Projects
| Project | Abstract | Prime Company | Domain | Tags | Full text |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asian Development Bank Resident Support | Through this activity ESA is deploying an EO information expert (Technical Secondment) to the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila, Philippines, during 2017–2021. This activity is implemented in conjunction with ESA's EO4SD [...] | Collaborative Space (IE) | Sustainable Development | sustainable development | Through this activity ESA is deploying an EO information expert (Technical Secondment) to the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila, Philippines, during 2017–2021. This activity is implemented in conjunction with ESA’s EO4SD initiative, and to further strengthen the collaboration with ADB (in particular, as an integral part of the ESA–ADB Memorandum of Intent). The primary objective of the secondment is to promote increased awareness use of EO information products and services within ADB operational activities. Europe has a world-leading EO capability, therefore priority is given to promoting European EO assets and skills. The longer-term objective is to achieve widespread acceptance and sustainability of EO-based products and services within international development operations. |
| ASSESSING CRYOSPHERE-BIOSPHERE LINKAGES WITH EARTH OBSERVATIONS IN NORTHERN HIGH LATITUDES (CRYOBIOLINKS) | Climate warming in the northern high latitudes is twice as strong as the global average. Increasing surface temperatures drive significant changes in the cryosphere, reducing the snow mass and extent, seasonal frost and permafrost. Changes in [...] | FINNISH ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE (SYKE) (FI) | Science | biosphere, climate, cryosphere, living planet fellowship, Sentinel-3, SMOS, snow and ice, sustainable development | Climate warming in the northern high latitudes is twice as strong as the global average. Increasing surface temperatures drive significant changes in the cryosphere, reducing the snow mass and extent, seasonal frost and permafrost. Changes in the cryosphere are interconnected with changes in the biosphere, e.g. carbon uptake and release by vegetation and soil. These cryosphere-biosphere linkages and feedbacks may have important implications for the warming processes in the northern high latitudes and failure to account for them in Earth system models may cause significant uncertainties in climate projections. CryoBioLinks will investigate linkages between cryosphere variables and the carbon uptake of vegetation and their changes by using satellite observations on snow cover, soil freeze, land surface temperature, vegetation indices and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), together with in situ CO2 flux measurements. For that, the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) snow cover fraction, SMOS soil freeze and thaw time series and Sentinel-3 land surface temperature will be exploited and combined. SMOS soil freeze and thaw state will be fused with a novel Sentinel-1 soil freeze and thaw product to improve spatial resolution and reduce scaling errors when compared to CO2 flux sites. The correspondence of advanced vegetation indices from Sentinel-3 (chlorophyll/ carotenoid index and the plant phenological index) and GOSAT SIF and their relationship to gross primary production will be analysed. Satellite proxies describing seasonal dynamics of vegetation photosynthesis and gross primary production will be developed and their spatial distribution will be mapped in the northern high latitudes. The processing of vegetation indices and derived metrics from Sentinel-3 will be implemented to a cloud processing platform. The project will produce and publish multi-annual maps of proxy indicators covering the northern high latitudes (>60°N). Interconnections between the cryosphere variables and carbon fluxes will be studied for different ecosystem types in Finland and underlying mechanisms will be explored with the new terrestrial ecosystem model QUINCY. CryoBioLinks will advance the knowledge and produce new data sets on cryosphere-biosphere interactions, thus contributing to a grand challenge in climate science. The expected indicators can be utilized for the evaluation of cryosphere and biosphere processes in Earth system models. Developed methods are expected to provide means for the monitoring of changes in the cryosphere and vegetation carbon uptake, thus raising awareness and providing information for the preparation of climate adaptation and mitigation plans and herewith contributing to the Sustainable Development Goal 13: Climate action. |
| Assessing unpaved road condition from optical satellite imagery using machine learning in th e Global South | Rural roads in Africa provide mobility to the poorest in society, enabling them to access economic opportunities and essential services such as health and education. A study on rural access estimated that over a billion people living in rural [...] | TRL LIMITED (GB) | Applications | africa, climate, permanently open call, sustainable development | Rural roads in Africa provide mobility to the poorest in society, enabling them to access economic opportunities and essential services such as health and education. A study on rural access estimated that over a billion people living in rural areas do not have reasonable access to an all-season road (World Bank, 2016). Latest data (World Bank Data Catalogue, 2019) indicates that 59% of Africans live in rural areas, with the difference in livelihoods between rural and urban being most pronounced (OECD, 2019). At least 80% of goods and 90% of passengers are transported by road in Africa, and 53% of these roads are unpaved (African Development Bank, 2014). Rural roads can be a great enabler of economic and social transformation and are key to a number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 9.1. (TRL, 2019). Climate change is affecting the resilience of rural roads to resist more frequent and extreme weather events. Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) are struggling to keep pace with the revised requirements for resilience and in many cases do not have the basic information on their road networks to allow them to make essential decisions. The aim of this research is to develop an Earth Observation (EO) based system to rapidly assess the condition of unpaved road networks in LMICs and provide an overview of accessibility for improving road asset management. This minimises the time-consuming and logistically difficult process of gathering road condition information locally, whilst enabling efficient interventions where and when needed, hence optimising the use of resources through more efficient maintenance planning and prioritisation. To be attractive to LMIC road authorities the system must be cost-effective. Previous research focused on using very high-resolution satellite imagery to identify road condition on a Good/Fair/Poor/Bad basis by using Machine Learning classifiers and Convolutional Neural Networks. To minimise imagery costs this research is exploring the possibility of using lower resolution imagery to replicate the results, which would save up to 70% of the imagery costs. The project foresees a ground truthing process with local road managers partners, and will be first developed in two trial countries, Malawi and Madagascar, which are two of the countries with the least developed roads. A cost-benefit analysis will be also carried out, ensuring to determine the most appropriate level of accuracy against cost, to the level of accuracy required by road asset managers in LMICs. The project will produce an open GIS plug-in compatible with Road Asset Management Systems (RAMS). Two local key partners support the activity, specifically the Roads Authority in Malawi, and the NGO Lalana in Madagascar whose mission is to promote sustainable development process focusing on road infrastructure and transportation. |
| Atlantic cities: smart, sustainable and secure ports and protecting the ocean | The project aims at developing and delivering to the end user communities a number of customized EO-based information services to support decision making processes in the Atlantic Region: Climate Resilience Atlantic Cities and Ports [...] | DEIMOS SPACE UK LTD (GB) | Regional Initiatives | Atlantic, oceans, ports, regional initiatives, sustainable development, urban | The project aims at developing and delivering to the end user communities a number of customized EO-based information services to support decision making processes in the Atlantic Region: Climate Resilience Atlantic Cities and Ports Protecting the Ocean The Climate Resilience Service will be focused on providing information and know-how for assessing the risks and potential socio-economic impacts of coastal processes such as erosion and flooding, to: Critical infrastructures Business activities Coastal protection elements The main service users are: environmental agencies municipalities coastal business activities The Cities and Ports Service will focus on addressing the needs identified by coastal cities with ports, supporting the social cohesion and inclusiveness while ensuring the harmonious co-existence of many economic activities and the well-being of its inhabitants and tourists. This service therefore aims to support ports, cities and related entities in: Assessing the activities in and around ports Monitoring of maritime transport Detecting port-related pollution Identifying security/safety issues for assets. The Protecting the Ocean Service will focus on: detecting emerging pollutants such as marine litter monitoring the environmental status of ocean areas, including MPAs and other marine ecosystem relevant areas. This service addresses users from national and international authorities and other entities responsible for reporting marine status and indicators. |
| COMMUNITY EARTH OBSERVATION INTELLIGENCE SERVICE: PROTOTYPING FOR SCALE | At present NGOs/CSOs have limited expertise in accessing and utilizing EO data. This project is working with NGOs adressinghuman rights concerns and will develop methodologies for integrating in-situ (citizen data collection), drone and EO data [...] | OMANOS ANALYTICS (GB) | Digital Platform Services | permanently open call, platforms, sustainable development | At present NGOs/CSOs have limited expertise in accessing and utilizing EO data. This project is working with NGOs adressinghuman rights concerns and will develop methodologies for integrating in-situ (citizen data collection), drone and EO data to enhance the collection of information and evidence on activities affecting human rights in developing countries |
| CONTINENTAL DEMONSTRATOR LUISA: LAND USE INTENSITYS POTENTIAL, VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE IN AFRICA | Over Africa, land use intensification is a subject of particular research interest. The African land system is undergoing rapid changes and novel approaches are needed to understand the drivers and consequences of land use intensification, as [...] | UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE (NL) | Applications | africa, agriculture, climate, Continental Demonstrator, EO Africa, sustainable development | Over Africa, land use intensification is a subject of particular research interest. The African land system is undergoing rapid changes and novel approaches are needed to understand the drivers and consequences of land use intensification, as well as the dependency, vulnerability and resilience caused by climate change. It is paramount to understand Africa’s potential, vulnerability and resilience for a sustainable agriculture, defined as one that is low-carbon, resource-efficient, and socially inclusive.The primary objective of this activity is to develop and implement new methods, effectively linking and integrating modelling, satellite EO products (Sentinels, Explorers, Meteo missions, ESA-CCI) and dataset with in-situ, stakeholder-generated, social-economic data to advance the estimation of continental Africa potential, vulnerability and resilience for a sustainable agriculture. |
| CRITE: Coffee Rehabilitation in Timor-Leste | This activity is a follow-up to a successful activation of the ESA EO Clinic offering support to to ADB’s Timor-Leste Resident Mission (ADB project “Preparation of a National Coffee Sector Development Plan for Timor-Leste”). Following the [...] | Planetek Italia (IT) | Sustainable Development | agriculture, forestry, sustainable development | This activity is a follow-up to a successful activation of the ESA EO Clinic offering support to to ADB’s Timor-Leste Resident Mission (ADB project “Preparation of a National Coffee Sector Development Plan for Timor-Leste”). Following the promising first results of the feasibility study in using EO to characterise past and current coffee-growing practices, the main project activities include the definition, implementation and application at large scale of innovative methods to optical and SAR remote sensing data for coffee crop mapping and monitoring in Timor-Leste where most of the coffee plantations grow under a shade tree system. Planetek Italia continues the work with local stakeholders, including a more detailed assessment of the methodology. A dedicated mission to Timor-Leste took place for collection of in-situ validation data and capacity building. A prototype coffee plantation map is ready, based Sentinel-1/2 and an updated classification methodology which combines Machine Learning and Deep Learning Classifiers, integrating the information available about the shadow tree species, obtained in the field. First qualitative validation shows a higher performance of this methodology with respect to the first mapping done in the EO Clinic project. ADB contributes to this activity with logistics support to the validation exercise and capacity building support. |
| Earth Observation and Geology for Artisanal and Small Scale Mining Monitoring – ASM alert | The project sets out to use EO and geologic information to detect and monitor artisanal & small-scale mining (ASM) activities in tropical areas. ASM is an important economic factor in developing countries but poses serious environmental, [...] | GAF AG (DE) | Enterprise | environmental impacts, security, sustainable development | The project sets out to use EO and geologic information to detect and monitor artisanal & small-scale mining (ASM) activities in tropical areas. ASM is an important economic factor in developing countries but poses serious environmental, health, and criminal threats to local communities. The associated deforestation is also a considerable factor in regional and global climate change.Public, high-resolution (HR, 10m) and multi-temporal Sentinel-2 satellite imagery allows to detect and monitor indicators of ASM. The imagery is processed in a “cloud” environment and the resulting indicators are retrieved by a user-friendly internet front-end platform – the ASM alert tool – that demands no IT- or image processing knowledge on side of the user.The geologic information (rock units, tectonic structures, known gold occurrences) are analyzed and reclassified according their potential to bear gold, resulting in “gold potential” map. This gold potential map helps to prioritize EO HR indicators and to decide to acquire additional up-to-date very-high-resolution satellite imagery that may be used as evidence for legal disputes. The project sets out to develop, implement, test and train the ASM alert tool. The second focus of the project is to maximize the political outreach of the project results. For this purpose GAF is teaming with the Institute for Environmental Security (IES). The project will promote the results to decision makers at the international court in Den Hague, the OECD, the OAS and the World Bank beyond others key stakeholders (e.g. the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Climate Convention, the Convention to Combat Desertification, the World Heritage Convention,the Inter-American Court on Human Rights). |
