Project description
Earth observation for sustainable agriculture
The sustainable use of water resources is essential for agricultural systems. Advanced technology such as Earth observation provides information about the planet's physical, chemical and biological systems and offers pioneering solutions to agriculture. The EU-funded COALA project will develop a Copernicus-based information system for water and nutrient management in agriculture in Australia. It will demonstrate how the Copernicus information services system and its new cloud platforms Data and Information Access Services (DIAS) can improve the amount of information available for sustainable irrigation and nutrients management. The project will monitor crop development and water and nutrient status using innovative algorithms based on Sentinel Earth observation data targeting three different end users: farmers, irrigation infrastructure operators and basin authorities. The project will pave the way for new business opportunities in Australia for the European industry of Earth observation services.
Objective
COALA will develop Copernicus-based information service for irrigation and nutrient management for the Australian agricultural systems, starting from the consolidated past experiences of the proposed European partnership, but based on strong collaboration with Academic Australian institutions and business players in the agricultural sector of Australia. Operational farming advisory services will be further developed on one hand to include nutrient managements on the other to provide water accounting data from the farm to the district and/or basin scale. COALA will monitor crops development, water and nutrient status, irrigated areas by means of innovative algorithms based on Sentinel Earth Observation data, which will be accessed by means of the new cloud platforms (DIAS) of Copernicus. In-situ and other source of data will be used to improve the accuracy of the products for the final users, which will be on three different levels: i) farmers, ii) irrigation infrastructure operators, iii) basin authorities. COALA will demonstrate that Copernicus data and new DIAS infrastructure can greatly improve the availability of information for management decisions on irrigation and nutrient management at all decision levels, from the Water Authority in charge of monitoring the implementation of the basin exploitation plan, to the farm level, passing through the irrigation infrastructure operators, in charge of managing irrigation distribution infrastructures. COALA tools and data will improve the decision making and policy for sustainable use of water and nutrients in multi-functional ecosystems. Through this project, it will be possible to explore new business opportunities in Australia for the European industry of Earth Observation services.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
- H2020-EU.2.1.6. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies – Space Main Programme
- H2020-EU.2.1.6.1. - Enabling European competitiveness, non-dependence and innovation of the European space sector
- H2020-EU.2.1.6.4. - Enabling European research in support of international space partnerships
- H2020-EU.2.1.6.3. - Enabling exploitation of space data
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
80143 NAPOLI
Italy
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.