The System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA https://seea.un.org/content/frequently-asked-questions#What%20is%20ecosystem%20accounting?)[1] #_ftn1 is the accepted international standard for environmental-economic accounting, providing a framework for statistics on the environment and its relationship with the economy. In March 2021 the United Nations Statistical Commission adopted the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA https://seea.un.…

GEO (the Group on Earth Observations https://earthobservations.org/geo_community.php ) is a partnership of governments and organisations envisioning a future whereby decisions for humankind will be informed by timely, reliable, openly shared science-based environmental information underpinned by systematic Earth observations. As an informal public, international body, GEO seeks to help its members (113 national governments) to understand how EO products and services can help them in their work.…

The Earth Observation Downstream services industry is a cutting-edge and fast moving sector for which innovation is key to provide new products and services. As a result, research is very important for the development of the business and its competitiveness. Horizon Europe https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe_en is the European Union research and innovation framework programme with a value of €95,…

The digital economy is not only shaking up many sectors but fundamentally changing them! The result is the emergence of new innovative business models and opportunities for those who are able to embrace the change. The insurance sector is no different and a new approach is being developed by Skyline Partners. Index insurance changes the way in which the risk is managed. Traditional insurance works through loss adjusters who are visiting the site of the damage after the event,…

The EU Green Deal sets out a highly ambitious plan to preserve our planet and to promote Europe as the first climate neutral continent by 2050. It includes objectives to decarbonise the EU economy, revolutionise the EU’s energy system, profoundly change the economy and inspire efforts to combat climate change. It foresees a sustainable economy in this timeframe with a number of intermediate targets being set for 2030.…

Celebrating our first anniversary we returned to the evidently popular subject of the use of AI technology for Earth Observations. In a previous EOcafe on the 4th February https://earsc.org/2021/01/21/eocafe-esas-ai4eo-bridging-the-gap-between-the-ai-earth-observation-communities/, we heard from the AI4EO https://ai4eo.eu project which is one of many springing up with different sponsors at European and national levels to promote this synergy between technologies.…

How can we help the media get better use of EO in its progressive use? This was the main question raised by Geoff while opening this EO Cafe. Since the launch of Landsat (1972) followed by SPOT (1986), EO has been used as a tool by journalists to show the readers of the days’ newspapers i.e. the main-stream media (MSM), images of the Earth to illustrate their stories. Never seen before,…

Playing games is a an extremely old pastime but digital gaming – which is what is generally understood by the term – is new. Whilst gaming is big business, the imaginary world of games may not seem the obvious place to take real images of the Earth. But for a few companies it is and there is some very interesting business going on to bring these two worlds together. One way, the most obvious (perhaps) is to use EO images as a backdrop for the game.…

The European Commission has set out an ambitious goal with its 6 priorities in its own 5-year plan (2019 – 2024). The Green Deal has the objective that Europe becomes the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 by making its economy sustainable. How can the EO industry play a role in this transition and where will the opportunities emerge? This is the overarching question this EO Café addressed which was discussed by me and our two guests Ricardo CONDE,…

In the EOCafe, “where the EO Community meet”, our subject for discussion had a more applications driven focus. This time it was dedicated to the use of EO information for the raw materials sector. “Raw materials” includes mining but also other means of extraction and even recycling as a means for production. Although, for the EO community, it could be obvious that EO data/information is useful for mining companies in several of its stages of operations, (from the exploration phase,…

Approximately 180 attendees gathered on the EARSC second EOcafe of 2021 to learn more on how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help improve and interact with Earth Observation (EO) services. Both of our invited guests represent the community of AI developers and the community of EO service companies to give a wider perspective on the topic.…

The first eocafe of the year 2021 provoked a great deal of interest with over 200 joining us in the virtual cafe to hear about the new European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA). It is fair to affirm that the (European) space community is eagerly awaiting the entrance of this new player and its influence in the future of the EU space programme activities, especially for Copernicus. Once the new European Space Legislation is adopted,…

I think we are all breathing a sigh of relief that the difficult year 2020 is over and look forward to a better 2021. As the Covid pandemic broke last March, many companies found themselves faced with stringent lockdown measures and the need to rapidly reorganise their production as staff were forced to work from home. At EARSC, we believe that we adapted quite well despite early fears and were fortunate to have a number of long term contracts from ESA and the EC which gave us stability.…

We started eocafe shortly after the Covid19 pandemic arrived as a way for our community to meet each other virtually. It is fair to say that now there are many opportunities to join a virtual meeting, seminar or workshop every week and sometimes it is hard to choose which one to join. Despite this, we continue with eocafe but now with a different goal, to bring subjects of interest to the community whilst leaving room for some informal networking in the margins of the meeting.…

In the latest twists in the Brexit saga, it was reported last week that the CAMS and C3S contracts https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/26/uk-risks-losing-contract-for-new-climate-weather-research-centre-due-to-brexit-ecmwf-reading with the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) may be moved outside of the UK as a result of Brexit. As this long saga moves towards the next key milestone on 31st December,…