 120 responses from more than countries received until May 2018, showed that most employees with a master or Ph.D. degree are needed in organizations. This finding is backed up by interviews carried out by representatives from SMEs and industry. The labels of the specified profiles indicate that highly specialized workers in the EO/GI sector are demanded: e.g., remote sensing technician, GIS developer, remote sensing expert, data Analyst and scientist, EO/GI applications developer, GIS analyst, etc. The use of these labels is heterogeneous with regards to the skills indicated as important for the profiles and further analyses are required to identify high priority profiles based on the available relevance ratings of skills. In addition to the overview on the EO/GI related skills requested on the market, survey results concerning transversal skills and training in organizations were presented. The most frequently requested transversal skills are: 1) has independent and proactive working attitude; 2) is motivated to enter new thematic fields and 3) has foreign language skills. Skills referring to entrepreneurial skills were among the least requested ones. Training is widespread across all types of organizations with the most common types of training being in-house training, external workshops and distance learning.

These first insights gained on the demand of EO/GI workforce are currently further analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively, while at this stage it highlights the absence of occupational profiles for the workforce with vocational training, the specific nature of training measures in organizations as well as emerging future workforce demands.

The observation that respondents stressed their preference for academics may also be attributed to the fact that a skilled worker on lower EQF levels is currently absent. As a vision, trans-level Copernicus education may take place leading to an emerging workforce with adapted Copernicus skills profile. Thus, the gap between the demand and the current offer can be overcome, expected profiles of the future workforce better matched and diversified, and new skills achieved by an innovative training and educational programmes.

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The purpose of the Prize is to attract a range of solutions that offer low-cost and easy-to-maintain technologies and that are relevant to the needs of local stakeholders. Three winners were chosen from a pool of 156 teams, and each will be awarded $150,000 to implement their plans:

Paul Ferber of Marine Conservation Cambodia

Marine Conservation Cambodia, led by Paul Ferber, created a project which counters destructive and illegal fishing practices in Kep province, Cambodia, by deploying anti-trawling structures and delimiting boundaries of a marine fisheries management area. They developed a simple, interlocking design and high strength construction techniques that can deliver effective, robust and affordable devices on an industrial scale or at the village level.

A full structure is made of 21 concrete blocks (each 1.25-meter long and weighing 150-kilograms), built separately and assembled underwater. The structures can be built to different heights at various depths, thus avoiding impacts on regular and legal navigation, while enabling restoration of small-scale fisheries. They are designed to be easily movable without heavy machines and aim to provide a strong deterrent to illegal trawling as bottom-dragged nets get caught on them. They also act as an artificial reef. Each structure will be seeded with 1,000 locally grown oyster spats. This enhances water filtration and creates a wild bivalve aquaculture commerce, providing new economic opportunities for communities.

“Conservation doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive; often the simplest solutions offer the most effective outcomes,” said Ferber. “Giving nature a break from anthropogenic stresses is all that is needed to allow nature to do what it does best, self-restoration. As a species, we need to reassess our priorities and remove ourselves from the consumer lifestyles we have adopted and return to a more balanced approach where we give nature the respect it so desperately needs.”

Badr Idrissi of ATLAN Space

Based in Morocco, Badr Idrissi of ATLAN Space created the FishGuard pilot, which aims to identify and reduce illegal fisheries in the Republic of Seychelles. FishGuard, a partnership between ATLAN Space, Grid-Arendal and Trygg Mat Tracking, strengthens fisheries enforcement by monitoring large marine areas using fully autonomous drones, guided by artificial intelligence and supported by expert analysis, to identify and tackle illegal, unreported, unregulated (IUU) fishing operations.

FishGuard’s technical approach includes three steps: Detection, Identification and Intervention. For Detection of IUU Fishing vessels over large marine areas and beyond horizon, it uses short-range (40-100 kilometer) and long-range (250-700 kilometer) commercial drones, which can take-off from land or boats and are equipped with ATLAN Space artificial intelligence. The drones determine optimal flight paths autonomously, using all available data from Earth Observation, AIS and local fishers’ reports. The artificial intelligence allows the drones to understand what they are seeing using cognitive vision algorithms to detect suspect vessels.