| Earth Observation for the Sustainable Development Goals (EO for SDGs) | The international community recently engaged in an ambitious universal agenda on sustainable development with the aim to end poverty, promote prosperity and people’s well-being while protecting the environment. The 2030 Agenda on Sustainable [...] | DHI WATER – ENVIRONMENT HEALTH (DK) | Sustainable Development | sustainable development | The international community recently engaged in an ambitious universal agenda on sustainable development with the aim to end poverty, promote prosperity and people’s well-being while protecting the environment. The 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development ratified by the UN General Assembly in September 2015, is a new transformative and integrated development agenda that promotes shared economic prosperity, social development and environmental protection. In total 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 Targets have been adopted by the world leaders and will drive the agenda on sustainable development for the next 15 years, for both the United Nations and its Member States. The UN System has established a range of formal processes for achieving the sustainable development goals and monitoring progress towards the SDG Targets, with a particular focus to supporting the least developed economies and leaving no one behind. A robust monitoring mechanism for the implementation of the SDGs requires a solid framework of indicators, and consequently good and reliable statistical data, to measure, monitor and report progress, inform policy and ensure accountability of all stakeholders. The United Nations has adopted a Global Indicator Framework of 232 SDG Indicators that collectively provide a management tool for countries to implement development strategies and report on progress toward the SDG Targets. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development stressed the importance of Geospatial Information and Earth Observations (including satellite observations) to inform the SDG Targets and Indicators. An effective monitoring of the SDG Indicators and reporting of the progresses towards the SDG Targets require the use of multiple types of data that go well beyond the traditional socioeconomical data that countries have been exploiting to assess their development policies. Satellite observations, with their global spatial coverage and high frequency of observations, prove essential in capturing important aspects of sustainable development and in particular the environmental dimension of the SDGs. An effective integration within national statistical systems can also significantly reduce the monitoring costs and consequently enable countries to meet their engagement to monitor and report progress on the Goals and Targets. The main goal of the project was to support the efforts of the European Space Agency and its partners, essentially the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) to promote the use and showcase the utility of satellite Observations in the 2030 Agenda on sustainable development and in particular in the Global Indicator Framework. The project conducted a number of key tasks that helped streamlining the EO community efforts in its collaborative engagement on SDGs. These tasks included a thorough study of the contributions of satellite Observations to the SDG Targets and to the SDG Global Indicator Framework; a review of methodological guidelines for a number of key SDG Indicators; a national showcase of the integration of satellite Observations in country monitoring and reporting on SDG Indicators (in partnership with the National Statistical Office and line ministries of the selected country); and an analysis of the cloud computing infrastructures required to facilitate the uptake of satellite observations by the SDG stakeholders both at global and country levels. |
| EARTHSIGNATURE_AI | Monitoring of cropland has been critical for several national and international programmes (e.g., Sustainable Development Goals – #2 Zero Hunger, European Common Agriculture Policy). Furthermore, early identification of crops is becoming more [...] | CS SYSTEMES D’INFORMATION (FR) | Enterprise | artificial intelligence, land cover, permanently open call, sustainable development | Monitoring of cropland has been critical for several national and international programmes (e.g., Sustainable Development Goals – #2 Zero Hunger, European Common Agriculture Policy). Furthermore, early identification of crops is becoming more stringent in the context of climate change that can influence severely crop yields in some parts of the world. Given the size of te areas to be addressed and the volume of demand, EO based crop monitoirng must increasingly utiliuze AI based approaches. However, cropland classification is a challenging topic because of the constantly changing radiometric signature of crops due to seasons and weather and climatic conditions. This requires the development of a system capable of taking seasonal and weather and climatic variations into account. WIthin the framework of AI based approaches, in order to be economically sustainable, processing costs must also be reasonable. This project is addressing the entire processing and analysis chain for usiing ML analysis of EO data for crop classificaiton. This includes the identifiaction of which available land cover dataset(s) can provide the best levels of crop information and quality to perform an efficient and conclusive study while meeting specific user needs related to crop monitoring, testing different neural network (NN) configurations, including different input datasets and different approaches to represent data time-series as NN input which are then compared with a baseline classical approach and finally testing different Cloud computing configurations, including the use of the GPU. Beyond the calculation time assessment, this objective will inform on the trade-off between calculation time and platform configuration costs. |
| EO Clinic: Characterisation of Dilijan National Park Forest Ecosystems, Armenia | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Armenia Office Requesting activity: Mountain Forest Ecosystems Transformations Digital Platform Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG6 [...] | GeoVille (AT) | Sustainable Development | ecosystems/vegetation, forestry, land cover, sustainable development | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Armenia Office Requesting activity: Mountain Forest Ecosystems Transformations Digital Platform Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG6 (Forestry) Work Order number: EOC0004 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2020 May 06 Work Order end: 2020 Sep 25 Background Armenia is located at the junction of the biogeographic zones of the Lesser Caucasus and the Iranian and Mediterranean zones and exhibits both a great range of altitudinal variation and a diversity of climatic zones. Together, this has resulted in a diversity of landscapes and ecological communities with a distinct flora and fauna, including many regionally endemic, relict, and rare species. Across much of the country, these landscapes face moderate to severe deforestation and overgrazing pressures, corresponding in high rates of erosion, increasing soil salinity, lowered soil fertility, and loss of biodiversity. The main cause of land and forest degradation in North-Eastern Armenia, where the majority of the forests of the country are located is the deforestation and overexploitation of forest resources. Dilijan National Park is one of the four national parks of Armenia. Most of it is located in Tavush Province. It is known for its forest landscapes, rich biodiversity, medicinal mineral water springs, natural and cultural monuments, and extensive network of hiking trails. The National Park was established in 2002 on the basis of the Dilijan State Nature Reserve, which in its turn was established in 1958 on the basis of the former Dilijan and Kuybishev forest enterprises. The change of the status from state reserve to national park was conditioned by several objective reasons, such as inevitability of commercial activity in the area, presence of numerous settlements, including Dilijan town with its mineral water resorts, Yerevan-Ijevan railway line passing through its whole territory and others. Despite its unique biodiversity, rich natural-historical and cultural landscapes and huge eco-touristic potential, serious treats to ecosystems exists due to a dense population living within the national park, developed infrastructures, uncontrolled tourism, illegal logging, poaching and non-sustainable use of natural resources. In order to support the Armenian government strategy to rehabilitate degraded forests and increase forest cover significantly, in the Dilijan National Park area UNDP Armenia is focussing its efforts to better understand the past forest ecosystems transformations, the land use and land cover changes, and in general, all the socio-environmental processes in the past and today that affect the sustainable management of forest resources. In the earlier project “Mainstreaming sustainable land and forest management in mountain landscapes of north-eastern Armenia” in collaboration with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), UNDP Armenia concentrated efforts on analysing seven forest enterprises out of existing 19 forest enterprises in country. UNDP Armenia is looking to develop an updated methodology for forest inventory and management, also including satellite EO inputs. A successful demonstration of the methodology could essentially ease the way for activities planned for the remaining 12 forest enterprises and protected areas. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps The required EO services shall be designed to reveal important lessons on management efficiencies for the Dilijan area as a state reserve (before 2002) and for Dilijan National Park (since 2002). Understanding the impact of population, infrastructure development and increasing tourism the forest ecosystems is crucial to develop more effective management and nature conservation measures. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Land Cover and Land Use Classification and Associated Changes Service 2: Forest Mapping Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0004_WOR_V1.0.pdf |
| EO Clinic: Characterisation of Waste Sites Along the Lim River in Serbia | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Serbia Office Requesting activity: Automated Floating Waste Mapping Requesting activity type: Grant EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG5 (Energy and Natural Resources), TG8 (Transport), TG9 (Urban), [...] | EVERIS AEROESPACIAL Y DEFENSA S.L.U (ES) | Sustainable Development | energy and natural resources, rivers, surface water, sustainable development, transport, urban, water resources | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Serbia Office Requesting activity: Automated Floating Waste Mapping Requesting activity type: Grant EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG5 (Energy and Natural Resources), TG8 (Transport), TG9 (Urban), TG10 (Water Resources Management) Work Order number: EOC0005 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2020 Mar 18 Work Order end: 2020 Oct 05 Background Environmental protection continues to present challenges in Serbia, inadequate waste management being one of the most serious threats to the environment. River pollution, poor waste management in areas that can affect rivers, and illegal dumping are significant problems. UNDP Serbia needs help in identifying the exact locations and volume of waste along the rivers and thus provide input for the plans to remove the sources of pollution and prevent creation of new ones. This initiative is a part of UNDP’s support to the Serbian Ministry of Environmental Protection in their efforts to tackle the problem of floating waste in rivers, in particular in the Drina and Lim rivers. The Serbian ministry cooperates with environmental ministries in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro in a joint regional initiative, since the Drina and the Lim are transboundary rivers. An important aspect of the required support is mapping the illegal dump sites along the riverbeds. This waste gets into streams at times when water level rises, thus causing environmental harm to watercourses downstream, as well as economic losses (e.g. lost revenues from hydropower electricity generation, tourism, fishing, shipping). The UNDP Serbia project is in the concept phase. Apart from mapping (illegal) dump sites, the initiative also includes actions aimed at improving local waste management practices, local actions, and development of a roadmap for resource mobilisation by municipalities. UNDP Serbia is also coordinating the plans with the Ministry of Environmental Protection in order to exploit the synergy with their ongoing efforts on improving waste management nationally and regionally. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Waste Site Inventory Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0005_WOR.pdf |
