Category: Programmes

It will be organised around four sessions:

• Synergy of remote sensing technologies for land-use change monitoring
• The role of earth observations within the Water – Energy – Food nexus
• Social and behavioral aspects of land use supported by remote sensing observations
• Advances and outlook in the processing and analysis of remotely sensed data

For the submission procedure, please visit the ‘Abstract Submission’ section at
http://lulc.earsel.org/workshop/2018-lulc- ws/abstract-submission/ ws/abstract-submission/.

Reasons to join:

• EU meets US and US meets EU in Earth Observation applications in Land Use and Land Cover, a kind of Landsat meets Sentinel in place!
• A big prestigious community will be there to discuss with you. Check previous events (Prague, Berlin)!
• Papers are to be published in IF international Journals to be announced soon.
• A special Come Together event is planned to welcome you and a wonderful (optional) Cretan social dinner with traditional music and dances to accompany your discussions.
• And… The Workshop will be held in conjunction with the 38th Annual EARSeL Symposium. Thus, the participants may further benefit from an even bigger networking and discussion platform opportunity for further debates and multidisciplinary interactions. Staying a few days longer is a plus then!

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Thanks to new technical developments, the Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) candidate would measure radiation emitted from Earth across the entire far-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Significantly, it measures in the 15–100 micron range, which has never been done from space before.

These observations are important because Earth emits infrared radiation to space, which is affected by water vapour and cirrus clouds, which, in turn, play key roles in Earth’s temperature.

FORUM’s benchmark measurements would improve our understanding of the greenhouse effect and, importantly, contribute to the accuracy of climate change assessments that form the basis for policy decisions.

The Sea-surface Kinematics Multiscale monitoring (SKIM) candidate would carry a novel wide-swath scanning multibeam radar altimeter to measure ocean-surface currents. Uniquely, it uses a Doppler technique, which offers more direct measurements than conventional satellite altimeters.

These new measurements would improve our understanding of vertical and horizontal ocean–surface dynamics over the global ocean every few days. This would lead to better knowledge of how the ocean and atmosphere interact – for example, how atmospheric carbon dioxide is drawn down into the ocean.

SKIM would have particular relevance for understanding the rapidly changing Arctic Ocean, and for observing equatorial regions where conventional satellite altimeters are unable to provide useful measurements of currents.

ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Josef Aschbacher, said, “As part of our effort to realise cutting-edge missions, Earth Explorers are built to answer some of the most pressing scientific questions about our planet.Out of the 13 concepts that we received following our call for proposals last year, the Earth Science Advisory Committee recommended that FORUM and SKIM enter a competitive feasibility phase.

“With this recommendation now accepted, these two candidates will spend the next two years being studied thoroughly. In 2019, a User Consultation Meeting will be held, after which a decision will be taken by ESA’s Member States as to which of the two contenders will be implemented.

“We foresee Earth Explorer 9 being launched in 2025.”

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Small satellites are a cost-effective way to test new EO concepts. FSSCat is a future-oriented satellite mission, consisting of two federated 6U Cubesats. It supports the Copernicus Land and Marine Environment services by measuring soil moisture, ice extent and thickness, and detecting melting ponds over ice, using a state-of-the-art dual microwave payload as well as a multi-spectral optical payload. FSSCat will be the precursor of a constellation of federated small EO satellites connected by radio and optical inter-satellite links.

“Since the beginning of the competition in 2011 we have had exciting challenges. I am especially delighted that the winner of the overall competition is taking the challenge to new heights benefiting from the Copernicus Masters,” explains Dr Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, at the awards ceremony in Tallinn, Estonia. “The Copernicus Masters competition has once again clearly demonstrated its potential to drive the innovative use of Earth observation data and promote the use of Copernicus data to new user groups“.

13 more Challenge winners were also recognised during the Awards Ceremony by high-ranking industry and institutional representatives, such as the European Commission (EC), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), T-Systems International GmbH, Stevenson Astrosat Ltd., CGI, the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), Satellite Applications Catapult Ltd. and AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen, the organiser of the Copernicus Masters.

“We’re especially proud to have witnessed a constant rise in young entrepreneurs involved in commercialising EO applications and services. I am very confident that this growth will continue to provide novelties, especially in regards to the launch of further satellites, such as the Sentinel-2B in March and the Sentinel-5P just recently.”, declares Managing Director Thorsten Rudolph from AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen, the organiser.

