Monitoring the environment to support its protection is the main aim of the EU Copernicus satellite program.
Usually, satellite-derived information has mostly been technology-driven and consequently, there is limited awareness among cross-cutting sectors on the range of applicable solutions, their access and affordability for evidence gathering on environmental issues.
We aim to bridge the gap by utilizing the Satellite capacities to respond to the demands for ready-to-access evidence and scenario information on environmental situations.
A profound example concerns the legal/jurisdictional sector, where our Earth observation-based tools and services provide evidence on environmental incidences and legal violations to support the evidence data-gathering process and to foster data-driven decision-making.
Another example concerns the energy/environment sector, where our Marginal Lands detection and clustering tools could offer suitable carbon sinks
by afforestation/reforestation projects without being competitive to food production, conforming to EU/Global policies. An effective mitigation strategy should assess all the possible sustainable actions that can contribute to this direction. A challenging and very prominent contribution to raise CO2 sequestration could come from the Land Use Land Use Change and Forestry sector and the utilization of Marginal Lands that today are widely available in the EU.
Monitoring of the urban and peri-urban green and the threats and pressures
faced to the biodiversity from anthropogenic and natural causes directly addresses the ecology/environment sector needs. Our developed smart tools and the Biodiversity Information System utilize Earth observation data, in-situ sensors, citizen science and Geographic Information analysis tools.
We have also developed tools which utilize satellite imagery for crop mapping and accurate calculation of available biomass to achieve optimal supply chain and cost reduction.
These directly respond to the need of green energy sector.
We support the civil protection sector by developing satellite/UAV based and GIS risk assessments, improving governance and raising community awareness towards the impacts of natural disasters caused by combined effects of sea level rise and land subsidence in coastal zones.
