The project is proceeding along the chrono-program. The first year has been affected by COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the postponement of two deliverable, but they remained within the first year (D1.1 from M6 to M10 and D1.2 from M9 to M12). All the other Deliverables and Milestones have been fulfilled, and small deviations have been mitigated to enable the project to overcome some criticalities. This is the case of change of strategy for interviewing stakeholders and potential users: the survey questions have been conducted entirely online.
WP1 has been successfully completed at M12: users’ and stakeholders’ requirements were identified and analysed; alpha users have been signed up.
Products and services to provide through the DIAS have been identified and, for what concerning the process chain, 11 scripts for EO data pre-processing, 8 scripts for added-value EO services have been deployed (further refinement to adapt to the Australian context are still ongoing).
All the DIAS components, including controlling and management systems, have been organised in packages that can be exported and deployed on any Copernicus DIAS infrastructure (changing only the interface to the raw data). The first prototype is available on the EODC infrastructure (which is federated with the WEkEO DIAS). First integration of COALA services as API in Yield Prophet® (platform belonging to BCG and provided to its farmer members) e is functional with further developments ongoing.
Great effort has been spent on the definitions of n. 4 pilot areas and “Alpha-users” in each of them, defined as follows:
1) Pilot 1: Demonstration at farm scale rainfed crops– BCG member farmers
2) Pilot 2: Demonstration at farm scale irrigated crops in Goulburn-Murray and Coleambally (high-level infrastructure)
3) Pilot 3: Demonstration at district scale – Coleambally Irrigation District (high-level infrastructure)
4) Pilot 4: Demonstration at farm scale (irrigated crop, low-level infrastructure) – Northern Murray Darling Basin farms
Dissemination and communication activities have been focused on spreading the COALA project's opportunities to the stakeholders. Although workshops and face-to-face meetings were not possible due to the restrictions caused by COVID, a great deal of simplification and communication of the message was done on social networks and the blog. All partners contributed to writing articles and posts. The flagship is the school legacy: videos and tutorials have been produced in a format suitable for students, to engage the new generation in raising awareness of the issue.
For the business area, the market analysis and the business modelling exercise have been completed. They led to the selection of the preferred business model for COALA. In parallel, the innovation and IPR management strategy was elaborated; information about background and foreground knowledge, exploitable results, IP ownership and protection was collected.
