D10.1 Report on the dissemination activities and Conference organisation

This deliverable provides an extensive analysis of the dissemination activities and workshops organisation of the EXCELSIOR H2020 Teaming Project. The analysis starts with the report on our participation in conferences (11) and how the project was promoted through it. Then, we explain about the participation of our team members in talks (17), workshops (7) and seminars (12) as invited speakers. The deliverable continues with a thorough presentation of the lectures by invited speakers (8), the webinar (1) and the workshops (2) organized by our team. Additionally, we document about our participation in other events (i.e., European Researcher’s Night 2021 and SpaceUPCyprus 2021 Live). The last chapter provides the publications, journal papers, conference papers, and book sections for the reporting time period. The deliverable concludes by providing information on the outcome of the reported activities and how they have contributed to the progress of the EXCELSIOR H2020 Teaming Project. It is concluded that there is a strong need to establish links in the EMMENA region and connect with them. This has not been achieved yet, but a strategy was prepared to raise awareness about the EXCELSIOR Project in the EMMENA region and establish partnerships, starting with targeted stakeholders’ workshop in autumn 2021, where selected stakeholders from the region will be invited to be informed them about the project and provide them the space to discuss their needs and identify common scientific interests and ways of collaboration

Earth observation time series for the monitoring of droughts in Cyprus: Patterns and drivers of vegetation dynamics

With amplified climate warming, climate extremes over Europe become more frequent. Since the 2000's, many years have been characterized by extreme events such as droughts and heat waves. For example, in Central Europe, extreme droughts and heat waves took place in the years 2003 and 2018. In comparison, Cyprus experienced strong droughts during 2003 and 2016-2018. Such extreme climate events can have severe impacts on agricultural yields, the productivity of natural vegetation, and on water resources. In this regard, long-term Earth observation (EO) time series are essential to quantitatively assess and analyse changes on the land surface, including vegetation condition. In this study, a joint analysis of geoscientific time series over the last two decades, including EO-based MODIS vegetation indices and meteorological variables is performed to assess drought events and analyse trends as well as potential drivers of vegetation dynamics in Cyprus. The analysis of drought events and vegetation trends is based on the full archive of MODIS imagery at 250 m spatial resolution covering the period 2000-2022. In detail, climate-related effects on vegetation were analysed by means of the deviations of MODIS 16-day vegetation index composites from their long-term mean. Next, trends of the MODIS vegetation index were calculated to evaluate spatial patterns of vegetation change over the investigated period. These analyses were additionally performed for geographically stratified regions, including diverse vegetation classes such as cropland and grassland. Furthermore, the application of a causal discovery algorithm reveals linkages within a multivariate feature space, in particular between vegetation greenness and climatic drivers. Preliminary analyses showed that drought patterns differ with respect to seasons and the investigated vegetation class. For example, the strong drought year 2008 is clearly reflected in the results, whereas forest areas appear to be least affected by the drought during the spring months. Moreover, considering the significant trends over the last two decades, an increase in vegetation greenness could be observed

D6.6: 7 conference papers

The Deliverable 6.6 with the title “7 conference papers”, is part of WP6 “Dissemination and Exploitation” of Athena project with a basic aim to knowledge sharing, network development and exposure to an international environment. Three conference attendances were foreseen (e.g. CAA; SPIE; EARSeL) within the project duration whereas more than 30 posters and oral presentations were presented during the project in the conferences such as: SPIE 2016, SPIE 2018, EUROMED 2016, EUROMED 2018, EGU 2016, EGU 2017, EGU 2018, RSCy2016, RSCy 2017, RSCy 2018, etc

D1.15 Impact Assessment Report for RP 2

This deliverable provides the impact assessment report for RP2 (M16-M30). It provides an update on the overall and specific objectives of the EXCELSIOR project that have been achieved within RP2. This task undertakes the establishment of a methodology for the yearly monitoring of the impact of the different activities carried out by Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence (ECoE) and its partners through EXCELSIOR against a set of quantified targets. The list of Key Performance Indicators established in D1.12 has been revised based on the comments received by the EXCELSIOR project reviewers on 23 June 2021 following the first project review. This list is hereby updated to reflect the activities of RP2. By monitoring the impact for the RP2, it will provide direction of the activities needed to fulfil the KPIs for the following reporting periods. The impact assessment report will be used to assess the implementation of the work plan and adjust the activities in agreement with WP and task Leaders to ensure the achievement of the Project’s strategic objectives. WP1 provides the KPI monitoring framework and general quality processes, while the WP3 defines concrete actions affecting all other WPs for meeting the Impact KPIs. This task’s activities will be coordinated with WP3 activities on strategy definition as a continuous process, in order to update the human resources, infrastructure acquisition and overall work plan and to meet new priorities identified. The analysis outputs will update the Project Action Plan of Task 1.1. The following activities were examined and assessed according to the KPIs. These activities include proposals, dissemination events, publications, academia, networks, etc. The impact for each activity was also included

The ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence (ECoE) as a digital innovation hub for Earth observation

The "EXCELSIOR" H2020 Widespread Teaming Phase 2 Project: ERATOSTHENES: EXcellence Research Centre for Earth SurveiLlance and Space-Based MonItoring Of the EnviRonment is supported from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 857510 for a 7 year project period to establish a Centre of Excellence in Cyprus. As well, the Government of the Republic of Cyprus is providing additional resources to support the establishment of the ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence (ECoE) in Cyprus. The ECoE seeks to fill the gap by assisting in the spaceborne Earth Observation activities in the Eastern Mediterranean and become a regional key player in the Earth Observation (EO) sector. There are distinct needs and opportunities that motivate the establishment of an Earth Observation Centre of Excellence in Cyprus, which are primarily related to the geostrategic location of the European Union member state of Cyprus to examine complex scientific problems and address user needs in the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East and Northern Africa (EMMENA), as well as South-East Europe. An important objective of the ECoE is to be a Digital Innovation Hub and a Research Excellence Centre for EO in the EMMENA region, which will establish an ecosystem where state-of-the-art sensing technology, cutting-edge research, targeted education services, and entrepreneurship come together. It is based on the paradigm of Open Innovation 2.0 (OI2.0), which is founded on the Quadruple Helix Model, where Government, Industry, Academia and Society work together to drive change by taking full advantage of the cross-fertilization of ideas. The ECoE as a Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) adopts a two-axis model, where the vertical axis consists of three Thematic Clusters for sustained excellence in research of the ECoE in the domains of Atmosphere and Climate, Resilient Societies and Big Earth Data Management, while the horizontal axis is built around four functional areas, namely: Infrastructure, Research, Education, and Entrepreneurship. The ECoE will focus on five application areas, which include Climate Change Monitoring, Water Resource Management, Disaster Risk Reduction, Access to Energy and Big EO Data Analytics. This structure is expected to leverage the existing regional capacities and advance the excellence by creating new programs and research, thereby establishing the ECoE as a worldclass centre capable of enabling innovation and research competence in Earth Observation, actively participating in Europe, the EMMENA region and the global Earth Observation arena. The partners of the EXCELSIOR consortium include the Cyprus University of Technology as the Coordinator, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), the National Observatory of Athens (NOA) and the Department of Electronic Communications, Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy

Remote sensing based indices for drought assessment in the east mediterranean region

This study aims at reviewing existing remote sensing approaches to assess drought impact on desertification in the East Mediterranean region. Drought and desertification are interconnected phenomena. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines that an area is affected by drought when the annual precipitation is lower than 60 % of the normal values, at least during 2 consecutive years in more than 50 % of its area. Drought is a phenomenon that may trigger or exacerbate desertification. Desertification is usually reported as the process during which land becomes more arid and loses its vegetation, water bodies (lakes, streams), and wildlife. Being one of the major causes of desertification, drought is a complex phenomenon and its monitoring is crucial for early warning and risk management of desertification. A number of approaches are possible for assessing drought. This paper reviews remotely-sensed drought indices that are particularly relevant to the East Mediterranean Region, discussing their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their present challenges. As the East Mediterranean Region is dominated by semi-Arid to arid climates, focus is here given to methods applied to assess drought in semi-Arid or arid regions. The present paper analyses the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), the Normalized Difference Drought Index (NDDI), the Vegetation Condition Index (VCI), the Temperature Condition Index (TCI), the Vegetation Health Index (VHI) and the Composite Drought Index (CDI). For their validation, the indices need to be compared to ancillary data, recorded at meteorological stations or acquired from in-situ measurements. Thus, the paper suggests Goodness-of-fit criteria, which correlate the derived data spatially and temporally. Examples of such criteria are the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient r, the coefficient of determination R2, the Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) and the Nash Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE)

