1.Introduction
Welcome to the seventh edition (April 2024) of the newsletter from the PROTECT project that provides an update on the developments in the market regarding climate services based on Earth Observation (EO). The focus is on five application domains, namely: Energy & Utilities, Sustainable Urban Communities, Agriculture, Forestry and other Land Uses, Marine and Coastal Environments and Civil Security and Protection.
2.Market Updates
The following section provides updates on the current developments, news and evolution of the Earth observation market, particularly with regard to the evolution of climate services relevant for the public authorities in Europe.
Energy & Utilities
- Satlantis received a contract from its parent company Encino Environmental Services to provide exclusive satellite-based methane monitoring data from its constellation.
- Planet announced a $20M agreement to provide hyperspectral data for Carbon Mapper’s greenhouse gas monitoring campaign, from 2026 to 2030.
Sustainable Urban Communities
- Open Cosmos won a €3.4M contract from the Spanish state of Catalonia for launching a small satellite with EO and IoT payloads focused on urban monitoring and disaster management applications.
Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use
- German EO services firm GAF was awarded a multi-year contract by the Bavarian state in Germany for monitoring agricultural areas in the region.
- The latest analysis from Global Forest Watch, which predominantly uses data from the Landsat missions, showed that the global tree cover loss continues despite dramatic progress made in Brazil and Colombia.
- Ecosia, a tree-planting search engine, has teamed up with French startup Kanop to monitor its reforestation efforts from space.
Marine and Coastal Environments
- EOMAP, a German EO services firm specialising in marine monitoring has launched a new solution for monitoring water quality with satellite data;
- ESA selected two applications focused on marine pollution to be integrated into Φsat-2 for demonstrating onboard processing capabilities.
Civil Security and Protection
- Kongsberg was awarded a contract by the Norwegian government to build and launch satellites for acquiring satellite maritime surveillance data.
- The World Meteorological Organization launched the latest edition of the European State of Climate report, which shows the impact of climate change on the continent.
- SAR data and solutions provider Iceye has raised $93M in a new funding round to use the funds to expand its business and develop new products and services, bringing the total amount raised to $438M.
3.Summary
The European State of Climate report published this month provides a grim view, as it showed 2023 to be the joint warmest or second warmest year on record with temperatures in Europe above average for 11 months of the year. As such, governments from countries such as Spain, Italy, Greece and Poland are launching their national EO satellite constellations for disaster management, urban planning and other environmental monitoring applications. The private sector is also stepping up its efforts with the announcements of new products and services across emission monitoring, water quality monitoring, carbon monitoring, deforestation monitoring among several others. The public and private sectors would need to collaborate further to build and deploy climate services leveraging EO for mitigation and adaptation.
