Under the theme Our Land Our Future, the 16th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP16) took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 2 to 13 December 2024, attracting more than 24,000 registered participants. The COP is the main decision-making body of UNCCD’s 197 Parties – 196 countries and …
The EO AFRICA initiative, short for African Framework for Research, Innovation, Communities, and Applications, aims to sustain and strengthen an active African research community by fostering innovative processes for the continuous development of African Earth Observation (EO) capabilities. In collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC) and to enhance research cooperation between Africa and Europe, …
In July 2024 the ESA EO AFRICA R&D Facility launched in collaboration with AUC a call for higher education teaching grants to develop curricula in an Earth Observation topic related to Water and Food Security. As outcome of the call, five proposals from African universities from Ethiopia, Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria and Benin have been selected …
From October 30 to November 6, 2024, the Science Hub of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Frascati, Italy, hosted an international workshop titled Grounding Lagrangian particles in satellite-derived oceanic flow fields. Organized in the framework of the 4DMED-Sea project the event convened 16 participants, including 11 senior experts and 5 early-career researchers from France, …
The ESA Green Transition Information Factories initiative enables the development of an ecosystem of EO-integrated solutions addressing key needs and challenges for the green transition and climate adaptation. It leverages Earth Observation data products, together with geospatial and interdisciplinary data, advanced analytics and cloud services to co-develop user-driven capabilities and services. Through the ongoing GTIF-AT and …
A recently published paper, titled ALBATROSS: Advancing Southern Ocean Tide Modelling with High Resolution and Enhanced Bathymetry, introduces an advanced tidal model specifically tailored to the unique dynamics of the Southern Ocean and Antarctic regions. This research is the outcome of the ALBATROSS project, and combines high-resolution bathymetry data from the reprocessing of a decade-long CryoSat-2 …
This ITT is part of the Ocean Science Cluster and contributes to the joint EC-ESA Earth System Science Initiative launched in February 2020 by the European Space Agency and the European Commission (EC) Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) to jointly advance Earth System Science and its response to the global challenges that society …
The European Space Agency has contributed also this year’s UNFCCC COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, held from November 11 to 22, 2024. As global leaders, scientists, and advocates gathered to negotiate and advance climate action, ESA underscored the importance of Earth observation (EO) data in understanding and addressing climate challenges. ESA’s delegation of Earth Observation, …
In mountainous regions such as the Alps, snow cover plays a crucial role in the hydrological cycle. Precipitation in these areas in winter, particularly above 1,000 metres altitude, remains stored as a snowpack until the spring melt season, when water is released back into rivers and reservoirs. This seasonal water reserve is critical for water …
The Space for Shore project has revealed trends in Arctic glacier retreat and calving intensity, with notable impacts observed in regions like Kongsfjorden, Svalbard. Using over 1,000 radar images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, scientists monitored the evolution of Svalbard’s coastal glaciers between 2015 and 2023. The study highlights a statistically defined mapping of summer …
