1. ERA PLANET Strand 2 - Resource efficiency and environmental management
Nicolas Ray, Grégory Giuliani, Pierre Lacroix, Anthony Lehmann and the GEOEssential consortium
Essential Variables workflows for resource efficiency and environmental management
ERA PLANET Strand 2 - Resource efficiency and environmental management

2. 14 participants from 7 countries
Partici pant No
Participant Short Name
Participant long name
Country 33
UNIGE
Université de Genève and UNPE/GRID Geneva
Switzerland 1
CNR
Consiglio Nationale delle Ricerce
Italy 4
AUTH
Aristotelio Panepistimio Thessalonikis
Greece 6
CNIG
Centro Nacional de Infromacion Geografica
Spain 8
CREAF
Centro de Investigacion Ecologica a Applicaciones Forestales 16
FZJ
Forschungzentrum Julich GMBH
Germany 17
GFZ
Helmholtz Zentrum Potsdam German Research Centre for Geosciences 19
IIASA
International Institute für Angewandte systemanalyse
Austria 23
MFN
Museum fur Naturkunde 28
SGN
Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung 29
SRI
Space research institute
Ukraine 31
UFZ
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ 32
UNICAL
Università della Calabria 34
UNIPD
Università degli Studi di Padova
Total budget: €10,4mio / Requested budget: €2.71mio

3. General Objectives Sustainable and trustable sources of data
Feasibility and generality of the concept of Essential Variables (EVs)
Cross-thematic workflows to evaluate, predict and monitor Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Gaps and synergies in agriculture, soil, water, biodiversity, energy, light, and raw materials
GEO-ESSENTIAL is addressing the need for sustainable and trustable sources of data and information to monitor the progresses made on environmental conditions.
The project will demonstrate the feasibility and generality of the concept of Essential Variables (EVs) across the Nexus of GEOSS Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs).
It will create cross-thematic workflows to evaluate, predict and monitor natural resources to inform via Earth Observations a selection of targets from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Existing structures and platforms will be analysed in order to identify substantial gaps and synergies for addressing the needs of environmental policy in agriculture, soil, water, biodiversity, energy, light, and raw materials and to develop the GEO-ESSENTIAL HUB.

4. Essential variables (EVs)
EVs are defined by the ConnectinGEO project (2016a) as “a minimal set of variables that determine the system’s state and developments, are crucial for predicting system evolution, and allow to define metrics that measure the trajectory of the system”.
The methodology proposed in GEOEssential is going beyond the outputs of ConnectinGEO that identified key gaps in the definition of GEO EVs.
The main idea is to build demonstration workflows that will be using EVs served by the GEO infrastructure to derive policy relevant indicators.

5. Specific Objectives Knowledge Base infrastructure on EVs
Address identified gaps of EVs
Availability of EVs services
Synergies between in situ and satellite observations
Specific EVs data workflows
In-situ data and infrastructure coordination (e.g. ENEON)
Synergies with Copernicus and ESA TEPs
GEO-ESSENTIAL EVs HUB
Dashboard on SDGs
Promote the use of EVs across EO Communities of practice
Enhance the existing Knowledge Base infrastructure on EVs
Address identified gaps in the definition and selection of EVs
Improve the availability of EVs services from GEOSS and Copernicus platforms;
Assess the potential of synergies between in situ and satellite observations;
Develop specific data workflows and best practices;
Contribute to the in-situ data and infrastructure coordination (e.g. ENEON);
Develop synergies with Copernicus and ESA TEPs (Thematic Exploitation Platforms), for EVs achievement, sharing and use;
Build the GEO-ESSENTIAL EVs HUB with a dashboard related to SDGs; and
Simplify and promote the use of EVs across the EO Communities of Practice and beyond.

