Showcase Events

Miguel Angel Exposito Verdejo (European Commission), Greg Duggan (AfriGEO), Betty Charalampopoulou (Geosystems Hellas, EARSC Director)

Public-private partnerships allow strategic cooperation acting as a complement to data, skills, resources and knowledge to create innovative solutions for tackling complex global issues like climate adaptation and its impact on food security. This showcase panel will be a discussion introduced by a public entity [European Commission, DG INTPA] who frame the discussion (<5min) and will facilitate the exchange between the panelists from GEO regions by responding to the questions by the moderator. The exchange will enlighten the audience with lessons learned; building and sharing on governance structures, market entry strategies, internationalization, scaling up and commercialization of the products in the regions thanks to partnerships. The session aims at showcasing how a close collaboration between end user, public sector and private sector may bring value to the market, by delivering tailored services, highlighting challenges and opportunities. Attention will be put on how the private sector can help bridge innovation solutions.

Crista Straub (United States Geological Survey - USGS), Shanna McClain (NASA), Marie Smith (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research - CSIR), Farrah Naidoo (DE-Africa)

Communities across the globe are required to make decisions in response to the effects of current and future climate and environmental change, create sustainable development, reduce the risk from natural disasters, and much more. These decisions occur every day across different levels of governance and varying sectors. Earth observation (EO) data and information are essential in this decision-making process. EO data not only enhances the collective understanding of our natural systems, but also reveals interactions between natural and human systems that enable the modeling and prediction of human impacts on the environment in support of policy development and decision-making. Socioeconomic assessments are used to study the benefits of this EO data / information and identify future EO infrastructure needs. The “GEOValue: Assessing the Societal Impacts and Use of Earth Observation” Showcase Session will explore and highlight the broad range of perspectives on the importance of measuring the socioeconomic impacts of EO. This will be envisioned through a broad lens of societal impacts to better understand the multiple aspects of the value of satellite EO data.

Krystal Azelton (Secure World Foundation - SWF), Pontsho Maruping (South African Radio Astronomy Observatory - SARAO), Danielle Wood (Media Lab Space Enabled Research)

This session will focus on the threats to the space environment and specifically draw attention to ways the Earth observation community can participate in safeguarding space assets and data. In order to respond effectively to the triple planetary crisis and drive sustainable development, including action on biodiversity, health, climate change, disaster risk reduction, urban developments, oceans, and coastal areas, and water and agriculture, it’s necessary to use data derived from Earth observations.

Gensuo Jia (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Atmospheric Physics - IAP), Orestis Speyer (National Observatory of Athens - NOA)

Climate-related hazards are on the rise, but information on climate-induced losses and damages is lacking. Re-insurance companies often provide only aggregated data for insured assets, and the complexity of disaster risk management hampers systematic data collection. The Sendai Framework, a relatively recent development, introduces demanding indicators for monitoring. Earth Observation offers a solution to these challenges, moving beyond monitoring to comprehensive assessment. The newly developed CASEarth combines digital Earth platforms and spatial data clouds, enabling the evaluation of climate extremes’ impact and the effectiveness of adaptation measures in diverse regions like southeast Asia and East Africa. This contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goal 13 and aids UNFCCC climate change loss and damage assessments. Earth observation extends beyond satellite data to encompass non-satellite datasets, which play a crucial role not only in validation and impact modeling calibration but also in offering unique insights into indirect losses, damage mechanisms, and underrepresented areas like Cultural Heritage across Europe and beyond. A wealth of such data exists, albeit in a fragmented landscape. This ssession illustrates the integration of spatial and non-satellite data within a big Earth data platform, enhancing the assessment of climate extremes-induced loss and damage, particularly in wildfire, drought, and flood events worldwide. Its goal is to provide Earth observation support for the UNFCCC loss and damage initiative.

Giovanni Rum (Italian Space Agency - ASI), Evangelos Gerasopoulos (National Observatory of Athens - NOA), Eleni Athanasopoulou (National Observatory of Athens - NOA), Nicola Pirrone (National Research Council of Italy - CNR), Sergio Cinnirella (National Research Council of Italy - CNR), Haris Kontoes (National Observatory of Athens - NOA/BEYOND ), Alexia Tsouni (National Observatory of Athens - NOA/BEYOND )

Hein Zeelie (UN World Food Programme - WFP), Pheello Ramotubei (Government of Lesotho), Thuso Motselebane (Tech for All )

The World Food Programme and the Government of Lesotho has developed and implemented a geospatial platform for territorial planning that will support and enable the Government to transparently realise its socio-economic, cultural, and environmental goals by developing spatial visions/maps, strategies, and plans and by applying policy principles, tools, participatory mechanisms, and regulatory procedures. National scale territorial planning is fundamental to economic development, strengthening internal decision-making and for coordinated achievement of SDGs. The platform will allow the overlay of geospatial data with socio-economic information to provide a vision representation of an issue to inform decision-making, such as where to build more clinics to optimise coverage. This project provides a unified, nationally managed, geospatial platform to facilitate spatial data analysis and integration, as well as collaboration with various stakeholders. It will also put to maximum use existing data and information systems and avoid duplication of efforts. This session will showcase with a live demo the groundbreaking geospatial platform, its supporting datasets, and functionalities.