| EO Clinic: COVID-19 Impact on Agricultural Practices in Moldova | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Moldova Office Requesting activity: Collaborative UNDP platform response to COVID-19 Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG1 (Agriculture), TG11 [...] | E-GEOS (IT) | Sustainable Development | agriculture, covid19, sustainable development | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Moldova Office Requesting activity: Collaborative UNDP platform response to COVID-19 Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG1 (Agriculture), TG11 (Non-EO Information and Analytics) Work Order number: EOC0007 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2020 May 28 Work Order end: 2020 Sep 18 Background The impact of the COVID-19 crisis on a small and open economy and a fragile local business community as the one in the Republic of Moldova is expected to be significant. The crisis is transforming the landscape, new business models will be adopted, once solid supply chains will disappear, and new ones will be established. The vulnerable groups in Moldova will disproportionately suffer from the crisis and the losses due to decreased mobility and economic activity. The rising income and non-income inequalities will affect the modest yet positive achievements of the country and its people when it comes to achieving the localized SDGs. With around 1 million of migrant Moldovans abroad, and given the deteriorating conditions in many destination countries, migration is an important crisis transmission channel and declining remittances will hardly hit the local economy. Under the current circumstances and given the unpredictable and complex conditions in which we all operate on the ground, the Government of Moldova managed to come up with specific targeted immediate response measures (for the duration of the State of Emergency) and specific short-term initiatives to support the most vulnerable people and the business community. While such measures are lifesaving for many, a comprehensive impact assessment is required to understand the depth of the crisis and provide for medium and long-term measures commensurable with the negative impact and responding to the local emerging needs. Moreover, additional robust evidence is needed by the Government to take rapid tactical decisions to minimize spread and the future losses due to the impact of the crisis on the social, economic and environmental dimensions of human development. In order to respond to the current crisis, raise awareness of the central and local administrations, support with evidence-based decision making, and assess the impact of the crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, UNDP and the Government are merging efforts to create a national collaborative platform for new evidence, to include satellite Earth Observation, big data (in particular on mobility) and other types of data in a multi-layered platform with multiple points and levels of access and visualisation of core products at national level, with the possibility to zoom in at the most granular level. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps Geospatial EO data is missing to a large extent and not used in Moldova and other countries in this region for development purposes. Moreover, given the current COVID-19, EO and other new types of data is urgently required to provide for: 1) Additional evidence around what is happening on the ground; 2) Improve situational awareness of the local authorities around COVID-19 and spread; 3) Support in assessing the immediate and long-term social and economic impact of COVID-19; 4) Support in building an Early Warning System for the Government of the Republic of Moldova. Approximately 70% of the Moldovan population in rural areas depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. About 55% of the approximately 2 million ha of agricultural land is arable, and used for annual crop production: maize, wheat, sunflower, barley, oilseed, soybean, sugar beet. Highly fertile soils can be found mostly in the north of the country and the Dniester River Valley. Here, conditions are adequate especially for the production of cereal grains, maize, fruits (apples, plums, walnuts), vegetables, etc. In the current COVID-19 pandemic context, many of the Moldovans living in affected Western European countries (Italy, Spain, etc.) have returned or are returning to Moldova. It is believed this segment of the population is at the moment taking on employment opportunities in the agricultural sector, outside of urban areas. The limitations in mobility due to the pandemic, additionally to the influx of previously expatriated citizens creates a complex situation, with an obvious lack of overview information on the status and timing of the agriculture-related seasonal activities, and the possible impact on food production and supply chains. The present EO Clinic support will contribute to the monitoring of the agricultural production (focused on strategic crops) and the estimation of the impact of COVID-19 on the local agricultural practices, with particular focus on HVA (high value-added) agriculture. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Cropland Distribution and Status Service 2: Mobility Trends to Reveal Agricultural Practice Anomalies Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0007_WOR_v01.pdf Final Presentation: EOC0007_FPR_v4.pdf |
| EO Clinic: COVID-19 Impact on Air Quality in Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Ukraine Office, UNDP Moldova Office Requesting activity: Collaborative UNDP platform response to COVID-19 Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG2 [...] | EVERIS AEROESPACIAL Y DEFENSA S.L.U (ES) | Sustainable Development | air quality, covid19, sustainable development, transport | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Ukraine Office, UNDP Moldova Office Requesting activity: Collaborative UNDP platform response to COVID-19 Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG2 (Climate Change), TG8 (Transport), TG9 (Urban), TG11 (Non-EO Information and Analytics) Work Order number: EOC0009 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2020 Jul 21 Work Order end: 2020 Oct 05 Background The COVID-19 crisis is transforming the social and economic landscape of many countries, with measures adopted including physical distancing, travel restrictions, transition to teleworking, etc., depending on epidemic phase and local context. With the lockdowns many new business models are adopted, solid supply chains are affected and new approaches are appearing. COVID-19 in Ukraine: In Ukraine, the national authorities imposed comprehensive quarantine measures at an early stage of the COVID-19 surge. Mobility and transport within and between cities and regions (Oblasts) reduced drastically. Negative effects across the country’s growing economy quickly emerged, as enterprises in large numbers had to halt operations completely or were forced to adapt to a minimum of demand and market activity. The Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates that about 700,000 small and medium enterprises in the service sector and educational institutions which employ 3.5 to 4 million people have closed. Whereas the full impact is yet to be established, diminishing of productive sectors and decline in income from both formal and informal economic activity will cause a significant backlash to progress that has been recorded on important social and economic development indicators, especially at local and regional level. COVID-19 in Moldova: The impact of the COVID-19 crisis on a small and open economy and a fragile local business community as the one in the Republic of Moldova is expected to be significant. The vulnerable groups in Moldova will disproportionately suffer from the crisis and the losses due to decreased mobility and economic activity. The rising income and non-income inequalities will affect the modest yet positive achievements of the country and its people when it comes to achieving the localised SDGs. With around 1 million of migrant Moldovans abroad, and given the deteriorating conditions in many destination countries, migration is an important crisis transmission channel and declining remittances will hit the local economy hardly. The Republic of Moldova responded to the COVID-19 outbreak by imposing a set of restrictive measures which covered travel bans in and outside of the country, implementing social distancing and sanitation protocols, as well as restricting on business activities. The policies aimed at reducing the spread of the virus and supporting the nation healthcare system have significantly disrupted public life and economic activity, with World Bank forecasting a 5.4 decrease in GDP due to the Coronavirus pandemic. In the long-term the impact of the pandemic is yet to be determined but the forecasts suggest a sharp deterioration in activity. A fall in remittances will further depress private consumption while the disruption of supply chains and recession in key economic partners will reduce exports. On the production side, the outbreak will reduce reducing domestic output, with HORECA, construction, transport and manufacturing being most affected. The optimistic forecasts suggest that the economy is expected to bounce back to around 4 percent in 2021 and to moderate at 3.6 percent in 2022, however the recovery is conditioned on the capacity of Governments to understand how the crisis continues to affect national business community and society. Crisis Response: In order to respond to the current crisis, raise awareness of the central and local administrations, support with evidence-based decision making, and assess the impact of the crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, UNDP together with the Ukrainian and Moldovan governments are stepping up efforts to collect new evidence, including from satellite Earth Observation (EO), in a multi-layered and multi-granular information approach. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps Geospatial EO data is missing to a large extent and not yet fully used in Ukraine and Moldova for development purposes. Moreover, given the current COVID-19 crisis, EO and other new types of data is urgently required to provide for: 1) Additional evidence around what is happening on the ground, especially in the absence or delayed collecting of statistical and other public data; 2) Improve situational awareness of the local and regional authorities around COVID-19 and its spread; 3) Support in assessing the immediate and long-term social and economic impact of COVID-19; 4) Support in building an Early Warning System (for the Government of the Republic of Moldova). In the current COVID-19 pandemic context, the governments of Ukraine and Moldova have expressed strong interest in having the capability to characterise the consequences of the pandemic on environmental conditions (i.e. environmental indictors). One of the information gaps concerns overview and detailed information on the status of air quality and emissions due to transport and industry. The present EO Clinic support will contribute to the work of UNDP and the governments to close this information gap and to better understand the complex “before and after” situation in both countries, created by the limitations in mobility, changes in economic activity, and the additional influx of previously expatriated citizens. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Regional and Local Air Quality Indicators Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0009_WOR.pdf |
| EO Clinic: Estimating the Magnitude and Spatial Distribution of Informal Trade in Central Asia | EO Clinic support requested by: World Bank Group (WBG) Global Trade and Regional Integration Unit Requesting activity: Central Asia: Regional Trade Connectivity Linkages Requesting activity type: Other: ASA (Advisory Services and [...] | E-GEOS (IT) | Sustainable Development | infrastructure, sustainable development, transport, urban | EO Clinic support requested by: World Bank Group (WBG) Global Trade and Regional Integration Unit Requesting activity: Central Asia: Regional Trade Connectivity Linkages Requesting activity type: Other: ASA (Advisory Services and Analytics) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG8 (Transport), TG9 (Urban), TG11 (Non-EO Information and Analytics) Work Order number: EOC0014 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2021 Apr 09 Work Order end: 2021 Jun 29 Background The World Bank Group is supporting client countries in Central Asia with the objective of enhancing regional trade, investment and connectivity. Regional trade, in these geographies, is characterized by a large presence of informal trade (informal activity, which involves undeclared cross-border trade) mostly along borders and in markets and so-called bazaars. This form of trade is known to provide a large amount of employment in these countries. But this economic activity involving cross-border trade, taking place in these markets, is generally not recorded in official statistics. This “shadow” economy, often representing a large proportion of economic transactions is difficult to measure and its omission can lead to wrongful policy design and recommendations, the undermining of tax collection and the hurting of law-abiding local firms that compete with undeclared goods. Sometimes, ad hoc surveys are conducted, but they generally aren’t done on a regular basis and are prone to different methodological shortcomings, such as underreporting. The current EO Clinic support would be incorporated to an ongoing 2-year analytical project implemented by the World Bank (Central Asia: Regional Trade Connectivity Linkages – project number P171131) aimed at improving regional trade integration in Central Asia, that will have as main deliverable a publication but also policy dialogue with all governments in the region. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps Capturing the size of the informal trading sector in certain Central Asian regions, even roughly, could represent a big leap forward in terms policy design in border compliance, and fiscal management for resource-starved countries. Sustained growth in informal cross-border trade typically leads to densification of man-made structures in the local hinterland, usually in the form of commercial real estate, small shops and warehousing structures. Increased trade is also most noticeable in terms of vehicle presence (e.g. trucks, cars, motorbikes, bicycles) and pedestrians shopping in these markets. Usually these markets are contained within a very small geographical area, of a few square kilometres at most, which makes them easier to observe in time with satellite Earth Observation methods. The objective of the present work is to use remote sensing methods to observe the peri-urban landscape of inland bazaars as a conduit to estimate current and past informal trade (directly or indirectly). Conceptually speaking, EO methods to fill in these gaps are not very different from those currently used in predictive analytics (e.g. estimation of retailer chains’ revenues by means of vehicle count in parking lots). Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Past and Present Analysis of Markets and Bazaars Service 2: Predictive Analysis Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0014_WOR_v01.pdf Final Presentation: EOC0014_EXS.pdf |