EO and big data from Copernicus hold huge potential for the creation of cutting-edge products and services. Many industries and areas of public interest benefit from the progress of the Copernicus programme. In this year’s Copernicus Masters edition, prizes worth more than EUR 1.5 million were awarded in topic-specific challenges, powered by a number of world-class partners. The close cooperation with institutional, industrial and regional partners promotes the development of high-tech products and services for Europe on a global scale. Additionally, the Copernicus Accelerator programme – funded by the EC – ensures customised business development support for 50 Copernicus Masters finalists during the next two years.

The Copernicus Masters 2017 Awards Ceremony took place in front of an international audience during the European Space Week 2017 in Tallinn, Estonia – as part of the Satellite Masters Conference & Horizon 2020 Space Info Day.

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Gilberto Câmara is a leading researcher in Geoinformatics, Geographical Information Science, and Land Use Change with Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). He has been recognised internationally for promoting free access and open source software for Earth observation data.

Under his guidance, as Director for Earth observation (2001-2005) and Director General (2006-2012), INPE made significant advances in land change monitoring using remote sensing, which contributed to Brazil achieving 80% decrease in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, supporting Brazil’s commitment made at the UNFCCC COP15. This achievement was hailed as “the biggest environmental success story in a decade” by the scientific journal Nature. In support of Brazil’s pledge to the 2015 Paris Agreement, Gilberto lead a team that projected Brazil’s future emissions from land use and agriculture.

Gilberto is a co-chair of the Belmont Forum, an international consortium of the funding agencies of global environmental change research. The Forum supports international transdisciplinary research, providing knowledge for understanding, mitigating and adapting to global environmental change.

Gilberto has been involved in GEO since its early days, and led the Brazilian delegations that helped initiated GEO and GEOSS.

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It’s said that water is life. But water, or a lack of it, can cause myriad humanitarian problems. At GEO Week 2017, people from around the world came together to discuss the role of Earth observations and the Group on Earth Observations in managing these issues.

GEOGLOWS (Group on Earth Observations Global Water Sustainability) is a framework for mobilizing Earth observations to mitigate the challenges posed by water—issues of quantity and quality—at the local, regional and national scales around the world. Though the group’s first business meeting was a scant eight months ago, GEOGLOWS participants are already working with strategic partners including the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), NASA SERVIR, the Joint Research Centre and Cemaden.

“GEOGLOWS is providing a framework with an integral perspective of how water touches all the areas of life,” said Angélica Gutérriez-Magness, one of the GEOGLOWS leads and hydrologist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “I hope we are able to provide the benefits of GEOGLOWS so that we can bring those organizations to lead the development and formation of capacities within own institutions and countries. I hope that they see GEO as a strategic partner for the management of their resources.”

Gutérriez-Magness said Colombia is the only country in which GEO initiatives have been implemented as national public policy and cultivating political support and investment is necessary moving forward. As evidenced by this video, non-governmental indigenous groups are calling for GEO’s assistance whether their governments have adopted the framework or not.

In Nepal, understanding using Earth observations to better understand the hydrology of watersheds is important to locals and downstream communities as well. Image Credit: GEOGLOWS

In Nepal, the GEOGLOWS working group on data dissemination, community portals and capacity building in partnership with the European Commission is testing the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS) to provide advance warning to communities in Nepal and downstream in Bangladesh. In light of the recent flooding event in Bangladesh, advance-warning systems are more important than ever.

GloFAS is a partnership between ECMWF and GEOGLOWS to combine weather forecasts with hydrological models by adding river networks. Follow Global Floods on Twitter for flooding information around the globe.

“We are not creating the global forecasts, but we are making them better in the sense we’re bringing it from large-scale to little basins where there is no information,” Gutérriez-Magness said.

The GloFAS case study in Nepal shows that the system underestimated the flow in the Narayani river basin but the system accurately predicted the timing of peak flows. Despite underestimating peak flows, GloFAS provides a 15-day lead time on high river flow events.

Basanta Raj Shrestha, director for strategic cooperation at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, said that because of Nepal’s rugged topography, Earth observations are vital for remote, hard-to-access areas. ICIMOD is responsible for implementing NASA SERVIR activities in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region to integrate Earth observations into environmental decision-making.

