Along with climate change impacts, the coastal environment is thus more and more under pressure. As a consequence, it is essential to map and monitor the state of the environment in coastal zones and support coastal management strategies.
Monitoring of coastal zones and water resources requires reliable data and information on the state and change of coastal habitats, wetlands, water supply and water use efficiency. There is a growing awareness that Earth observation data can serve these data needs, especially in the context of European regulations and reporting obligations, as well as supporting international Official Development Assistance (ODA) and the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
GeoVille’s expertise
GeoVille ’s core expertise is in Earth observation based monitoring services for land and coastal areas. Quality controlled geo-information provides critical input for environmental assessments. This support our customers to better manage coastal zones and water resources, to better understand and mitigate the effects of climate change, safeguard developments and ensure civil security. GeoVille’s products and solutions drive transparency of operations, significantly increase the effectiveness of activities and enhance project implementation, monitoring and evaluation. In the context of the Sustainable Development Goals, GeoVille is highly experienced in the
- monitoring of the coastline and coastal habitats as well as their changes over time (Goal 14: SDG indicator 14.5.1, Goal 15: SDG indicator 15.3.1)
- delineation of surface water bodies (Goal 5; SDG indicator 6.3.2)
- mapping of the spatial extent of wetlands as well as open water surfaces (Goal 6; SDG indicator 6.6.1)
- inventory of wetlands as a basis for management oriented assessment and monitoring (Goal 6; SDG indicator 6.6.1)
- mapping of irrigated water use efficiency and water cycle regimes (Goal 6; SDG indicator 6.4.1)
- assessment of soil erosion potential and vegetation dynamics in coastal areas (Goal 15: SDG indicator 15.3.1)
GeoVille’s relevant recent experiences and capacities
- Copernicus Pan-European and Local Land Monitoring Services (ongoing): For the Copernicus Land Monitoring Services, under contracts with the European Environment Agency (EEA), GeoVille is currently producing a variety of essential land cover and land use products, including permanent and temporary water bodies and wetness, imperviousness, grasslands, small woody features, as well as change monitoring for Natura2000 sites as well as Riparian zones. These data will have an extensive pan-European coverage and will include large parts of Europe’s coastal areas. More information: http://land.copernicus.eu/
High-resolution mapping of coastal land use and land cover
- GlobWetland Africa (ongoing): Within the GlobWetland Africa project, funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), an open source wetland observing system is developed, implemented and validated for the Ramsar Convention of Wetlands in Africa. The goal is to deliver Earth observation-based products and tools enabling users to better assess the conditions of wetlands and to better monitor their trends over time. GeoVille has successfully produced and presented first products including wetland inventories, water cycle regimes and mangrove extent maps to a large number of African countries. More information: www.globwetland-africa.org
- Large Scale EO Exploitation Activities in Support of International Development Initiatives (ongoing): The aim of this ESA project, funded under the EO4SD (Earth Observation for Sustainable Development) initiative is to increase the uptake of satellite-based information into regional and global programs of various International Financing Institutions (IFIs) for ODA, such as World Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and their Client States. GeoVille implements various Earth observation services targeting a wide range of development projects, programmes and activities of IFIs in areas such as water resources management, coastal management and food security. More information: www.eo4sd.esa.int. Another important activity in this context is TIGER-NET under the ESA TIGER initiative, supporting African water authorities with satellite based assessments and monitoring of water resources for Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). More information: www.tiger-net.org.
- Coastal erosion and change mapping: Within World Bank funded projects, including for example World Bank’s Coastal Adaptation to Climate Change activity, GeoVille assessed the impact of climate change along West African coasts, including the islands of Sao Tomé and Príncipe. GeoVille produced detailed coastal change, coastal erosion, flood inundation and sea level rise scenario maps and has performed capacity building and training workshops to improve capacities for coastal zone and disaster management and increase resilience of local communities. More information: www.projects.worldbank.org/P111669/sao-tome-adaptation-climate-change
GeoVille recently launched landmonitoring.earth, a new Earth observation based monitoring system for automatic global high-resolution mapping and monitoring of land and coastal zones, fulfilling multi-user application requirements. The paradigm shift from periodical status mapping to continuous monitoring provides cost reductions, near-real time data provision, more detailed insights into historic developments and ongoing processes, situational awareness and robust baseline for decision making and forecasting.
GeoVille is a global leader for land monitoring solutions. We have attained innovation leadership in “end-to-end” geo-spatial land monitoring applications through 19 years of business and our proven capacity to meet today’s and tomorrow’s geo-information requirements. We provide a wide range of high-quality land and coastal monitoring solutions supporting our customers world-wide.
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