| EO Clinic: Infrastructure Projects Implementation and Economic Outcomes in Armenia | EO Clinic support requested by: Asian Development Bank (ADB), Central West Regional Department (CWRD), Urban Development and Water Division (CWUW) Requesting activity: Infrastructure Projects: Implementation and Economic Outcomes in [...] | GeoVille (AT) | Sustainable Development | infrastructure, sustainable development, urban | EO Clinic support requested by: Asian Development Bank (ADB), Central West Regional Department (CWRD), Urban Development and Water Division (CWUW) Requesting activity: Infrastructure Projects: Implementation and Economic Outcomes in Armenia Requesting activity type: Loan EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG9 (Urban), TG11 (Non-EO Information and Analytics) Work Order number: EOC0013 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2021 Jan 27 Work Order end: 2021 Dec 17 Background Regions of Armenia are characterized by deep and persistent disparities in terms of levels of their economic development. The regional disparities in Armenia worsened as the country moved from a centrally-planned economy to a market economy after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Armenia’s urban sector is characterized by the dominance of Yerevan, which hosts over a third of the national population and accounted for 57.7% of Armenia’s GDP (2016). With an urbanization structure which is con-sistent with comparator countries (Balkans, former Soviet Union and allied countries with a population be-tween 1 and 5 million inhabitants), urban sector investments are consistently dominating in the primate cap-ital city. Armenia has only one secondary city with more than 100,000 inhabitants, Gyumri. While Armenia’s single-centre national economic model allows for agglomeration effects, it also raises ques-tion about the development possibilities of other regions, especially of secondary cities at considerable dis-tance from the capital. Therefore, the main question is how to achieve more balanced economic growth, while harvesting productivity gains from agglomeration in Yerevan. Infrastructure investment is increasingly recognized as one of the key factors behind long-run economic growth, as well as enabler of more equal regional growth—higher mobility of resources between and within regions can build equitable growth and spread economic gains more widely across growth centres and regions. During the last decades Armenia has made a sizeable improvement in hard infrastructure renovation and building; thousands got access to better education, healthcare and more. Nevertheless, significant gaps in the implementation of large-scale infrastructure projects remain. Certainly, this is not a purely Armenian phe-nomenon—advanced economies face similar challenges. As a result, many developed countries have gradually moved towards more robust institutional setups. For example, Governments of UK, Ireland and Australia have established corresponding institutions, which are equipped with the necessary level of independence and ex-pertise to bring the uncertainty related to infrastructure project delivery down. The institutional setup and the capacity building for sophisticated infrastructure projects are likely to be at the front and centre of the discus-sion about public capital spending in a foreseeable future. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps The EO Clinic activation shall help identifying areas of permanent change in the physical urban- and periurban landscape in Armenia, reflecting changes in the economic activity, as observed via EO. The analysis will exploit optical and/or radar datasets to generate indicators spanning from the 90s (e.g. archived Landsat-6 and ERS data) until present (latest Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data). A set of indicators will be derived that best fit the purpose of detecting and characterising some of the major changes over time. This activity is exploratory in nature and provides mapping products and, most importantly, a synthesis of changes over the years. The proposed solution includes indicators on urban and peri-urban expansion, fragmentation and compactness. Land accounting for physical assets including transformation to and from urban on one side, and agriculture, forest and semi-natural/natural land, wetlands or water on the other, are calculated and presented as analytics. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Indicators of Permanent Change in the Economy Service 2: Full-Scale Generation of Indicators Service 3: Concept Note on a Possible Platform to Support Investment Prioritisation Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0013_WOR_v01_1.pdf |
| EO Clinic: Mitigation of Climate Change Risks in the Agricultural Sector of Cambodia | EO Clinic support requested by: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Regional Economic Development Program IV (RED IV), Cambodia Requesting activity: Identification of surface water resources for the mitigation of [...] | GeoVille (AT) | Sustainable Development | agriculture, climate, disaster risk, sustainable development, water resources | EO Clinic support requested by: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Regional Economic Development Program IV (RED IV), Cambodia Requesting activity: Identification of surface water resources for the mitigation of climate change risks in the agricultural sector of north-western Cambodia Requesting activity type: Grant EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG1 (Agriculture), TG2 (Climate Change), TG4 (Disaster Risk Management), TG10 (Water Resources Management) Work Order number: EOC0010 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2020 Jul 28 Work Order end: 2020 Sep 21 Background Cambodia is heavily affected by climate change. The rainy season is becoming more irregular and rainfall is often delayed but more frequent. In the Tonle Sap catchment area there have been repeated severe floods in recent years, but at the same time a growing number of droughts (see also the GIZ study Transboundary Water Resource Management in the Lower Mekong Basin – Joint Project Flood and Drought Thailand and Cambodia Sub Basins 9T/9C, August 2018). The droughts, which have now become very severe, directly threaten the existence of thousands of small farmers in the western and northern provinces of Cambodia. The availability of water is of decisive importance for further economic development of north-western Cambodia. It is essential for the fight against rural poverty and malnutrition, since most of the rural population lives from agriculture and the poverty rate in this region is above country average. Every year, marginalised groups of the population which are supported by the GIZ program Regional Economic Development IV (RED IV), are acutely threatened by crop failures to fall (back) below the poverty line. Many households in northwest Cambodia earn their living by growing rice, cassava or vegetables, all agricultural products that depend on sufficient and regular rainfall. The above-mentioned study comes to the conclusion that in the coming years, both floods and droughts can be expected to increase, while at the same time the pressure on water resources increases. RED IV is an extensive program with SDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) co-financing working on the promotion of agricultural value chains in the north-western part of Cambodia. Water management is an important issue for the program, which has been working since October 2019 on an analysis of the local availability of surface water in the north-western provinces of Cambodia. The present EO Clinic support will help define options for the construction of water infrastructure and recommendations for the improvement of water management, in order to maintain and secure the water resources of the rural population. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps There is currently no systematic water management in Cambodia. Some of the reservoirs date back to the 1970s, but they are often in poor condition and completely inadequate in terms of volume and integration into local infrastructures. Local authorities on district and communal level have no comprehensive overview of the existing water infrastructure and the availability of surface water resources (natural or man-made). There is no connection between the development of agricultural clusters and a systematic development of water infrastructure. Local authorities have insufficient capacities and knowledge to develop a water management strategy. Data availability in Cambodia is a challenge, especially when it comes to fine scale. Cambodia has at this point no official data of the nature required by RED IV. Mapping the extent of surface freshwater (streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, reservoirs, irrigation canals, creeks) at regional scale and monitoring its dynamics at regular and frequent time intervals is sought after. However, currently available data from Cambodian authorities are either out of date or not accurate enough. Presently, GIZ and its partners have some familiarity with products such as the USGS Landsat Dynamic Surface Water Extent. The level of detail of these products is however often considered insufficient. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Waterbody Inventory and Dynamics Service 2: Detailed Waterbody Inventory Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0010_WOR_V1.0.pdf |
| EO Clinic: Natural Wealth and Sovereign Risk | EO Clinic support requested by: World Bank Group (WBG) Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation Global Practice (FCI GP), Long Term Finance Unit (EFNLT) Requesting activity: Natural Wealth and Sovereign Risk Requesting activity type: Other: [...] | EVERIS AEROESPACIAL Y DEFENSA S.L.U (ES) | Sustainable Development | agriculture, sustainable development | EO Clinic support requested by: World Bank Group (WBG) Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation Global Practice (FCI GP), Long Term Finance Unit (EFNLT) Requesting activity: Natural Wealth and Sovereign Risk Requesting activity type: Other: Global Program on Sustainability (GPS) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG1 (Agriculture), TG11 (Non-EO Information and Analytics) Work Order number: EOC0008 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2020 Jul 15 Work Order end: 2020 Oct 05 Background A well-developed financial sector that enables long-term financing for countries’ strategic sectors– government, SMEs and corporates, physical infrastructure & housing, and agriculture – is crucial for inclusive economic growth and for achieving the World Bank Group’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The activities of the Term Finance Unit (EFNLT) within the World Bank’s Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation Global Practice (FCI GP) assist in bridging funding gaps for these key strategic sectors by developing capital markets and increasing the supply of institutional investors’ assets (primarily pensions and insurance) to fund long-term investments in strategic sectors such as infrastructure, housing and agriculture. The World Bank’s Global Program on Sustainability (GPS) aims to integrate environmental and other sustainability considerations into public and private decisions, by providing policy makers and the financial sector with the necessary metrics and tools. This approach involves looking beyond GDP and traditional financial metrics to include accounting for environmental risks and opportunities and valuing natural capital and ecosystem services. Within the proposed activity “Natural Wealth and Sovereign Risk”, EFNLT aims to conduct assessments on how environmental risks impact the financial sectors of different countries. The project plans to use data from various sources, including on agricultural crop types and crop health, to bring more detail into existing sovereign Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data. This aims to build on WAVES, a GPS precursor activity, as part of an ongoing donor-funded program that has been renewed for the next 3 years. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps The information gaps in the scope of the present World Bank support request are related to agricultural crop status and crop health, compared across countries. At the moment the related data available to the bank team is often inconsistent, not sufficiently granular and not made available with a sufficient frequency. The bank team currently only has country-level wealth data on an annual frequency to compare crop data to. These are highly aggregated and modelled such that direct comparisons are difficult. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Crop Types and Crop Health Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0008_WOR.pdf |
| EO Clinic: Preparation of a National Coffee Sector Development Plan for Timor-Leste | EO Clinic support requested by: Asian Development Bank (ADB), Timor-Leste Resident Mission (TLRM) Requesting activity: Coffee and Agroforestry Livelihood Improvement Project Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic [...] | E-GEOS (IT) | Sustainable Development | agriculture, forestry, sustainable development | EO Clinic support requested by: Asian Development Bank (ADB), Timor-Leste Resident Mission (TLRM) Requesting activity: Coffee and Agroforestry Livelihood Improvement Project Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG1 (Agriculture) Work Order number: EOC0002 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2019 Jul 01 Work Order end: 2019 Sep 12 Background Improvements in coffee production and processing offer one of the clearest pathways for poverty reduction and growth of the non-oil economy in Timor-Leste. Coffee is Timor-Leste’s largest non-oil export and is grown by an estimated 37.6% of all Timorese households. Approximately 52,000 hectares are planted with coffee but it is reported that more than half of the planted area consists of unproductive old trees. As a result, yields are low, with an average yield of 150–200 kg of green beans per ha. This is only 21% of the average yield in Southeast Asia and 10% of the yield achieved by productive plantations. Relatively simple practices including replanting, pruning and improved farm management have been shown to triple the yield per unit area for a typical household and raise households’ net income from coffee production by a factor of 2.7. It is also widely recognized that Timor-Leste has the potential to sell an increasing share of its coffee production to differentiated specialty markets that pay price premiums relating to quality, origin, production processes and environmental sustainability. Achieving this potential re-quires careful processing and handling of coffee as it moves through the value chain from coffee farms to final consumers in the domestic or international market. Several development partners have been supporting farm rehabilitation and quality improvements by providing grant funds to individual cooperatives and NGOs or by providing assistance to the government. There has been good progress in farm some areas but serious challenges remain. This request for support is meant to provide better geospatial data to design the development coffee industry. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps Information is needed on the location, extent and state of the coffee plantations, as well as patterns in land use change related to (and affecting) coffee plantations. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Past and Current Coffee-Growing Areas and Farming Conditions Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0002_WOR_v03.pdf Additional Resources This EO Clinic activation was followed by a more in-depth study: CRITE: Coffee Rehabilitation in Timor-Leste. |
| EO Clinic: Shoreline Mapping in the Gaza Strip | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Gaza Office / Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People (PAPP) Requesting activity: Building Capacities in Remote Sensing Technologies in the Gaza Strip Requesting activity type: Technical [...] | GeoVille (AT) | Sustainable Development | climate, coastal zone, disaster risk, marine environment, sustainable development, urban | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Gaza Office / Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People (PAPP) Requesting activity: Building Capacities in Remote Sensing Technologies in the Gaza Strip Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG2 (Climate Change), TG3 (Coastal Zone Management), TG4 (Disaster Risk Management), TG9 (Urban) Work Order number: EOC0011 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2020 Aug 18 Work Order end: 2020 Sep 29 Background In the recent years, the Gaza Strip has been experiencing rapidly-evolving environmental changes, related especially to land use, coastal erosion and agricultural production, in conjunction with flooding and drought problems. Due to the lack of planning and monitoring by different stakeholders, this has led to serious and complex problems, including risk to residents in coastal areas and food insecurity. Monitoring and detection of such environmental changes and assessment of their trends as well as their consequences are necessary for future development. UNDP is working to launch projects on the protection of the Gaza shoreline, where detailed information is needed on the forces driving the coastal erosion, which was observed historically and is expected to continue in the coming years. Without adequate measures, this is considered as a real risk for the coastal environments and the residents living near the shoreline, especially in the western side of the Gaza Strip. This also causes considerable economic loss for the people of Gaza. In general, in Palestine and the Gaza Strip the approach of inclusion of remote sensing and satellite Earth Observation (EO) in planning and monitoring activities is still in its early stages, due mainly to the limited number of remote sensing specialists. There is a pressing need to mainstream the culture of remote sensing in the context of Palestine and specifically in the Gaza Strip, where changes are sometimes manmade and can be massive. UNDP is planning an intervention aiming to increase the local capacities in utilising remote sensing in planning and monitoring the different rehabilitation and development activities aiming to overcome relevant knowledge gaps. The supported UNDP project aims to build capacities in remote sensing applications for sustainable development in the Gaza Strip. The present EO Clinic support will contribute to creating a complete and up-to-date analysis of the Gaza shoreline, providing insights in coastal erosion and accretion processes and associated risks. Additionally, it will contribute to the UNDP-supported training programme by providing high-quality EO training materials and support in delivering those trainings. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Coastal Change Mapping Service 2: Capacity Building Support Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0011_WOR_v01.pdf |