“Hindu Kush Himalayas has the largest concentration of snow and glaciers beside the two poles,” Shrestha said. “Water is very intertwined with our life systems, but brings calamities and disasters. Floods have been catastrophic. Millions of people have been displaced, there is loss of agriculture. In that context, Earth observations, technology and innovation need to be more centric to a community or a national system.”

Shrestha said having confidence in an early-warning system at a national level provides actionable information to policymakers. GloFAS can be improved by in situ measurements and local citizen science efforts.

“We need to orient our science toward the challenges on the ground,” he said. “Even if you save one life it’s worth the cost. The key message is to be able to put the use of the model, of knowledge into practice. While designing the system we need a holistic approach and more pragmatic way of seeing how we can address these problems.”

Forecasting streamflow around the world continues to be a GEOGLOWS priority.

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At the official opening of the proposals, the Chair of the Evaluation Committee and Director, Human Resources, Science and Technology, said “we have started the process of assessing the applications for the GMES & Africa Grant. The first process is to ensure that the applications received meet administrative and eligibility criteria. Proposals that meet the criteria will be reviewed by the evaluation team.”

Twenty seven envelops were opened before the Evaluation Committee members and team of assessors. The Team of Assessors is a broad-based cohort of African experts recruited by the African Union Commission to support the Evaluation Committee. The Committee comprises officials of various stakeholder departments of the Commission. The evaluation process is expected to last weeks.

The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES & Africa) Support Programme is the result of the longstanding cooperation between Africa and Europe in the area of space science & technology, which is one of the key priorities of the long-term EU-Africa Joint Strategy. GMES & Africa Support Programme is administered by the African Union Commission through the Human Resource, Science and Technology (HRST) Commission. It is designed to address the growing needs of African countries to access and use Earth Observation (EO) data for the implementation of sustainable development policies on the continent.

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Innovation, collaboration, partnership and speed are all key factors in making Earth observation a success in the up and coming Earth Observation commercial market. As part of its drive to shape Earth observation for the future, ESA has set up InCubed to help stimulate investment in industrial innovation for the Earth observation sector.

The goal is to support industry-led initiatives that will open new market opportunities, bring innovative systems and products faster to market, and compete in the global marketplace.

Through InCubed, companies developing innovative systems, components and products in the Earth observation business sector can approach ESA at any time for support to make their venture technically viable and commercially competitive. Proposals could be about satellites, constellations, instruments or big data analytics, for example.

“Earth observation is undergoing a paradigm shift,” said Josef Aschbacher, Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes. “Commercial companies, big and small, are developing exciting assets, such as satellites, ground systems and data analytics solutions. ESA has set up a programme, called InCubed, to help European industry to establish a leading market position. Speed and flexibility in deciding and implementing a partnership proposal are key ingredients for success. InCubed will do that.”

With a budget of more than €35 million over the next four years, InCubed is now open for proposals from businesses in 13 participating states (Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). They can ‘pitch their proposition’ through ESA’s Electronic Mailing Invitation to Tender System.

InCubed will, in most cases, co-fund up to 50% of a proposed venture. It can also provide access to ESA expertise and technical support. Proposals must be of sufficient technical readiness and market viability, meaning that the project would eventually be sustained by the market, without further public funding.

For more information or to submit a proposal, click here .

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First Derivatives has signed a letter of intent with the European Space Agency (ESA) to foster the development of disruptive applications in the commercial space market, based on its Kx technology. Under the agreement, Kx and ESA’s Business Applications (formerly Integrated Applications) Program will work together to assist start-ups seeking to use Kx technology as a platform technology for big data analytics in the commercial space market.

ESA is making efforts to use satellite data to benefit European and global citizens and has identified support for key enabling technologies, such as analytics, as a priority to achieve its goals. According to ESA, Kx’s ability to analyze large volumes of historic and streaming data in real time makes it ideally suited as a platform for use cases ranging across sectors including transport, energy, safety, development and agriculture. The agreement with ESA follows recent announcements including a collaboration agreement with Airbus, and Earth Observation (EO) specialist 3DEO’s selection of Kx as its real-time analytics platform.