Melissa Garren of Pelagic Data Systems

Melissa Garren and her team at Pelagic Data Systems will work to alleviate all three aspects of IUU fishing in the Kui Buri district (Prachuap Khiri Khan Province), Thailand. They will use solar-powered vessel tracking technology and innovative analytics to support a fisher-driven initiative, in collaboration with local authorities, to implement sustainable fisheries management and combat IUU fishing.

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Factors Expected to Aid Growth of Global Satellite-based Earth Observation Market:

- The constant improvements in the satellite imagery is one of the major drivers of the satellite based earth observation industry.

- Today, because of the existence of high resolution cameras that provide in depth as well as detailed photos, as well as the improved remote sensing technologies have completely enhanced the quality of satellite based earth observation photos and made them better.

- The information which is gathered from many satellites are then accordingly transferred to the science, research and development organisations, private users, as well as for defence use.

- Today, most researchers make use of satellite based earth observation in Maritime surveillance as it has the capability to quickly determine situations in times of wars as well as harsh weathers.

- People like farmers, miners, fishers, engineers, information servers, as well as other decision makers need information derived of earth observation as it helps them in their business goals, and this technology is also predicted to bolster the EO market even to different areas like natural disaster response, land management, real estate and tourism industry, as well as insurance.

-Plus, the growing need for earth observation data from both private as well as public entities like the Google, Inc for the purpose of services related to location as well as mapping is predicted to bolster the earth observations market even more.

- The government has taken strict rules for the protection of Earth observations, and the coming together of many operators for expanding their capabilities by means of technology transfer are expected to be the primary reasons that will carry forward the satellite-based earth observation market.

Why Europe and North America are Deemed Biggest Contributors to the Growth of Market:

- The United States based earth observation satellite operators GeoEye and DigitalGlobe, along with Europe-based SPOT Image are the top contributors in this market as they contribute more than 60% of the total income generated from the commercial data sales.

- It is predicted that, there will be a great demand for satellite-based earth observation market from the emerging economies like Malaysia, Vietnam, South Africa, and Kazakhstan in the years to come.

- Apart from the countries listed, the United States, India, China, as well as the Europe are important operators of remote sensing satellites. Top operators and service providers in these countries are joining hands with geographic information system companies as well as smartphone companies for providing the customers with up to date knowledge about the services.

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Illustration of GRACE-FO on orbit. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Their goal: help to address global transformation by monitoring changes in the distribution of Earth’s mass, in particular in the form of water.

Fundamental to the measurement is a pair of JPL Microwave Ranging Instruments with transceiver assembly components built by SSL. With one on each of the two GRACE-FO satellites, they together measure micron level changes in the distance between the satellites caused by small variations in the gravitational field resulting from mass variations on Earth.

The original GRACE spacecraft duo launched in 2002 and worked to track and monitor these movements to understand the fluctuations in how water travels and is stored throughout the planet. Similar to the original GRACE mission, GRACE-FO relies on the Microwave Ranging Instrument with SSL-built components to accurately measure their separation as they circle Earth approximately 137 miles apart, but also will demonstrate an experimental Laser Ranging Interferometer that should cut down the noise and more accurately assess the separation changes between the two spacecraft.

By measuring variations in gravity over Earth’s surface and producing a new map of Earth’s gravity field every 30 days, GRACE-FO will bring clarity to how the planet’s mass distribution changes from month to month which is primarily due to water moving from one place on Earth to another. With these precise measurements of water migration, the mission provides a global perspective on transformations in groundwater storage and loss for use in water management, especially in the largest ground water reservoirs that are relied upon by much of the world’s population for reliable and predictable water resources. I commend NASA and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for their commitment to maintaining data continuity from GRACE, enabling researchers around the world to continue providing valuable insights into the nature of our planet.