| EO Clinic: Snow and Ice Mapping in Kazakhstan | EO Clinic support requested by: Asian Development Bank (ADB), Kazakhstan Resident Mission (KARM) Requesting activity: Republic of Kazakhstan: Mobilizing finance to help achieving Sustainable Development Goals Requesting activity type: [...] | E-GEOS (IT) | Sustainable Development | disaster risk, snow and ice, sustainable development, water resources | EO Clinic support requested by: Asian Development Bank (ADB), Kazakhstan Resident Mission (KARM) Requesting activity: Republic of Kazakhstan: Mobilizing finance to help achieving Sustainable Development Goals Requesting activity type: Knowledge and Support Technical Assistance (KSTA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG4 (Disaster Risk Management), TG10 (Water Resources Management) Work Order number: EOC0006 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2020 May 07 Work Order end: 2020 Sep 15 Background ADB is supporting the government of Kazakhstan in creating a platform among development partners and mobilising finance to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Kazakhstan’s commitment to realising the 2030 SDG Agenda is in line with the country’s aspirations to improve people’s quality of life as envisioned in the 2025 Strategic Development Plan as well as in the Kazakhstan 2050 Strategy. The recently kicked-off KSTA is aligned with key operational priorities of Strategy 2030 of ADB by mainstreaming the use of high-level technologies in Developing Member Countries (DMC). The KSTA is also fully aligned with the country partnership strategy for Kazakhstan, 2017–2021, which highlights ADB’s role in assisting with managing the social impact of technology solutions in areas such as municipal services, e-commerce, agri-business, green economy, and finance. National Sustainable Development Strategies (NSDS) are based on several sustainable goals, including SDG 11 – “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe resilient and sustainable”. The city of Nur-Sultan and surrounding areas are affected by river floods. In September 2019 ADB in partnership with ESA agreed to provide technical support to KGS (Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary) to improve flood simulation and calculation of water volume in reservoirs for the Nura and the Ishim river basins. KGS is the state-owned space entity that has been appointed by the Committee on Water Resources of the Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources and by the Committee for Emergency Situations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to provide solutions to mitigate flood-related hazards and risks. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps The technical approach that is being discussed by the stakeholders for solutions to mitigate the flood-related issues is quite comprehensive. It implies the use of EO, in-situ observations and hydraulic modelling, in order to predict flood scenarios, and how water levels will evolve during certain rainfall regimes. In the end there is a need to develop a model prototype with the following parameters: water velocity and flow directions, and predicted areas of flooding. However, the scope of the foreseen support may be divided in different phases and modules. The scope of the present RFP is limited to demonstrate some baseline products and trend analysis through the use of optical and SAR data to map river and lake ice and their evolution in time. River ice controls the winter flow regime of rivers and compromises the operation of hydrometric stations, governs the water intake and discharge activities of municipalities and businesses. Particularly during spring break-up, ice can create jams and floods that endanger infrastructure such as bridges. The users would like to understand better the advantages and limitations of the EO-based datasets that could contribute to the water balance and flood risk modelling, in particular when confronted with information layers they might have from other sources. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Snow Cover Dynamics Service 2: River and Lake Ice Dynamics Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0006_WOR_v01.pdf |
| EO Clinic: Strengthening Drought Resilience in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands in Ethiopia | EO Clinic support requested by: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Ethiopia Office Requesting activity: Strengthening Drought Resilience in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (SDR-ASAL) Requesting activity type: Technical [...] | EVERIS AEROESPACIAL Y DEFENSA S.L.U (ES) | Sustainable Development | agriculture, climate, rivers, surface water, sustainable development, transport, urban, water resources | EO Clinic support requested by: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Ethiopia Office Requesting activity: Strengthening Drought Resilience in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (SDR-ASAL) Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG1 (Agriculture), TG2 (Climate Change), TG8 (Transport), TG9 (Urban), TG10 (Water Resources Management), TG11 (Non-EO Information and Analytics) Work Order number: EOC0012 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2020 Sep 25 Work Order end: 2021 Jan 15 Background Over 7 million people live in the Afar and Somali Regions in Ethiopia. Most of them are pastoralists and agro-pastoralists who depend on semi-mobile livestock for their livelihoods. Currently their economic and social systems are under pressure due to population growth and the impact of climate change (increasing frequency and severity of droughts and floods). GIZ has a programme in place, called the Strengthening drought resilience (SDR) programme to help facing this situation. Furthermore, GIZ in collaboration with the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources, has developed the “Strengthening Drought Resilience in Arid and Semi-Arid lands” (SDR-ASAL) program. The objective of this programme is to develop a holistic approach for land rehabilitation in this area. One of the main aspects of SDR-ASAL is to rehabilitate degraded water catchments and pasture areas in dry valleys. In this initiative, state and non-state actors together with pastoral and agro-pastoral communities have created the conceptual foundations for the rehabilitation and use of dry valleys and their productive use. Some measures that can be developed are for example simple dry-stone and the construction of weirs to reduce the speed of runoff water and to retain eroded soil in the river channel. The objective is to build water spreading weirs/cascades in suitable locations (dry valleys) to control flash floods from the highlands and direct some of the precious water to low-lying plains where it can be stored in the soil. This will allow reintroducing agricultural practices. In addition, groundwater aquifers can be fed rather than letting the water rush through the valley unused. This technique was developed in the 1990s and tested very successfully in various countries in western Africa. It is now introduced in the Ethiopian lowlands starting 2014 and ever since has been further adjusted to the local conditions. There is a huge potential in the Ethiopian lowlands to improve rural development and the livelihood systems by this type of rehabilitation of degraded watersheds. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps The overall purpose of the present EO Clinic activation is to support GIZ Ethiopia and its partners in the site selection process (site identification and delineation) for future weir construction project activities using EO data, i.e. to conduct a site suitability analysis. “In order to identify the most suitable project sites dry valleys for their project, GIZ Ethiopia created a catalogue of site selection criteria called “Cascade Suitability Matrix – GIZ SDR”. This catalogue includes physical, biological and social location factors that are combined to identify most suitable areas for project implementation. Examples are physical aspects (sufficient stones and sand available for construction, closest permanent water point, road access), biological aspects (predominant soil type, signs of cultivation), social aspects (proximity of marketplace, presence and maintenance of enclosures, proximity of the next hamlet/village, number of hamlets/villages in this area). In the absence of data on dry streambeds, it is expected that the Contractor develops a limited AoI within the AFAR region by performing a hydrological analysis on an available DEM to identify likely stream beds. The AoI should exclude permanent streams (i.e. streams of the greatest Strahler value). The Contractor shall perform the above analysis and present/discuss the result, a suitable AoI consisting of a buffer region around likely dry stream beds to the stakeholders prior to the main site suitability analysis. The buffer shall be chosen keeping in mind the distances mentioned in the Cascade Suitability Matrix. It is acknowledged that not all factors defined in the Cascade Suitability Matrix (physical, biological and social) can be mapped with EO. The Contractor shall identify which factors can be characterised from space, and select satellite imagery with resolutions suitable for the detection of the features described in the matrix (e.g. villages). No general minimum mapping unit or resolution are defined, as these will depend on the solution provided by the Contractor. Based on EO information, a scoring matrix shall be completed. The data will be used to identify most promising/suitable new project sites for the effective and sustainable rehabilitation and use of degraded land in dry valleys of the Ethiopian lowlands. The most suitable sites will be evaluated for future projects. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Factors Identification and Assessment Service 2: Site Suitability Map Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0012_WOR_v01.pdf |
| EO Clinic: Surface Water Mapping in Kazakhstan | EO Clinic support requested by: Asian Development Bank (ADB), Kazakhstan Resident Mission (KARM) Requesting activity: Republic of Kazakhstan: Mobilizing finance to help achieving Sustainable Development Goals Requesting activity type: [...] | E-GEOS (IT) | Sustainable Development | disaster risk, lakes, natural hazards and disaster risk, rivers, surface water, sustainable development, water resources | EO Clinic support requested by: Asian Development Bank (ADB), Kazakhstan Resident Mission (KARM) Requesting activity: Republic of Kazakhstan: Mobilizing finance to help achieving Sustainable Development Goals Requesting activity type: Knowledge and Support Technical Assistance (KSTA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG10 (Water Resources Management) Work Order number: EOC0003 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2019 Dec 17 Work Order end: 2020 Apr 15 Background ADB is supporting the government of Kazakhstan in creating a platform among development partners and mobilising finance to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Kazakhstan’s commitment to realising the 2030 SDG Agenda is in line with the country’s aspirations to improve people’s quality of life as envisioned in the 2025 Strategic Development Plan as well as in the Kazakhstan 2050 Strategy. The requesting KSTA is aligned with key operational priorities of Strategy 2030 of ADB by mainstreaming the use of high-level technologies in Developing Member Countries (DMC). The KSTA is also fully aligned with the country partnership strategy for Kazakhstan, 2017–2021, which highlights ADB’s role in assisting with managing the social impact of technology solutions in areas such as municipal services, e-commerce, agri-business, green economy, and finance. National Sustainable Development Strategies (NSDS) are based on several sustainable goals, including SDG 11 – “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe resilient and sustainable”. The city of Nur-Sultan and surrounding areas are affected by river floods. In September 2019 ADB in partnership with ESA agreed to provide technical support to KGS (Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary) to improve flood simulation and calculation of water volume in reservoirs for the Nura and the Ishim river basins. KGS is the state-owned space entity that has been appointed by the Committee on Water Resources of the Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources and by the Committee for Emergency Situations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to provide solutions to mitigate flood-related hazards and risks. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps The technical approach that is being discussed by the stakeholders for solutions to mitigate the flood-related issues is quite comprehensive. It implies the use of EO, in-situ observations and hydraulic modelling, in order to predict flood scenarios, and how water levels will evolve during certain rainfall regimes. In the end there is a need to develop a model prototype with the following parameters: water velocity and flow directions, and predicted areas of flooding. However, the scope of the foreseen support may be divided in different phases and modules. The scope of the present request is limited to demonstrate some baseline products and trend analysis through the use of optical and SAR data to map water body extents and monitor their evolution in time, as well as the use of radar altimetry to monitor surface water levels. The users would like to understand better the advantages and limitations of the EO-based datasets that could contribute to the water balance and flood risk modelling, in particular when confronted with information layers they might have from other sources. Visualising multitemporal data via a geoportal is also required, as well as presenting cost estimates for multi-annual service provision. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Inventory of Water Bodies and Associated Dynamics Service 2: Virtual Water Level Monitoring Stations Service 3: Estimates of Total Water Volumes Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0003_WOR_v1.2.pdf |
