SDGs-EYES partner SatCen is teaming up with EUSPA – EU Agency for the Space Programme and World Food Programme to host two Community Contributed sessions during the “International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium – IGARSS 2024” in Athens, #Greece, from July 7th to 12th, 2024.

All interested colleagues are invited to submit their abstracts for these sessions:

  • EO in support to SDGs achievement: A Security perspective (CCS.36)
  • Innovative EO-based applications for emergency management and security (CCS.60)

More information about the session descriptions and to submit your abstract by January 5, 2024 are available .

CCS.36: EO in support to SDGs achievement: A Security perspective

“The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere”. The definition of the SDG and the associated Global Indicator Framework represent a data-driven framework helping countries in evidence-based decision-making and in development policies in different domains, being the security and safety of human beings and societies at the heart of the agenda. In parallel, Earth Observation (EO) is one of the data sources to build-on to address many of these indicators. EO, together with advanced technologies for data processing, such as data fusion or artificial intelligence, enable tools that offer decision-makers enhanced capacity to monitoring, assess and act, incorporating visualization ability which is key to understand a large number of scenarios. Relevant organizations around the Globe are working in policy and decision-making mechanisms that incorporate information from different data sources, including EO, to face challenges in domains such as food security, water security, energy security or health security, with the final goal of contributing to the achievement of specific SDG indicators.

However, a big challenge is encountered when some indicators in different domains are interconnected, as it is difficult to be aware and access the most recent insights obtained by the different parties involved. Thus, it is necessary to invest and put in place measures to get together current state-of-the-art solutions and results in different domains and raise awareness and foster synergies between key actors. This session will focus on current EO-based initiatives and results obtained by key actors in the international stage that are supporting the achievement of several SDG indicators in key domains, aiming at analysing the status-quo in each of the domains, while fostering cooperation and exchange of know-how and capacities.

CCS.60: Innovative EO-based applications for emergency management and security

Earth Observation (EO) applications for emergency management and security are key to institutional users for assessing risks, responding effectively to events and delivering wide situational awareness. As the number of actors in the satellite imagery market is increasing and the opportunities for image collection are proliferated, various technical challenges emerge (e.g. data fusion, trustable automated image analysis, etc).

Taking into account the aforementioned motivations, and building in the outcomes of previous IGARSS editions, the session aims to bring together applied scientists as well as actors in industry and national or European institutions which develop, deliver and/or exploit image analysis-based geospatial services in operational domains. The session will focus on the use of EO and other collateral data for geospatial applications in emergency and security operations, including a wide field of relevant themes:

  • Operational automatic detection and extraction of various features, including road network, buildings, vessels, vehicles, etc.
  • Post-disaster and/or post-conflict impact assessments, e.g. detection of damaged buildings
  • AI-assisted end-to-end UAV operations
  • Human-in-the-loop algorithms for imagery intelligence
  • Cascading-risk impact on emergency and security scenarios, e.g. impact of floods in traffic of hazardous goods
  • Conflict/emergency risk indicators and maps

 

Papers addressing meta-analyses of the impact and uptake of these technologies in operations, as well as lessons learnt from deploying these technologies in operational environments are also welcomed.