Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ENVISION (Monitoring of Environmental Practices for Sustainable Agriculture Supported by Earth Observation)
Période du rapport: 2020-09-01 au 2022-02-28
ENVISION is a market-led project that couples cutting edge Earth Observation (EO) technology with state-of-the-art methodologies (automatic pixel/ texture/ object-oriented change detection and classification methods, machine learning, data fusion, multi-source and multi-temporal data management) along with heterogeneous types of data (in situ, open data, and historical on-field check data) to deliver a platform for the Paying Agencies (PAs) and Certification Bodies (CBs) with timely cost-efficient and actionable insights for the compliance monitoring procedure of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) agri-environmental standards.
ENVISION aims to develop a ready-to-market commercial platform of services, co-designed and co-created with PAs and CBs, fit to address their needs. In particular, ENVISION provides PAs and CBs with a robust and cost-efficient set of services allowing them to monitor continuously and systematically the agricultural land, shifting the focus from fragmented monitoring limited to specific fields and dates (or time window) to territory-wide and all-year-round monitoring. Acting as a trailblazer for organisations that monitor environmental- and climate- friendly agricultural practices stemming from CAP, ENVISION increases the effectiveness of risk-based analysis for the selection of farms for inspection; increases the efficiency and transparency of PAs and CBs’ procedures when implementing the CAP; reduces the number of on-site visits by performing more targeted controls and reduces operational and administrative costs.
ENVISION aims to develop a ready-to-market commercial platform of services, co-designed and co-created with PAs and CBs, fit to address their needs. In particular, ENVISION provides PAs and CBs with a robust and cost-efficient set of services allowing them to monitor continuously and systematically the agricultural land, shifting the focus from fragmented monitoring limited to specific fields and dates (or time window) to territory-wide and all-year-round monitoring. Acting as a trailblazer for organisations that monitor environmental- and climate- friendly agricultural practices stemming from CAP, ENVISION increases the effectiveness of risk-based analysis for the selection of farms for inspection; increases the efficiency and transparency of PAs and CBs’ procedures when implementing the CAP; reduces the number of on-site visits by performing more targeted controls and reduces operational and administrative costs.
From the beginning of the project, substantial effort was committed to identify, define, prioritise and deliver the requirements and needs of the end-users (PAs and CBs). To do so, during the first periodic report, a rapid appraisal methodology for the identification of specific users’ objectives and needs was defined and followed; a literature review was concluded of the current provision of services to allow PAs and CBs to monitor environmental practices of farmers; a series of facilitated workshops were conducted to connect the platform and service providers with the end-users for each business case and the co-production phase was initiated. Following the aforementioned actions, and in order to set the foundations for a successful pilot implementation phase, more workshops have been performed in order to review and comment on the initial version of the ENVISION platform. Furthermore, during this reporting period, farmer-focused questionnaires were drafted and shared with all partners for circulation in order to collect farmers’ experiences and thoughts on co-production, both in general and in relation to the development of EO monitoring tools.
Following the identification of user requirements phase as well as the first round of the co-production workshops, the development of the integrated ENVISION platform was initiated. The ENVISION team was in constant communication with the service providers in order to perform the integration with the several external sources and infrastructures as well as with the end-users so as to evaluate this version’s operability, improvement and stability. At the end of these iterations, the integrated version of the platform was delivered, ready for the operational use during the pilot implementation phase.
In parallel with the development of the ENVISION platform, the initial results of the ENVISION data products and services were produced and demonstrated to the rest of the consortium. To begin with, the relevant hardware infrastructure and data processing software tools were locally set up, the datacube was implemented, the OCTOPUSH was upgraded and the sentinel data collection for several past cultivation periods was achieved. In addition, the design and development of the initial version of the EO data products were delivered along with the products methodologies, the training of machine learning (ML) routines and the hyper-tuning of the models’ parameters. The first validation process was completed and the results were presented to the partners through the respective deliverables. All the delivered services are integrated and accessible through the ENVISION platform and the pilot implementation phase is expected to improve existing, or assist in developing new methodologies and algorithms for further data processing.