| EO Clinic: Urban Mobility Plan Development in Chisinau, Moldova | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Moldova Office Requesting activity: Urban Mobility Plan Development / Urban Collaborative New Evidence Platform Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG8 [...] | GeoVille (AT) | Sustainable Development | infrastructure, land cover, population, sustainable development, transport, urban | EO Clinic support requested by: UNDP Moldova Office Requesting activity: Urban Mobility Plan Development / Urban Collaborative New Evidence Platform Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG8 (Transport), TG9 (Urban), TG11 (Non-EO Information and Analytics) Work Order number: EOC0001 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2019 May 23 Work Order end: 2019 Jul 17 Background Massive and speedy urbanisation provides both development opportunities but also threats to sustainable human development and social inclusion. Cities like Chisinau are growing in an uncontrolled manner, without clear development plans and strategies for sustainable and green urban growth. This provides for major risks related to the social exclusion and marginalisation of certain groups, lacking or under-developed infrastructure, threatened urban security and safety, emergence of new problems related to health, air pollution, traffic congestion, unauthorised or illegal constructions, sometimes worst suboptimal urban mobility and so on. On the other hand, urbanization provides for new opportunities in housing, education, urban mobility, development of new infrastructures, energy transition, green technologies, etc. UNDP Moldova is establishing a new evidence platform, i.e. a collaborative platform for engaging all relevant stakeholders in the generation and use of new evidence deriving from big, thick and spatial data. UNDP and its local partners will use the new evidence to generate insights and understand development patterns and then use the new evidence for experimentation work, i.e. generation and testing of safe-to-fail solutions to achieve SDGs at local level. Initially, the platform is to cover capital of the republic, the Municipality of Chisinau. The longer-term ambition is to connect many other municipalities, partners and traditional and emerging donors. Smaller cities that could become poles of growth in the future are of particular interest (Cahul, Ungheni, Balti, Orhei and similar). Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps The Government of Moldova and the Municipality of Chisinau are interested in characterising and understanding the urban development patterns and in co-designing (together with citizens) safe-to-fail experimental solutions to solve emerging problems or (better) anticipate what might happen in the next 5–10 years or so. One major problem in Chisinau is urban mobility. With the support of UNDP, the city is creating an urban mobility plan, in which existing and new options for urban transport will be developed (including public transport). Detailed, up-to-date, consistent and reliable information is however scarce on the size and distribution of the population, on the proportion of the population that has convenient access to public transport, on the location and occurrence patterns of traffic congestions, and on gaps in small infrastructure (bike lanes, paved surfaces, sidewalks, etc.) that could alleviate congestions. Furthermore, information is needed to understand the long-term evolution of land use and fragmentation patterns, for urban planning, for the prevention of the negative impacts of urbanisation, and especially for the siting of new infrastructure (e.g. for a planned city bypass road) and the access to green areas. The latter is seen as key to enable multi-actor partnerships between stakeholders responsible for urbanism, environment, health, education (social cohesion), leisure, etc. UNDP also requires support with the cross-checking and innovative merging of satellite-based information with existing non-satellite data, and the generation of specific insights and patterns to be used for experimentation purposes. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Urban and Peri-Urban Land Use/Land Cover Classification and Associated Changes Service 2: Census-Based Population Distribution Service 3: Case Study Definition and First Insights into Recent Population and Mobility Trends Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0001_WOR_V1.pdf Further Reading July 2019 UNDP article: Chisinau’s Data Collaborative: Moving with the Times August 2019 news item: Supporting the Urban Development in Chișinău, Moldova |
| EO Clinic: West Bengal Drinking Water Sector Improvement Project, India | EO Clinic support requested by: Asian Development Bank (ADB), South Asia Regional Department (SARD), Urban Devel-opment and Water Division (SAUW) Requesting activity: Nature-Based Solutions – Water Storage in West Bengal India Requesting [...] | EVERIS AEROESPACIAL Y DEFENSA S.L.U (ES) | Sustainable Development | land cover, rivers, surface water, sustainable development, water resources | EO Clinic support requested by: Asian Development Bank (ADB), South Asia Regional Department (SARD), Urban Devel-opment and Water Division (SAUW) Requesting activity: Nature-Based Solutions – Water Storage in West Bengal India Requesting activity type: Technical Assistance (TA) EO Clinic relevant Thematic Groups: TG10 (Water Resources Management) Work Order number: EOC0015 Work Order status: Completed Work Order start: 2021 Mar 03 Work Order end: 2021 Jul 26 Background ADB is working with the Government of India to provide safe, sustainable, and inclusive drinking water service to about 1.65 million people in three districts of West Bengal state, India, affected by arsenic, fluoride, and salinity. With about 85% of water in India’s rural areas coming from groundwater, some 27 million people are at risk from arsenic and fluoride contamination. Arsenic in drinking water can lead to a range of problems including cancer, while high exposure to fluoride can cause dental or skeletal fluorosis and bone diseases. Increased withdrawal of groundwater also leaves the area more vulnerable to climate change and disasters, especially regular flooding, and is causing an intrusion of salinity into the water. ADB’s West Bengal Drinking Water Sector Improvement Project (WBDWSIP) will provide safe and sustainable drinking water in the Bankura, North 24 Parganas and Purba Medinipur (East Medinipur) districts of West Bengal state. It will introduce an innovative and sustainable institutional framework and advanced technology for smart water management to enable efficient service delivery in project districts. Due to a combination of monsoon rains and tidal movements, at a proposed groundwater extraction point along the Rupnarayan, the salinity of river water is expected to exceed the desired threshold during certain periods of the year. To help this situation, several options had been explored, and a Nature-Based Solution (NBS) to improve storage of flood water has been shortlisted. The NBS for surface storage is to develop abandoned river channels, as storages, along the river Rupnarayan. These can be identified by mapping inundation before and after the monsoon. Channels that were dry during pre-monsoon, but with water during post-monsoon, are potential NBS sites of storage. Problems to be Addressed and Geospatial Information Gaps ADB and its partners have no comprehensive overview of the history and availability of surface water resources and potential surface storage sites in the three aforementioned districts of West Bengal state. The requested services will help by providing an inventory and detailed characterisation of potential additional water storage sites by focussing on the non-permanent water bodies in the area. The objective is to provide a rapid assessment of suitable NBS water storage sites in Purba Medinipur based on remote sensing. Output will be a prioritised inventory of suitable sites which will serve as background for further detailed investigations. Information Services to be Delivered Service 1: Waterbody Inventory and Dynamics Service 2: Land Use and Land Cover Service 3: Potential Surface Storage Site Inventory Project Documents Work Order Report: EOC0015_WOR_v1_r.1.0.pdf Final Presentation: EOC0015_FPR_v2.1.pdf |
| EO FOR YEMEN | EO4YEMEN aims at exploring new technological and scientific approaches to overcome existing limitations and provide an effective support to NGO in Yemen for the planning and implementation of on-field operations. The focus is on: Super [...] | SISTEMA GMBH (AT) | Enterprise | Sentinel-2, sustainable development | EO4YEMEN aims at exploring new technological and scientific approaches to overcome existing limitations and provide an effective support to NGO in Yemen for the planning and implementation of on-field operations. The focus is on: Super resolution algorithms applied to Sentinel-2 AI based Change detection Exploitation of new sources of satellite data ( VHR night times acquisitions), precipitation, temperature or soil moisture measurements Analytics for retrieving events and indicators Three use cases have been defined with the end users: critical infrastructure monitoring, locust impact assessment, population movements analysis |
| EO4SD – Agriculture and Rural Development | EO4SD - Agriculture and Rural Development project - aims at demonstrating the benefits of EO-based geo-information products and services to support agricultural monitoring and management tasks, in particular projects and programmes of the [...] | ELEAF B.V. (NL) | Sustainable Development | agriculture, sustainable development | EO4SD – Agriculture and Rural Development project – aims at demonstrating the benefits of EO-based geo-information products and services to support agricultural monitoring and management tasks, in particular projects and programmes of the Mulatilateral Development Banks (MDBs) such as World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, IFAD and Asian Development Bank which deal with land degradation, soil erosion, food security and irrigation systems management. The main objective of this Agriculture Cluster project is to demonstrate that the effectiveness of the MDB’s technical assistance interventions and financial investments in agriculture sector can be measurably enhanced by using EO-derived information to support large-scale crop area and type estimates (i.e. crop cover mapping and status assessment), irrigation and irrigation systems management (i.e. energy balance, water productivity and water stress), agriculture productivity assessment (i.e. yield estimation, ground water, precipitation monitoring), rural infrastructure investments planning and monitoring (i.e. households and transport networks mapping), Land Degradation Assessment (i.e. land use, rainfall, soil moisture, precipitation, fAPAR, NDVI indicators), and Environmental Impact Assessment (i.e. landscape level classification and change mapping including fragmentation, and agriculture commodities production impact on deforestation). |
| EO4SD – Climate Resilience | The ESA EO4SD Climate Resilience project encapsulates heterogeneous and multi-disciplinary knowledge to provide answer about the real potential of Earth Observation in supporting climate resilience decision making at regional and national scale, [...] | GMV AEROSPACE AND DEFENCE, SA (ES) | Sustainable Development | climate, sustainable development | The ESA EO4SD Climate Resilience project encapsulates heterogeneous and multi-disciplinary knowledge to provide answer about the real potential of Earth Observation in supporting climate resilience decision making at regional and national scale, and in collaboration with key Multilateral Development Banks (or MDBs). The project aims at developing an EO-based climate screening and risk management tools. The project will demonstrate the value of EO solutions with a series of use cases developed in partnership with the stakeholders (e.g. International Financing Institutions (IFIs), national hydromet agencies (NMHSs)) and innovators (e.g. citizen, entrepreneurs) to derive high-level data products supporting the monitoring of and management of climate vulnerabilities. Activities will be implemented to support selected flagship initiatives and projects implemented in Central America and Caribbean, East Africa, Central Asia and South Asia and led by the key actors in climate financing (ie. World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Interamerican Development Bank, etc.), which are interested in robust and up to date climate resilience indicators. |
| EO4SD – DISASTER RISK REDUCTION | The ESA EO4SD Disaster Risk Reduction project aims to promote the adoption of Earth Observation-based products and services mainstreamed into the working processes of IFIs funded projects that seek to prevent or mitigate the adverse impacts of [...] | INDRA SISTEMAS (ES) | Sustainable Development | disaster risk, sustainable development | The ESA EO4SD Disaster Risk Reduction project aims to promote the adoption of Earth Observation-based products and services mainstreamed into the working processes of IFIs funded projects that seek to prevent or mitigate the adverse impacts of natural disasters in developing countries. Earth Observation applied to disasters is evolving quickly and has proven to be effective in all phases of the disaster risk management cycle such as prevention/ preparedness, early warning, post event recovery and reconstruction activities. The project pursues the following objectives: Carrying out demonstrations of the benefit and utility of Earth Observation (EO)-based information in support of international development projects and activities in the thematic domain of Disaster Risk Reduction (prevention, preparedness, recovery and reconstruction phases); Supporting directly programs / projects, monitoring & evaluation methodologies and policy & planning of the IFIs and their respective Client States not only in the sector of disaster management but also in transportation, habitat, energy, water and sanitation; Mainstreaming and transferring EO-based information into operational working processes of the individual countries and development organizations. |
| EO4SD – Eastern Partnership | EO4EP – Earth Observation for Eastern Partnership is an ESA initiative which aims to achieve a step increase in the uptake of satellite-based environmental information in the development programs implemented by the World Bank and the European [...] | Space Research Centre, Polish Academy of Sciences (CBK-PAN) (PL) | Sustainable Development | sustainable development | EO4EP – Earth Observation for Eastern Partnership is an ESA initiative which aims to achieve a step increase in the uptake of satellite-based environmental information in the development programs implemented by the World Bank and the European Investment Bank in the Eastern European Region, in particular in order to support the technical collaboration and knowledge exchange among Eastern Partnership countries. The objective is to enhance the provision of the specialized remote sensing information services, analytic tools and geospatial information systems and to leverage new data sources such as Sentinel satellites to support planning, implementation, and monitoring of development projects as well as to provide remote sensing capacity building in three thematic areas: Agriculture, Land Management, and Water Resources Management. The project also aims to develop a portfolio of demonstration services which involve crop cultivation mapping and monitoring, assessment of water availability for crops, benchmarking against long-term data, delineation of areas currently undergoing water stress, predicting yields, providing information on land use as well as flood monitoring. |
