Open Data framework for the Baltic Sea drainage Basin

The main objective of this action is to foster innovative service development for sustainable management in the Baltic Sea catchment area. The innovation will aim at both open-source development to meet the needs of governmental agencies as well as promote the use of Copernicus data in business applications.

The users which will be addressed include governmental agencies that still underutilize the power of Copernicus data as well as other actors within the forestry, agriculture, and fisheries sectors. There is also a direct link to the work and responsibilities of HELCOM (Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission - Helsinki Commission) and OSPAR (Oslo and Paris Convention) in monitoring and protect the Baltic Sea and the North-East Atlantic. By cooperating with and bringing together the above stakeholders, the action will achieve a wider use of Copernicus data in support of a healthy marine environment.

This action is thereby fully compliant with the FPCUP objectives to increase the number of users and applications derived from Copernicus and that priority should be given to activities with multinational reach. It also supports corresponding activities of the GEO Work Programs. The action is of innovative character with high potential that will lead to a growing capacity of European companies to create and exploit EO-based data products. This project will utilize current national data hubs and data cubes for developing innovative services based on Copernicus data. It will also give the opportunity to exchange the experience in applications of Copernicus data within the Baltic region.

The objective of this project is to develop an Open Data Framework for sharing methods and algorithms to process relevant data over the Baltic Sea Drainage Basin. The project will benefit from the new Swedish Space Data Lab as well as other infrastructures such as EstHub, FinnHub and the Polish Collaborative Ground Segment, all providing data access and processing resources. The Baltic Sea Open Data Framework will hence be a platform for cooperation regarding methods, analysis and information, build upon development of methods and algorithms to process and analyze relevant data from Copernicus as well as from the Copernicus services, in the marine monitoring service, the land monitoring service and the climate change service.

The project will take advantage of current cross-border projects for development via innovation clusters for the Finnish – Swedish archipelagos based on sound ecosystem management, as well as the action in FPCUP for coastal management in Work program 2018; Action 2018-1-43: Piloting downstream applications and services of relevance to Coastal Management at local and regional level (SNSA). Thereby, the close connection between the two actions where the specific environmental and development challenges in the coastal areas will be linked and upscaled to embrace the Baltic Sea Drainage Basin by this action.

Monitoring of climate conditions is essential for better understanding of processes occurring in natural environment. Snow cover and clouds cover are the elements which will be analysed for the whole area of the Baltic Sea Catchment. These parameters will be collected, analysed and processed using Earth Observation satellites.

Eutrophication is one of the main threats to the biodiversity of the Baltic Sea. Eutrophication is characterised by algal and plant growth, leading to harmful algal blooms, increased turbidity, oxygen depletion, and changes in species composition.

Reliable information about Earth surface is a fundament for other types of analyses. High resolution land cover / land use maps will be produced once a year for the whole area of Interest using Sentinel-2 images and algorithms. Sentinel -1 and -2 based timeseries for agriculture will be produced.

According to Helcom Habitat the Natura2000 and other Nature Protection, biodiversity areas will be examined for the coastal zone of Baltic using Copernicus data.

Hydrological information will be produced in a 5x5 km grid over the area, which is very important for most of the proposed applications as the load’s transportation means are key to transport the matters in the Baltic. Modelling of nitrates discharge from agricultural land from Poland to Baltic Sea will be performed. Analysis will be based on the crop detection and modelling of the in-situ data about nitrates pollution. In-situ data are gathered for one year, once every few years. Proposed analysis will be based on the most up to date measurements. Monitoring of changes in crop production and forestry at the catchment area will be done. The hydrological conditions and the frequency of drought appearance and soil moisture will be monitored. Moreover, there will be training on applications of Copernicus Data for the agencies organized. The establishment of a common and open platform for collaboration and a common web portal for sharing methods, algorithms, and analyses.

The action will allow companies and other non-governmental organizations to provide services for interest to develop the common open platform. The companies will be able to screen data by direct access to EO data and AI or other types of analysis and make them available to the common platform allowing production of added value services on open data analysis.