Monitoring of land use change for the assessment of land management sustainability in the East Mediterranean Region

Sustainable land management is of great importance for regional, national and international land use planning. It presents the primary aim of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 and contributes significantly to many other SDGs. Particularly, Goal 15 (Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss) points out the urgent need to fight desertification and land degradation. Desertification is the process during which billion hectares of rangeland and cropland degrade due to several factors such as climatic variations and human activities. This phenomenon poses a threat for about one-sixth of the world’s population, seventy percent of all drylands and one-quarter of the total land area of the world. To assess desertification, researchers characterize, quantify and monitor land use status and changes on a regional and a global level. Assessing and monitoring land management sustainability involves spatial and temporal variabilities as well as system complexities. In this paper, we analyse existing methodologies that integrate remote sensing and geospatial approaches to assess and monitor land use changes in the East Mediterranean Region. The reported methods enhance the identification of sustainably managed land fields and should be further exploited in order to promote a culture of sustainable land management regions vulnerable to climate change (e.g. Cyprus). Case studies of using both Landsat TM/ETM and Sentinel Copernicus data for the Cyprus area are demonstrated. This paper is under the H2020 Teaming Project ‘EXCELSIOR’ ‘EXcellence Research Centre for Earth SurveiLlance and Space-Based MonItoring Of the EnviRonment’ activities in which the existing Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence will be upgraded to a Centre of Excellence in Earth observation in the East-MED region. This project has received funding from the European Union’s “Horizon 2020 – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020)” under grant agreement No 763643. Work programme H2020 under “Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation”, call: H2020- WIDESPREAD-04-2017 Teaming Phase 1 (Coordination and support action). The EXCELSIOR project aims also of creating an inspiring environment for conducting basic and applied research and innovation in the areas of the integrated use of remote sensing and space-based techniques for monitoring the environment. Environment has been recognized by the Smart Specialization Strategy of Cyprus as the first horizontal priority for future growth of the island. Monitoring land use change is one of the main priorities of the Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence in the East-Med region

Validation of the Sentinel-3 SLSTR LST product using in-situ data from meteorological stations in Cyprus

Cyprus has Mediterranean and semi-arid climate. Such climates are characterized by mild and rainy winters, and dry summers with less than 40 mm of precipitation for at least three summer months. Drought is a natural phenomenon that appears frequently in Cyprus and has several impacts in water supply. Drought assessment and monitoring are thus, vital in mitigating drought impacts and managing water resources efficiently. Land Surface Temperature (LST) is an essential parameter in drought monitoring. It provides significant insights to assess vegetation health and soil moisture level. The extreme heterogeneity of most natural land surfaces makes the estimation and validation of LST a demanding procedure. The Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) on the ESA/EU GMES Sentinel-3 mission provides highly accurate measurements of global Earth surface temperatures. Its SLSTR Level-2 LST product offers land surface parameters generated on the wide 1 km measurement grid. In this work, we present the validation results of the Sentinel-3 Level-2 LST using in-situ meteorological data obtained from the year 2017 onwards. The in-situ data were provided from the Meteorological Service of Cyprus. The validation includes data from existing meteorological stations located at different locations to understand the influence of the prevailed vegetation and land surface heterogeneity on satellite observations better. Future work will involve the estimation and validation of LST using Landsat satellite data acquired from the year 2000 onwards. This will ensure the LST data continuity for a period that is longer than 10 years, a requirement that is evident in drought assessment and monitoring

D9.13 Report on the organisation of the annual ECoE International Workshop (RP1), WP9

The consortium of the EXCELSIOR Project and the Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence organised a heavily publicised virtual workshop with the participation of all national, EMMENA and international stakeholders. The workshop, which will be organised annually, addressed all the different activities of the Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence, i.e., infrastructure, research, education and innovation through entrepreneurship. The intention was that this Workshop would coincide with the Annual International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geo-information of Environment, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions the 2020 conference was cancelled. Thus, the workshop was postponed for the 15th of July and was held virtually using an online platform. The workshop aimed in strengthening regional links, investing in the continuous interaction with the strategic user segments of the Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence and sustaining long-lasting relationships and partnerships in the region. The Cyprus University of Technology led the organization of this workshop, while all EXCELSIOR Project partners contributed