| EO4SD – Marine and Coastal Resources Management | The objective of this contract is to develop and demonstrate a portfolio of EO based information services that can be embedded into a critical mass of investment projects funded by International Development Banks which address marine and coastal [...] | NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL (GB) | Sustainable Development | coastal zone, marine environment, sustainable development | The objective of this contract is to develop and demonstrate a portfolio of EO based information services that can be embedded into a critical mass of investment projects funded by International Development Banks which address marine and coastal issues. The main focus will be information services addressing coastal dynamics (bathymetry, coastal erosion, sedimentation), coastal environment status (benthic and coastal habitats, coastal water quality), maritime and coastal surveillance (IUU fisheries control, pollution detection, resource extraction monitoring) and supporting the development of coastal economies (aquaculture, tourism, transport, energy). The priority geographic regions of interest are West Africa, East Africa, the Caribbean, the Northern Indian Ocean and Pacific Island States. |
| EO4SD – Support to States affected by Fragility, Conflict and Violence | The objective of this contract is to develop and demonstrate a set of EO based information services to support the activities of International Development Banks in areas affected by fragility, conflict and violence. This includes activities [...] | CLS COLLECTE LOCALISATION SATELLITES (FR) | Sustainable Development | security, sustainable development | The objective of this contract is to develop and demonstrate a set of EO based information services to support the activities of International Development Banks in areas affected by fragility, conflict and violence. This includes activities addressing the causes and consequences of fragility, conflict and violence as part of an economic and social development strategy as well as support to more standard development activities which are being executed in the higher risk environment of proximity to fragility, conflict or violence. EO based information services being developed include support to natural resources management (e.g. countering illicit extraction and trafficking of minerals, fish, timber and wildlife or wildlife products), support to strengthening the application of justice and rule of law (e.g. election support, detection of crimes against humanity, onset of violence and internal displacement of persons and detection of illegal activities), support to the planning and implementation of post conflict reconstruction and support to environmental security (characterization of disease reservoirs, pollution/contamination events and the status of critical habitats and ecosystems). |
| EO4SD – Water Resources Management | EO4SD – Earth Observation for Sustainable Development – is a new ESA initiative which aims to achieve a step increase in the uptake of satellite-based environmental information in the IFIs regional and global programs. It will follow a [...] | DHI GRAS A/S (DK) | Sustainable Development | sustainable development, water resources | EO4SD – Earth Observation for Sustainable Development – is a new ESA initiative which aims to achieve a step increase in the uptake of satellite-based environmental information in the IFIs regional and global programs. It will follow a systematic, userdriven approach in order to meet longer-term, strategic geospatial information needs in the individual developing countries, as well as international and regional development organizations. Specifically, for water resource management the EO4SD will seek to demonstrate the benefits and utility of EO services in response to stakeholder requirements for water resources monitoring and management at local to basin scales. |
| EO4SD LAB: A COMMUNITY INITIATIVE FOR DEVELOPMENT AID | The goal of the EO4SD-Lab project is to facilitate and promote increased use of Earth Observation (EO)-derived information by a range of users within the sustainable development community. This will be achieved by the creation and deployment of [...] | CGI IT UK LIMITED (GB) | Sustainable Development | sustainable development | The goal of the EO4SD-Lab project is to facilitate and promote increased use of Earth Observation (EO)-derived information by a range of users within the sustainable development community. This will be achieved by the creation and deployment of an EO- processing and e-collaboration environment dedicated to Development Assistance (or Development Cooperation or Development Aid). This portal will provide users with various capabilities, ranging from searching for existing relevant factsheets and publications, undertaking analysis on various datasets, using data processing services to create new products to building and deploying their own bespoke services. Such capabilities will enable users with a varying level of EO and Geospatial knowledge to find the most relevant information. |
| EO4SD-Urban | The EO4SD-Urban project aims at demonstrating the benefits of satellite Earth Observation-based geoinformation products to support urban planning tasks, in the context of projects and programmes of Mulatilateral Development Banks (MDBs) such as [...] | GAF AG (DE) | Sustainable Development | sustainable development, urban | The EO4SD-Urban project aims at demonstrating the benefits of satellite Earth Observation-based geoinformation products to support urban planning tasks, in the context of projects and programmes of Mulatilateral Development Banks (MDBs) such as the World Bank Group, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, etc., and stakeholders in their Client States, as well as major global development initiatives. Its major goal is to provide convincing demonstrations of the benefit and utility of user-driven EO-based information in the urban framework, based on case studies in approximately 40 cities, thereby enhancing measurably the MDB’s technical assistance interventions and financial investments in the urban sector. To progress towards the longer-term goal of estabishing EO-based information as part of the working practices of MDBs and their Client States, an important element of the project is to provide knowledge transfer via capacity building exercises on how to derive and use EO-based product in various urban development-related scenarios. |
| EOSAT 4 SUSTAINABLE AMAZON | EOSAT 4 Sustainable Amazon demonstrates near real time monitoring of forest disturbances in the Colombian Amazon to support the country in reaching its sustainable development goals. | SARVISION BV (NL) | Applications | applications, forestry, permanently open call, sustainable development | EOSAT 4 Sustainable Amazon demonstrates near real time monitoring of forest disturbances in the Colombian Amazon to support the country in reaching its sustainable development goals. |
| Eu-Mon | Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are meant to assist countries to manage and monitor progress on the three key interconnected components of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability. This [...] | CGI ITALIA S.R.L. (IT) | Applications | coastal processes, coastal zone, sustainable development | Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are meant to assist countries to manage and monitor progress on the three key interconnected components of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability. This must therefore be integrated into the national policies and processes. EO is potentially a great source of information for mapping and monitoring SDGs either directly, through the usage of existing data and analytics, or by integrating existing local, regional, and global services, such as Copernicus Core services and similar initiatives. Nevertheless, the adoption of EO in mainstream processes for local authorities is still limited, due to a number of challenges, related to a lack of technical expertise, the capability of integrating different data sources, need to create robust yet widely applicable algorithms and methods. All the above challenges can only be addressed by creating a consortium of EO and data integration experts working in close liaison with the beneficiaries of the EO-related products. The goal of the SDG Eutrophication Monitoring (Eu-Mon) project is to create a pre-operational implementation of EO-processing chains tailored for the national monitoring of SDGs. Such innovative EO-based methods will be deployed on existing EO platforms which are used to funnel the information into the national systems and processes on SDGs, also with the aim to showcase the adequacy of EO for SDG monitoring. In particular, this project addresses the SDG 14.1.1a Monitoring Index of Coastal Eutrophication. The project has engaged with the following end-users organisations: Regional Environmental Centre (REC) Albania, which is directly connected with the national statistical office National Bureau of Statistics, Tanzania In addition, the project will benefit from the in-kind contribution of ISPRA (Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale), the Italian entity which has large expertise in using EO and other geospatial data for environmental monitoring. The project has a strong user-centric approach, with EAs and experts always involved in all project activities. This will be strengthened by the execution of three Living Labs, which, benefitting modern communication tools and a combination of virtual and in-person meetings, will ensure proper co-creation, co-design, PoC results, analyses, and validation of the project activities. The core development phases of the project will be carried out by means of an Agile approach, where the EAs will act as Product Owners, with the support of the project consortium. |
| FEOSID – Further Expansion of EO Uptake Supporting International Development Bank Projects / Support for IADB | The objective of this activity is to demonstrate the improved capabilities of EO data for four specific activities of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). These are 1) Effects of land titling in Peru; 2) Sustainable agriculture [...] | TERRASIGNA (RO) | Sustainable Development | agriculture, land cover, sustainable development, urban, water resources | The objective of this activity is to demonstrate the improved capabilities of EO data for four specific activities of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). These are 1) Effects of land titling in Peru; 2) Sustainable agriculture development in Guyana; 3) Monitoring of the water supply and irrigation programs in Bolivia and 4) Geospatial analysis as a tool for urban resilience in Vitória, Brazil. The project will have particular focus on the enhancements made possible by Copernicus data, an aspect that has not been addressed in the previous demonstration projects the team carried out for IADB (EOSID and EODAT projects), and which was specifically highlighted in the feedback received at the completion of those projects. |
| ForEarth | The objective of the ForEarth project is to provide a mobile-oriented environmental alert service dedicated to public institutions, scientists and citizens to keep a close watch on their surrounding environment based on freely-available [...] | GEOMATYS (FR) | Sustainable Development | permanently open call, sustainable development | The objective of the ForEarth project is to provide a mobile-oriented environmental alert service dedicated to public institutions, scientists and citizens to keep a close watch on their surrounding environment based on freely-available satellite Earth Observation data. A microservices infrastructure, customised for hosting EO data will be developed and deployed. The infrastructure will be accessed by an EO-specific social networking smartphone app, SnapPlanet, which empowers users of any skill level to trigger web processing of selected EO products and view or download the results. The service will address questions about local environmental variables, through simple and robust remote sensing techniques: change detection over forest, surface water in reservoir dams, irrigated surface area detection. The targeted audience are non-experts: local businesses or simply curious citizens, NGOs, consulting or insurance companies that would not be capable to get this information from elsewhere and in a near real time. More advanced users could use the enquiries collected from users as a feedback to learn what environmental issues are common in the place where the users are querying the app. |
| GAME.EO | Recent years have brought tremendous advancements in the area of automated information extraction from Earth Observation (EO) imagery, but problems still remain since even state-of-the-art algorithms based on imagery alone do not provide a [...] | GISAT S.R.O. (CZ) | AI4EO | permanently open call, platforms, sustainable development | Recent years have brought tremendous advancements in the area of automated information extraction from Earth Observation (EO) imagery, but problems still remain since even state-of-the-art algorithms based on imagery alone do not provide a satisfactory solution. In these situations, it is possible to exploit the crowdsourcing of human intelligence, which is a recent promising area for EO. This is of particular interest with respect to providing information on devleoping countries to International Finance Institutions such as the World Bank.In this project an integrated (hybrid) crowdsourced and EO data-based information extraction framework is being developed. Mobile-based tools for supporting crowdsourcing campaigns and gaming approaches will be developed, and then used to mobilize and train volunteers to provide data via dedicated EO-based workflows to extract the required information in a more timely and accurate manner, with lower costs than would be incurred using professional datacollection services. The approach will be demonstrated using specific service cases for EO-based monitoring of Informal Settlements/Slum Areas (SDG11), with the aim to enhance current machine-learning algorithms for the identification, delineation and further characterization of these areas. The developed framework and tools will be tested in cooperation with World Bank users and stakeholders (GWASP/GSURRP) in an ongoing internal project1 for Dhaka, Bangladesh, to demonstrate the potential and the added value of the synergies of crowdsourcing- and EO-based information to support the World Bank’s research and operational activities. |