6. Based on ConnectinGEO goal-driven approach
Figure 4. Generic Goal-Based approach for EV identification (ConnectingGEO, 2016a)
In GEO, a considerable effort has been done on linking data to information that can inform decisions making. The expert-based approach to EVs is part of this effort. In the GEOEssential proposal, the complementary goal-based approach starts at the community level and the goals and targets the community has agreed to reach.
In order to implement this goal approach to derive EVs, knowledge is needed about applications, activities and tools to quantify the indicators and to assess the progress towards the targets. Rules are required to derive the EVs that need to be observed in order to quantify the indicators, which could be based on sensitivity studies that reveal to what extent the quantification of indicators is impacted by certain variables
ConnectinGEO, 2016

7. High-level Indicators
Sustainable development goals and targets
<
Earth Observation
Essential Variables
Scenarios
High-level Indicators
Knowledge base
SDGs indicators
Global policy WB
FAO
IAE
UNWATER
IPCC
IPBES
European policy
Raw materials
Agriculture policy
Energy strategy
WFD
Climate strategy
Biodiversity strategy
<
Extractives
Soils
Energy
Water
Climate
Biodiversity
Data sharing (e.g. GEOSS, Copernicus)
Figure 1. Proposed integration of EVs to create Essential Sustainability Variables feeding into a knowledge base linked to SDGs’ targets and goals.
The temptation is great, when defining SDGs or other integrated environmental indicators, to reinvent the wheel instead of using existing initiatives and data available for instance through GEOSS (e.g. (Giuliani et al. 2011)). From an Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) perspective, data interoperability and standardization is critical to improve data access and exchange. Efforts are being made to monitor the SBAs with EVs, for instance in the area of biodiversity(Scholes et al. 2012, Pereira et al. 2013), water (Lawford 2014), and climate (Bojinski et al. 2014). EVs are defined by ConnectinGEO (2016a) as “a minimal set of variables that determine the system’s state and developments, are crucial for predicting system evolution, and allow to define metrics that measure the trajectory of the system”. Other sources of information than remote sensing are based on the aggregation of national statistics, including the EU statistical agencies (Eurostat) or on efforts from other scientific communities and data mediators, for example in the biological domain the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Catalogue of Life (CoL), the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) and others. All these examples demonstrate the importance of ICT solutions and requisite data interoperability, but above the critical importance for any approach to creating and monitoring integrated environmental policies (e.g. SDGs, Nexus, IPBES) to be linked conceptually, operationally and institutionally to already ongoing efforts.
National statistics (e.g. EDE)
Other data sources ...
Scientific evidences

8. WP2 Stakeholder Engagement and Evs Gaps
ERA-PLANET strands
WP9 Coordination and management
WP2 Stakeholder Engagement and Evs Gaps
WP3 EVs services
EVs workflows
WP0 Interoperability development
WP8 Impacts and dissemination
WP1 Data sharing, management and knowledge
WP7 EU-SDGs dashboard
WP4 Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services workflows
WP5 Extractives and Artificial Light workflows
WP6 Nexus Food-Water-Energy workflows
The project is structured in 10 work packages (Figure 7 and Table 5). Based on the Nexus approach, essential and cross-thematic variables will be evaluated and identified for EO data usability for corresponding services. GEOEssential will define concepts and build workflows going beyond sectoral analysis to understand processes and interactions between different topics to increase efficiency on data use and information generation for resource efficient acting.
WP0 on Interoperability development will build the foundation of the project interoperability framework with its Key Enabling Technologies (KET) and the Knowledge base infrastructure for Essential Variables (Figure 5). WP1 on Data sharing, Management and Knowledge will essentially build the data management strategy. Both WP0 and WP1 will be partially shared with the three other Strands of ERA-PLANET. WP2 will continue the work of ConnectinGEO to engage with various stakeholders and update the list of EVs. WP3 will make available a maximum of GEOSS and Copernicus EV services. WP4, 5 and 6 will build different workflows from EVs to indicators in different domains. WP7 will bring together the outputs of the previous WPs to create a dashboard to of maps and indicators derived from EVs. WP8 will disseminate the outputs of the project while WP9 will deal with its management.

9. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

10. Building on the concept of Essential Variables
Perreira et al. Science 2013

11. Addressing the SDGs sustainable development goals
Ecosystem services
Planetary boundaries
Nexus,
tradeoffs
Cost benefit
integration
local
regional
global
national
scales
sustainable development goals
2. Zero hunger
6. Clean water and sanitation
7. Affordable and clean energy
11. Sustainable cities and communities
13. Climate action
14. Life below water
15. Life on land
Population
Climate
changes
Land use
Lehmann et al. Sustainability, 2017

12. WP0 - Interoperability, Data Sharing and Management development (CNR) - Stefano Nativi
Figure 5. GEOEssential reference framework for interoperability
This WP contains a set of tasks aiming at adopting the key-enabling technologies (KET) and implementing the horizontal principles, guidelines and recommendations recognized by ERA-Planet (see Figure 4). ERA-Planet KET deals with interoperability, standardization, resources quality management, contributions to GEOSS, Copernicus, and collaboration with ESA TEPs. An additional objective is to coordinate the collected data with other in-situ observations in a cross thematic approach that can contribute later to the in-situ coordination efforts done in GEOSS

13. WP1 - Knowledge Management Services (CNR) - Stefano Nativi
Figure 7: Towards a GEOSS KB Management service (credit: S. Nativi, GEO Plenary 2016)
This WP contains a set of tasks aiming at facilitating information and knowledge generation from Earth observation data (Figure 8). These tasks contribute to the development of a Knowledge Management Platform, which provides the discovery, access and use of relevant knowledge bodies (e.g. business processes, workflows, semantic engines, best practices, etc.) for generating Essential Variables from Earth Observation data. The services provided in this WP are fundamental pieces where the dashboard elaborated in WP7 will stand.

14. WP2 - Stakeholder engagement and gaps in Essential Variables (CREAF) - Joan Maso
Figure 9: Overall workflow and work package 2 structure
This WP analyses the current structure of GEOSS and Copernicus services and associated data platforms to define gaps in terms of products, standards and data access. These gaps will be defined against existing targets and EVs for each single GEOEssential workflow (WP4,5,6) on the framework proposed by WP0 and WP1.
Activities in the WP will use instruments elaborated in WP8 to better connect with the stakeholders. Three levels of stakeholder engagement will be developed (Figure 16):
European Network of Earth observation Networks (ENEON)
ERA-PLANET stakeholders
GEO activities
This task will also provide a methodology to analyse the level of maturity of the concept of EV in all GEO SBAs and develop new EVs as well as a methodology to detect gaps in EO, both coming from ConnectinGEO H2020 project (ConnectingGEO 2016a, b, c) (Figure 9).

15. WP3 - GEOSS and Copernicus EVs services (GFZ) - Daniel Spengler
Figure 10: Overall workflow and work package 3 structure
The work package builds on the results of the gap analysis done by task 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4 (Figure 10). The analysis of existing services will be done against defined targets and needs with specific focus on cross-domain functionalities of EVs. Currently defined topic specific EVs will be analysed in terms of cross-domain operationality for future services and modelling purpose. Data (satellite+in-situ) will be evaluated in terms of availability, processing and quality standards regarding needs for EV estimation and usability. Thereby the WP analysis the potential of current and future sensor and data sources.

16. WP4 - Biodiversity and Ecosystem Workflows (SGN) - Aidin Niamir, Thomas Hickler
Figure 11: Overall workflow and work package 4 structure
In this work package, specific workflows and tools will be developed on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and associated services at Global, Pan-European, National and Local case studies, with a special focus on the use of Copernicus products, national and regional biodiversity information systems and data portals.
Time series on ESs and EBVs will be collected to evaluate their relation. The sustainability of ES through time is key in the concept of SDGs (Oliver et al. 2015a, Oliver et al. 2015b). Resilience of ES is often found linked with different aspect of biodiversity.
This work package will further transform EVs into the IPBES core and highlighted indicators and then link a set of indicators to monitor progress towards Aichi Biodiversity Targets (Wetzel et al. 2015), the European Biodiversity Strategy and towards SDGs. This work package further evaluates the streamlining of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) in order to improve their use for decision-making at national and regional levels. Emphasis will also be put on improving the availability and open access of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning information system based on existing initiatives and infrastructures such as BISE (Biodiversity Information System for Europe), MAES (Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services), OPERAs, and EU BON European Biodiversity Portal particularly on the standardization and provision of data to relevant networks (Hoffmann et al. 2014).

