CANDELA designed, implemented and validated algorithms related to crop health and yield assessment at national level, and urban development at regional level. The project also probed the value of remote sensing data collection for the monitoring of forest health conditions.
Besides developing the tools, the validation process was an important part of the project. It allowed to catch potential errors and make the necessary changes during the development process. Four so-called use-case scenarios were prepared:
• Urban Expansion and Agriculture, aimed at studying the effect of urban expansion on agricultural areas due to the continuous development of human settlements and climate changes.
• Change Detection in Vineyards – The effects of natural hazards estimation.
• Abrupt natural disasters over the forest vegetation.
• Forest health monitoring.
Land cover and land use changes driven by climate changes and population growth are crucial factors that affect economy, agriculture and decision-making strategies among others. This project sub-use case aimed at closely studying urban expansion and the resulting agricultural surfaces shrinking. To achieve the latter objective, robust and generic data analytics tools and various remote sensing data sources were used to detect changes of interest.
Wine-making is one of the largest agricultural industries in many countries over the world including France. However, natural hazards such as frost and hail cause large damages in vineyards resulting in enormous financial loss. This second sub-use case aimed at using data analytics tools with remote sensing data in order to quantify the damages caused by natural hazards, which is of great interest for winemaking syndicates, farmers and insurance companies.
The abrupt natural disasters use case was expressed by State Forests in Poland after windfall that happened in August 2017. The disaster was a result of a bow echo weather phenomenon that brought winds blowing at 100-150 km/h and sweeping off forest stands on its path ranging from the Baltic Sea coast to the region of Lower Silesia. The disaster affected whole ecosystems and forest stands (rather than individual types and/or species and/or habitats of trees), including 22 natural reserves, 134 “Nature 2000” areas, 15 protected bird habitats and breeding areas covering, inter alia, the areas protected under the Bird and Habitat Directive. In the CANDELA project satellite images were used to train algorithms that could quickly identify areas affected by damage. This would allow foresters to efficiently manage tree cut and restoration of forest.
Complementary to the above, a fourth use case was expressed by people related to forest management and nature protection. Knowledge of the condition of forests and its monitoring is important for many reasons. Forests are one of the most relevant renewable resources, both economically and socially. Therefore information about the state of health of the forest and its ongoing monitoring is so important. Knowledge about the location of tree stands weakened or attacked by diseases and insects, allows for the application of appropriate preventive measures.
