BREATHE Technical Kick-Off Summer Meeting
The BREATHE Technical Meeting took place on the 21st of June in Innsbruck. This time, it was GeoVille hosting it’s Turkish partner Globetech and the three subcontractors, Environment Agency Austria (Umweltbundesamt UBA), SISTEMA and University of Vienna. This is the 3rd meeting that took place in-person since the beginning of the year, showing a close team collaboration, the engagement and enthusiasm of all stakeholders towards the achievement of the BREATHE project. The main focus of this technical meeting was the finalization of the methods and results for the Final Report of the 1st research year.
UBA is involved in gathering the requirements and identifying the gaps in the Turkish greenhouse gas national inventory report, together with the General Directorate of Forestry (OGM), its Turkish counterpart, and in capacity strengthening for the estimation of CO2 and CO emissions from biomass burning. SISTEMA is in charge of the Above-Ground-Biomass (AGB) mapping based on spaceborne LiDAR GEDI Earth Observation data. The University of Vienna uses the FLEXPART transport model to improve GHG flux estimates through the analysis of ash plumes resulting from wildfires.
GeoVille has produced forest disturbance maps over two use cases in Austria and Türkiye and a fire delineation map over the Turkish use case in the Istanbul district. An internal validation QA/QC procedure with the photo-interpretation of stratified weighted random samples points is ongoing. CO2 emissions from biomass change and biomass burning are also currently being estimated and will be integrated with the EO-derived fire delineation polygons as input into the FLEXPART transport model. In addition, the method development for AGB change mapping is being consolidated and data collected over a 2nd use case of selected large wildfires in the Turkish Mediterranean ecoregion.
Globetech is responsible for the cloud-based IT system that allows the integration of all these different data sources and methods, along with the UNFCCC reporting standards and IT standards. Globetech is currently working on the connection between this IT cloud infrastructure with a user fire monitoring dashboard over the 1st use case in the Istanbul district for the Istanbul Regional Directorate of Forestry (IOBM).
The next User Meeting is planned for October 2023 at UBA’s premises in Vienna with OGM, to ensure that the first tangible results meet their requirements for the EO-based enhancement and verification of their GHG inventory for forest biomass and wildfires.