During this reporting period, the activities of the business cases implementation process have been initiated in order to ensure that the developed services, would reach the required maturity and cover specific customer needs related to the CAP. Specifically, the guidelines have been set for each business case and several meetings have already been held for monitoring and alignment of the actions/ activities that should be performed to ensure the smooth uniform and successful implementation of all cases.
From business perspective, the first connections with relevant EU research projects have been established, identifying fields for cooperation and exchange of information as well as, perform relevant actions. Moreover, the strategy for the exploitation paths for the project results has been defined and the business planning for the post-project commercial exploitation of the ENVISION outcomes has been initiated. In addition, a communication channel was opened with other PAs and CBs for further discussions and exploiting the possibility of joining the existing pool of the project’s LHCs.
Last but not least, concrete and focused dissemination, communication and exploitation actions have been designed in order to strengthen the reach and impact of the ENVISION project. Several informal person-to-person meetings have already been performed with relevant stakeholders and clustering events have been organised increasing the impact of the project and engaging as much audience as possible.
Following the identification of user requirements phase as well as the first round of the co-production workshops, the development of the integrated ENVISION platform was initiated. The ENVISION team was in constant communication with the service providers in order to perform the integration with the several external sources and infrastructures as well as with the end-users so as to evaluate this version’s operability, improvement and stability. At the end of these iterations, the integrated version of the platform was delivered, ready for the operational use during the pilot implementation phase.
In parallel with the development of the ENVISION platform, the initial results of the ENVISION data products and services were produced and demonstrated to the rest of the consortium. To begin with, the relevant hardware infrastructure and data processing software tools were locally set up, the datacube was implemented, the OCTOPUSH was upgraded and the sentinel data collection for several past cultivation periods was achieved. In addition, the design and development of the initial version of the EO data products were delivered along with the products methodologies, the training of machine learning (ML) routines and the hyper-tuning of the models’ parameters. The first validation process was completed and the results were presented to the partners through the respective deliverables. All the delivered services are integrated and accessible through the ENVISION platform and the pilot implementation phase is expected to improve existing, or assist in developing new methodologies and algorithms for further data processing.
During this reporting period, the activities of the business cases implementation process have been initiated in order to ensure that the developed services, would reach the required maturity and cover specific customer needs related to the CAP. Specifically, the guidelines have been set for each business case and several meetings have already been held for monitoring and alignment of the actions/ activities that should be performed to ensure the smooth uniform and successful implementation of all cases.
From business perspective, the first connections with relevant EU research projects have been established, identifying fields for cooperation and exchange of information as well as, perform relevant actions. Moreover, the strategy for the exploitation paths for the project results has been defined and the business planning for the post-project commercial exploitation of the ENVISION outcomes has been initiated. In addition, a communication channel was opened with other PAs and CBs for further discussions and exploiting the possibility of joining the existing pool of the project’s LHCs.
Last but not least, concrete and focused dissemination, communication and exploitation actions have been designed in order to strengthen the reach and impact of the ENVISION project. Several informal person-to-person meetings have already been performed with relevant stakeholders and clustering events have been organised increasing the impact of the project and engaging as much audience as possible.
ENVISION will actively contribute to screen out some common grounds at EU or national level from more local particularities to position the role of the Copernicus DIAS infrastructures and their cloud computing facilities, as key components in the information production. It is crucial for ENVISION to not only refine the EO-based solutions of the past via incorporating ancillary information, such as in-situ measurements and user-generated data, but also develop an operational framework that accommodates the big data implications of the involved technologies and data. Thus, ENVISION will ensure and strengthen the sustainable relation between environment and agriculture. It will be a powerful technological tool which will contribute to the simplification of agri- environmental and climate implementation in the post-2020 era. The project will have a great innovation and success potential due to the highly suitable and experienced consortium, the meteorological and geomorphological potential of the participating regions but most importantly because of the perfect timing with respect to the CAP reform and environmental compliance assurance era . Relevant entities will be able to complement and gradually replace on-farm checks with a continuous monitoring of environmentally-friendly practices; the costly and time-consuming bureaucratic procedures will be reduced and all farmers will be monitored routinely, thus a more sustainable use of land and the protection of the environment will be promoted.