This image shows the land water storage anomalies in July 2017, as observed with the GRACE satellites. Blue colors indicate below-average terrestrial water amounts, while red colors show above-average water amounts. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

SSL and the other Maxar Technologies businesses, DigitalGlobe, MDA and Radiant Solutions all have a commercial mindset that drives our success in contributing next-generation space solutions to enable global transformation. Our collaboration with NASA and JPL is closely aligned with Maxar Technologies’ and SSL’s purpose of building a better world and enables us to continually demonstrate our unparalleled capacity to provide commercial technologies that enable Earth science missions such as GRACE-FO.

The results of the original GRACE mission were revolutionary to Earth systems research. Now the gravity field data gathered by GRACE-FO will improve lives through better predictions of water availability and higher-quality information on how to use and manage our planet’s valuable resources. It is always an honor to partner with NASA and JPL to expand our knowledge of the universe and protect our planet.

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Baveno, 21/06/2018 – At the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the European Union’s Earth Observation programme Copernicus in Baveno (Italy), Airbus and its partners Orange Business Services and Capgemini officially launched sobloo, a Copernicus Data and Information Access Service (DIAS).

Copernicus is the most ambitious Earth Observation programme to date providing accurate, timely and easily accessible information to improve the management of the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security.

To foster data dissemination and address a strong need for simplification, the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA) decided to launch DIAS in order to offer users the capability to exploit Copernicus data and information without having to manage transfer and storage on their own computer systems.

sobloo: a highly experienced consortium led by Airbus, Orange Business Services and Capgemini

sobloo is designed to broaden and diversify the Earth Observation ecosystem by providing easy access to all Copernicus data and information to the scientific community, general public, entrepreneurs and start-ups who wish to process the data to provide their own Copernicus based services. As a collaborative platform, sobloo aims to expand and diversify the data collection (Earth Observation commercial imagery, thematic layers, mobile, IoT, etc.), foster interactions and innovation, establish a sustainable economy and further develop the European cloud.

The sobloo platform has been designed to suit all types of users’ profiles with different entry points and capabilities. It is an open geospatial community for people looking for data and related services, as well as developers looking for a dedicated environment to create new applications. Truly collaborative and innovative, sobloo offers the opportunity to co-create and mutually enrich the platform. Early adopters have already started to use sobloo and give their feedback in order to improve the overall user experience for the future community. Today’s platform opens to first functionalities and datasets; in the coming months, it will evolve to integrate more Earth Observation and geo-information layers, analytics and a full offer of services.

The services of sobloo already include APIs (Application Programming Interface) and connectors to smoothly access a rich data catalogue, cloud-based resources with large storage and impressive computation power, generic cloud managed services, dedicated EO tools and platform toolbox to set up a convenient development environment.

sobloo was created with the aspiration to improve data access and facilitate data sharing. Its services are based on a cross-fertilization principle. The platform allows users to benefit from a large services catalogue on several activities domains. sobloo gives access to a development environment offering both the simplicity and the performance of today’s cloud technologies.

sobloo’s easy-to-use marketplace provides a high visibility for users’ solutions and supports commercialisation through a variety of managed services and convenient billing.

“Airbus has been a strong partner of the Copernicus programme from the very beginning and I am glad to see our adventure continues with sobloo, the Copernicus DIAS platform we are launching with our partners Orange Business Services and Capgemini. As prime contractor, we are committed to providing a reliable tool to simplify the data access for European citizens and boost the creation of new business models based on Earth Observation,” said Mathilde Royer- Germain, head of Earth Observation, Navigation and Science at Airbus.

“Orange Business Services is proud to provide its global public cloud solution based on Flexible Engine for sobloo. This platform will allow to create new services and applications around the Copernicus information and push the Earth Observation further,” said Stefan Kanis, Chief Executive Officer of Orange Cloud for Business, Orange Business Services’ cloud entity.

“Industry is increasingly starting to recognize the benefits of Earth Observation data. Satellite imagery can be used across all industry verticals. It is a fully-fledged component of the data revolution for all our customers,” says Denis Dallez, Space Segment Manager within Capgemini. “Capgemini’s role in sobloo is to support industry and the public sector to harness and apply the power of Earth Observation data and beyond. We will be leveraging Group’s extensive digital capabilities to help our customers expand their business and unleash further innovation.”

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