17. WP5 - Extractive industry & light monitoring Workflows (UNIGE) - Pierre Lacroix
Figure 12: Overall workflow and work package 5 structure
With regards to the vast amount of territories impacted by mines and artificial lights, this WP will demonstrate the use of EO products methods, tools, information and services in these fields to define new EVs candidates (Figure 12). The primary objective is to explore the impacts of mine on ecosystems and water resources through land cover change, and the erosion of night habitats by artificial light. The second objective is to improve the existing MAP-X platform for the extractive sector (mapx.org) and to connect it to GEOSS and Copernicus. The third objective is to develop an online tool for non-specialists to access and analyze trends in night lights data for user-selected areas. It will be sought in this work package to deliver web services (e.g. to comply with GEO principles and OGC standards).

18. WP6 - The Food-Energy-Water Nexus (IIASA) - Ian McCallum, Steffen Fritz
Figure 13: Overall workflow and work package 6 structure
In the context of the food, water and energy (FWE) nexus, WP6 will contribute to the GEOEssential knowledge base infrastructure with the determination of the required EVs considering the related European policies, SDGs and modelling requirements (Figure 13). The workflow will be established from EVs derived via multiple EV Services (WP3). This will include multiple open data streams (e.g. remote sensing, in-situ, citizen science, social media, telecommunications, socioeconomic and more) obtained preferably via the GEO-DAB. One or more case studies will be selected for implementation across Europe, with the results being integrated into a nexus approach. Finally, the information will be transferred to the SDG dashboard (WP7), along with updating of the ConnectinGEO gap analysis and the ENEON (WP2).

19. WP7 - GEOEssential Dashboard: From EVs to Policy Goals (SDG) (UNIGE) - Grégory Giuliani
Figure 14: Overall workflow and work package 7 structure
The aim of this WP is to develop a generic (i.e., applicable to other indicators), replicable (i.e., expandable to other contexts), and scalable (i.e., national to regional to global) open web-based platform automating the transformation of Earth observation data into indicators (as graphs or/and maps) through EVs. This will demonstrate that EO, when matched with appropriate tools and services, can contribute filling the gap between science and policy for decisions, management and reporting.
This WP will develop an infrastructure to compute selected indicators (mostly SDGs) from available EO and statistical data repositories such as GEOSS, Copernicus, GBIF and others Global, European, National databases. The user interface (i.e. the GEOEssential Dashboard) developed in this WP will rely on services provided by the Knowledge base infrastructure (WP1). This WP will also make use of the workflows developed in the other WPs (4,5,6) and is aiming to demonstrate the data value chain from EVs to indicators (e.g. SDGs) (Figure 14).

20. WP8 - Dissemination, exploitation and Impacts (AUTH) - Petros Patias
T8.9 Communication activities (Website, leaflet, press releases, social media)
T8.1 Best practice Project portfolio and white paper on use of EVs for UN programs
T8.3 Dissemination toolkit for EV services and GEOEssential dashboard
T.8.6 Contribution to EV definition process
T8.5 Contribution to standard definition process
T8.4 Promotion of the GEOEssential Dashboard
T8.8 Represent a European contribution to GEO
T8.7 Scientific dissemination
T8.2 Massive Online Open Courses on the use of EV to assess progress towards policy goals
Figure 15: Overall workflow and work package 8 structure
This WP will develop specific actions to capitalize on the project results for societal impacts, to ease the transferability to user communities, to establish feedback loops, to foster the use of open access portals and platforms for dissemination of data and knowledge, and to ensure linkage to the GEO Work Plan and the ERA-PLANET Dissemination work package (Figure 15). An important aim will be to support policy and relevant stakeholder groups for decision making with close links to relevant GEO tools, services and platforms.
Earth observations and geospatial information contribute in novel and practical ways to support achievement of the SDGs.
Increase skills and capabilities in uses of Earth observations for SDG activities and their broader benefits.
Broaden interest and awareness of Earth observations support to the SDGs and social, environmental, and economic benefits.

21. WP9 - Project coordination and management (UNIGE) - Anthony Lehmann, Denisa Rodila
WP9 will provide the overall management of the project (Figure 16), the scientific coordination and take charge of grant, financial and legal issues. The project coordination and management will be based on the experience gained through previous successful large integrative projects (FP7 enviroGRIDS, FP7 EOPOWER).