| LARGER-SCALE EO EXPLOITATION ACTIVITIES IN SUPPORT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES (EO4SD) – FOREST MANAGEMENT | The European Space Agency (ESA)’s Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD) Initiative (http://eo4sd.esa.int), linked to the ESA-WB partnership, has started in September 2020 a new thematic cluster dedicated to Forest Management [...] | GAF AG (DE) | Applications | applications, forestry, sustainable development | The European Space Agency (ESA)’s Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD) Initiative (http://eo4sd.esa.int), linked to the ESA-WB partnership, has started in September 2020 a new thematic cluster dedicated to Forest Management which is financed by ESA through 2023. The EO4SD-Forest Management Cluster has the overall objective of demonstrating the utility and benefits of mainstreaming Satellite Earth Observation (EO)– based forest related products and services for improved Forest Management for International Financial Institution (IFI) Programmes and stakeholder in Client States (CS). The cluster complements a set of seven other thematic areas addressed under the EO4SD initiative in collaboration with the World Bank (WB) and other IFI partners. EO4SD forms the basis for the new Space in Support of International Development Assistance (Space for IDA) follow-up initiative, jointly implemented by ESA and World Bank, which aims at bringing these efforts to scale and at enlarging the long-term ESA-WB partnership. The EO4SD-Forests cluster is led by GAF AG (Germany) and a Consortium of European and Canadian expert partners (Caribou Space/UK, Hatfield/Canada, Indufor/Finland, SIRS/France, Wageningen University/Netherlands) who have well established experience in the provision of geo-spatial data and services for forest monitoring and management especially in the UNFCCC REDD+ policy segment. Following the EO4SD framework, the Consortium will embark on initial consultative discussions on stakeholder engagement with the Bank’s various groups active in the forest domain and jointly identify best cases for collaboration. In the current EO4SD component, the more specific objectives are to provide convincing demonstrations of the benefit and utility of EO-based information in the field of Forest Management. The service provisions shall be on a regional basis in specific countries in Latin America, South East Asia and Africa and will be based on a fully functional forest service portfolio with quality controlled EO products. Skills transfer via capacity building will be implemented in the different regions in order to enable CS stakeholders to both use and produce EO products. |
| Monitoring, Measurement, Reporting and Verification System for Cocoa sector in the Dominican Republic | The MRV4C project, developing a Monitoring, Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) System for cocoa agroforestry in the Dominican Republic (DR) was a 1-year activity funded by the European Space Agency through the Open Call funding [...] | GMV NSL LTD (GB) | Enterprise | agriculture, AI4EO, artificial intelligence, Biomass, climate, forestry, permanently open call, SAR, Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, sustainable development | The MRV4C project, developing a Monitoring, Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) System for cocoa agroforestry in the Dominican Republic (DR) was a 1-year activity funded by the European Space Agency through the Open Call funding opportunity, addressing activity line 6, “EO for Sustainable Development”, of the ESA EO SCIENCE FOR SOCIETY programme. The aim of the MRV4C was two-fold: use of EO and development of an interactive tool for supporting sustainable management and decision-making in a supply chain that is key for the DR economy – that of cocoa; and contribute to the sustainability and strengthening of the national REDD+ MRV system, funded by the Bio-Carbon Fund of the World Bank (FCPF). With the support of the World Bank, GMV NSL engaged the DR Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, The Cocoa Department at the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Cocoa Commission (CONACADO) and the private sector, represented by the country’s main confederation of cocoa producers (DR Cocoa Foundation), besides several NGOs and international observers. Using EO and AI, GMV NSL demonstrated the incredible potential of Sentinel data to benefit cocoa agroforestry and the DR economy by identifying the best areas to grow this crop, mapping current cocoa farms extension and determining above-ground biomass. Furthermore, GMV built a system and an interactive tool within a web-based platform that enables, for instance, the planning of suitable land for growing cocoa and the verification of a zero-deforestation cocoa supply chain. The MRV4C project, leveraging on the data provided through the Copernicus Programme, demonstrated the role of EO to back up EU policies that aim to boost sustainable cocoa production by contributing to enhancing the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of cocoa in several countries (including the Dominican Republic, one of the largest supplier of cocoa beans to the EU). As well as contributing to the DR country objectives, the project provided tangible evidence of how the Sentinel satellites can contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular, Goals 1, 2, 8, 13 and 15: “No-Poverty”, “Zero Hunger”, “Decent Work and Economic growth”,”Climate Action”, and “Life on Land”. |
| PEOPLE – Ecosystem Restoration | The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration focus on the restoration of ecosystems on a large scale to achieve the United Nations sustainable development agenda in 2030. The PEOPLE Ecosystem Restoration project will develop innovative products and [...] | HATFIELD CONSULTANTS (CA) | Applications | applications, Ecosystems, environmental impacts, forestry, sustainable development | The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration focus on the restoration of ecosystems on a large scale to achieve the United Nations sustainable development agenda in 2030. The PEOPLE Ecosystem Restoration project will develop innovative products and indicators determining and monitoring processes, both degradation and/or recovery. In several pilot sides in various ecosystems like boreal peatland and forests, temperate forests, and tropical wetlands and forest biomes, it will distinguish fast or slow dynamic processes, like meteorological conditions, seasonal conditions, climate long-term variability, human actions affecting the health of the ecosystem. It will prepare the future roadmap for subsequent studies with a larger deployment in terms of both the geographic region and user communities. |
| SDG 15.2.1 EO Pathfinder – EO for Sustainable Forest Management | The SDG Pathfinder project – EO for Sustainable Forest Management will develop and showcase in partnership with the custodian agency FAO innovative EO approaches to produce indicators on the sustainable management of natural, semi-natural and [...] | IABG MBH (DE) | Applications | applications, forestry, sustainable development | The SDG Pathfinder project – EO for Sustainable Forest Management will develop and showcase in partnership with the custodian agency FAO innovative EO approaches to produce indicators on the sustainable management of natural, semi-natural and planted forests. It will benefit from improved data availability to support the SDG 15 Life on Land with the SDG Target indicators 15.1.1 and 15.2.1 to monitor changes in global forest and make them available to a wide community. The project will propose SDG sub-indicators on forest area net change, Above Ground Biomass, Forest Protected Areas, and Forest Management. Additional indicators and metrices are planned for forest characterisation, condition monitoring, homogeneity, change in erosion/landslide risk and a landscape metrics. |
| SEN4STAT – Sentinels For Agriculture Statistics | Agricultural monitoring at national scale is a prerequisite for assessing and analyzing the agricultural resources by mandated authorities, usually the agricultural National Statistical Offices (NSOs). NSO collect in general national [...] | UNIVERSITY OF CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN (BE) | Applications | agriculture, applications, Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, sustainable development | Agricultural monitoring at national scale is a prerequisite for assessing and analyzing the agricultural resources by mandated authorities, usually the agricultural National Statistical Offices (NSOs). NSO collect in general national agricultural monitoring data by farm and household surveys. Recognizing the limitations of the current agricultural data collection in developing, emerging as well as in industrialized countries, key international bodies and UN agencies aim to improve and enhance the current practices in agriculture data collection and have referred to the potential of satellite Earth Observation for agricultural statistics. |
| World Ocean Circulation | The objectives of this activity are to (i) develop and validate innovative methodologies allowing to optimize the synergetic capacity offered by satellite data, in situ measurements and numerical models for improving the retrieval of upper-layer [...] | OCEANDATALAB (FR) | Applications | ocean health flagship, ocean science cluster, oceans, platforms, science, sea surface topography, sustainable development | The objectives of this activity are to (i) develop and validate innovative methodologies allowing to optimize the synergetic capacity offered by satellite data, in situ measurements and numerical models for improving the retrieval of upper-layer ocean circulation products over FOUR high-priority pilot areas chosen as to represent at best the diversity of the world ocean circulation regimes, i.e. one polar sea area, one western boundary current, one upwelling region, one coastal area, and ii) in line with the objectives of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, demonstrate the unique capacity of the innovative products to support effective actions aiming at procuring a clean, safe, sustainably harvested and productive ocean by targeting FOUR high priority pilot applications, i.e. Pollution Monitoring, Safe Navigation, Sustainable Fisheries and Renewable Marine Energies. In order to answer the project’s objectives, the consortium will investigate the four following themes: Theme 1: Sea-state current interactions for Safe Navigation Theme 2: 3D currents and vertical motion for Sustainable Fisheries Theme 3: Surface Lagrangian drift for a Clean Ocean Theme 4: HR wave and current model assessment for a Productive Ocean For each theme, a minimum of two users have been engaged. Their role during the project is twofold. First, they will provide support to the consortium for the user requirement consolidation both in terms of products needed and ocean processes of utmost importance for their applications. Second, it is expected that feedback on usefulness and impact of the WOC products will be obtained through the impact studies performed by the users. In addition to the development of innovative methods and products targeting direct answers to the user needs, a series of tools will be also developed, implemented and maintained during the project. These tools should ease and maximize the WOC users’ involvement and further aim to attract potential new users. |
| WorldWater, Surface Water Dynamics | The project develops novel multi-source EO tools for monitoring the seasonal and annual dynamics of inland surface waters with the objective to empower countries and river basin authorities with advanced EO technology to manage their water [...] | DHI WATER – ENVIRONMENT HEALTH (DK) | Applications | science, surface water, sustainable development, water resources | The project develops novel multi-source EO tools for monitoring the seasonal and annual dynamics of inland surface waters with the objective to empower countries and river basin authorities with advanced EO technology to manage their water resources and report on the global water agendas. Main objective is to develop a scientifically robust method that exploits the full time series of Sentinel 1, Sentinel 2 and Landsat satellite imagery to better capture the seasonal changes of surface waters in extent, and to complement these observations with radar altimetry measurements of water levels in order to derive the changes in lake volume and river discharge. A Proof of Concept will be conducted in 5 partner countries (Colombia, Mexico, Gabon, Zambia and Greenland) . The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on water in the 2030 agenda for sustainable development has brought a spotlight to water policy at global level and in national planning and represents a clear indication that countries worldwide recognise the ‘water crisis’, which has consistently been ranked by the World Economic Forum as one of the threats with the highest potential impact and likelihood. A recent report from the World Resource Institute (WRI) highlights that the ‘water crisis’ is far more commonplace than previously thought. Water withdrawals globally have more than doubled since the 1960s and show no signs of slowing down. Population growth, socioeconomic development and urbanization are all contributing to increased water demand, while climate change induced impacts on precipitation patterns and temperature extremes further exacerbate water resource depletion. The Sustainable Development Goals, especially the goal on ‘clean water for all’ (SDG 6) and the ‘climate action goal’ (SDG 13) therefore need all the attention they can get to avoid an accelerating ‘water crisis’ towards 2030 and beyond. A ‘water crisis’ is ultimately a management crisis that can be solved through the application of sound water management policies. The need for proper and timely information on water (non-) availability is probably the most important requirement for water management activities. In large, remote and inaccessible regions, in-situ monitoring of inland waters is sparse and hydrologic monitoring can benefit from information extracted from satellite earth observation (EO). Rivers, streams and lakes/reservoirs throughout the world provide water for domestic usage as well as for irrigation, for livestock watering and as a source for hydropower and recreation. Still, in most countries, government’s measurement of water resources is limited to major dam resources and river flow stations. This however represents only a small portion of the overall water resources with substantial portions of water being stored in ungauged regions. The unmonitored proportion of water resources represents a major known unknown and representing an information gap which can produce inaccuracies that may lead to ineffective or erroneous decision-making. Monitoring water bodies for a whole country or river basin in a comprehensive manner is essential for the national water resources management in respect to drought mitigation, irrigation management and planning of infrastructure investment (e.g. dam constructions), and EO is increasingly being recognized as an essential tool for large-scale monitoring of water resources. This is needed to promote more efficient planning and decision making, as well as for direct reporting in response to the SDG global indicator framework. The availability of the growing volume of environmental data from the Copernicus Sentinels, combined with data from long-term Earth Observation archives (e.g. Landsat) represents a unique opportunity for the operational usage of EO for operational applications in support of water resource management. Global EO based surface water maps are already readily accessible (cf. JRC Global Surface Water Explorer, Deltares AcquaMonitor and GLAD Global Surface Water Dynamics), but the global products are based solely on optical data (cf. Landsat) and will inevitably tend to have a bias at the national/local level. By launching the WorldWater project, ESA is aiming to meet these shortcomings by further developing EO tools and products to effectively use the most up to date, open and free satellite data, primarily from the Sentinel missions, for improved monitoring of the world’s inland water resources in both extent and volume. WorldWater is about empowering countries and river basin authorities so they can independently monitor surface water dynamics at all scales in a robust way – thereby providing them with essential information for more evidence-based planning and management of water resources and an ability to efficiently report and act in response to the global water agenda. |