CGI ITALIA S.R.L. (IT)
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:
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.
