Project partners: VITO (lead), CLS, IIASA, UT3, SS, JR, CNES, GAF, EVF.
The Horizon Europe EvoLand (Evolution of the Copernicus Land Service portfolio) project develops innovative methods, algorithms and candidate Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) prototypes monitoring the status and changes of land use/land cover and various land surface characteristics at high spatial and temporal resolution. Since 2011, the CLMS provides core products for the monitoring of status and changes in vegetated and non-vegetated land cover/land use state and characteristics, biophysical variables, water, and cryosphere conditions. Under the new Copernicus 2.0 programme, CLMS will continue to provide products and services for the 2021-2027 period, thus building time series that enable for long term change monitoring. Additionally, harmonisation and further integration of the products across components is envisaged as well as a more efficient workflow by further automation, modularity of the software and data products, and the increased use of Artificial Intelligence to provide real and near real time data processing, to respond to emerging European policy needs.
EvoLand addresses eleven next-generation CLMS product candidates by integrating innovative approaches in data fusion, Machine Learning, continuous monitoring and biomass mapping, as well as through integration of novel EO and in-situ data. EvoLand analyses policy, data and infrastructure requirements for the prototype services by interacting with the relevant Entrusted Entities as well as the main Copernicus Land stakeholders and users. These requirements will steer all methodological developments. Algorithms will be developed, tested and implemented in an efficient, modular and scalable way on open-source infrastructure on various representative test sites, located both within and outside Europe.
In a subsequent demonstration phase, the candidate services will be prototypically implemented over larger regions, focusing on key thematic domains such as agriculture, forest, water, urban and general land cover. The CLMS candidates include Continuous forest monitoring, forest disturbance mapping, forest biomass mapping, cover crop type mapping, cropland/grassland gross primary production monitoring, small landscape features mappings, improved water bodies mapping, continuous imperviousness monitoring, automated land use mapping of urban dynamics, continuous mapping of land surface characteristics and on-demand land cover mapping. Finally, all candidate services will be regularly analysed in view of their innovation and policy support potential, technical excellence, and operational readiness, and a strategy to transferring these services to operations will be proposed. The ambition of EvoLand is thus to support the Entrusted Entities by dedicated research, providing tangible proof of the evolution potential of the CLMS in terms of improved information content, quality and timeliness, and enable well-informed and facts-based decision-making on the future of the CLMS.