Kx and ESA have had preliminary discussions over multiple opportunities to work together, and with third parties, to address specific data challenges. Over the coming months Kx and ESA Business Applications will develop new applications based on Kx and seek to raise awareness of the technology within the commercial space market. Kx and ESA will also discuss opportunities to collaborate on EO analytics, where ESA provides multiple applications including disaster management to alert first responders on floods, major fires and natural disasters such as hurricanes.

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The agreement was signed on 13 October at ESA in the Netherlands just before the Copernicus Sentinel-5P launch event.

Sentinel-5P, which will monitor air pollution, blasted off at 09:27 GMT from Russia. It joins five other Sentinel satellites in orbit that are already delivering a wealth of complementary imagery and data for the Copernicus services.

Led by the EC, the Copernicus programme was put in place to manage the environment and respond to the challenges of a changing world.

As part of the programme, ESA is responsible for the ‘space component’, which not only includes the Sentinel satellites, but also the network of receiving stations and processing centres through which data are made available for the range of Copernicus.

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In opening remarks to the seventh session of GGIM, Liu Zhenmin, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, observed that the Committee’s agenda includes items that are “closely aligned” to the needs of the 2030 Agenda and the 17 SDGs. He noted that the broad and integrated nature of the 2030 Agenda requires innovative ways of tackling development challenges, and highlighted that the ways in which countries collect, process, and manage data need to undergo a similar revolution, to ensure the monitoring and evidence-based decision making for the SDGs.

Liu Zhenmin suggested GGIM can contribute to the creation of a new data ecosystem for sustainable development.

Zhenmin explained that this requires coordinated efforts at the global, regional and national level to strengthen countries’ geospatial information management and ensure countries’ coherence of statistics, geospatial information, earth observation, environmental, and big data. He added that, through developing norms, standards, guides, and capacity building for geospatial management, GGIM can contribute to the creation of a new data ecosystem for sustainable development, as integrated information systems will ensure that all countries will be able to measure and monitor the state of the people and planet, while informing the decisions of citizens and governments with timely data.

Mexico expressed concern about mobilizing budgetary and extra-budgetary resources for implementing the proposed GGIM Strategic Framework and possible expansion related to the 2030 Agenda. Belgium suggested using existing associations and organizational structures to implement the Framework.

GGIM Europe welcomed the proposed Framework and noted that it is exploring ways in which it can collaborate with the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) for its implementation. Japan and Spain recommended collaboration between the GGIM regional committees and the UN Regional Commissions on capacity building for developing countries to implement the Framework. The UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the UN Economic Commission for the Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) also invited collaborations with the GGIM regional committees.

China, Japan and Singapore stressed the need to prioritize capacity building on geospatial information for developing countries in the Committee’s work. China added that all governments should make geospatial information the primary source of data for social and economic development.

The GGIM’s discussions on the SDGs follow the UN Economic and Social Council’s (ECOSOC) adoption of Resolution E/RES/2016/27, on ‘Strengthening institutional arrangements on geospatial information management’ in July 2016. The Resolution recognizes that the Committee of Experts “is well placed” to assist Member States in implementing the 2030 Agenda, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the small island developing States (SIDS) Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway. The Resolution notes the need for sustainable funding and support for the Committee’s operations related to the SDGs and encourages Member States to provide voluntary contributions and consider expert secondments to support the Committee’s activities. The Resolution also requests the UN Secretary-General to try to mobilize additional resources, including through trust funds and other sources.

Following the adoption of the Resolution, in December 2016, the Secretariat tabled the UN-GGIM ‘2017-2021 Strategic Framework’ (available as Annex to the Resolution) at the Expanded Bureau meeting, as an initial starting point for discussion towards a GGIM strategic plan. The framework is designed as an overarching global policy framework for the GGIM to communicate and reference the importance of integrating geospatial information into global development policies, and to contribute to national implementations of the 2030 Agenda. The Framework explicitly notes that the UN-GGIM is “anchored” by the 2030 Agenda and notes that the Committee will help with providing:

• recommendations for sound national policies, legal frameworks and institutional arrangements;
• fundamental authoritative data and information;
• agreed standards, methods, guides, and frameworks;
• principles on geospatial information and open data;
• recommendations for the integration and interoperability of national information systems; information sharing and knowledge transfer; and
• building global and local capability

The seventh session of the UN-GGIM convened from 2-4 August 2017, at UN Headquarters in New York, US. GGIM Website ECOSOC Resolution:Strengthening institutional arrangements on geospatial information management

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