Environment

Conservation and resilient management of ecosystems affects the long-term provision of their ecosystem services. It is of upmost importance to incorporate ecosystem services into the scope of land and water resource management. Earth observation based information products offer a huge potential to show the spatial relationship between ecosystems and human environment.  

GeoVille provided an ecosystem assessment and valuation for timber production based on high detailed Earth observation products, including detailed forest changes, which was used as basis for developing potential future land use scenarios in Vietnam.  

Product Examples:  

• Ecosystem mapping and monitoring 

• Ecosystem condition, status and assessment 

• Forest type, extent, status and change 

GeoVille Service References: 

• Space4Ecosystems

Liberia is covered in natural forests which sustain communities and contribute to the national economy. However, the country is recording heavy loss of forest areas, due to various challenges, such as a rapidly growing population.  

To prevent the forest loss, the forestry sector has been reformed and Liberia is part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and is committed to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). REDD+ aims to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to development. 

Earth observation based mapping of land cover/land use for entire Liberia, with emphasis on forest cover provided valuable information to support the national REDD strategy for sustainable management of forests. 

Product Examples:  

• Land cover and land use 

• Forest type mapping and monitoring 

• Forest change mapping 

• Biomass estimation 

• Forest ecosystem mapping 

GeoVille Service References: 

• Forest Carbon Partnership  

• AI4Trees

The Corine Land Cover (CLC)+ is a part of the European Core Land Monitoring Services (CLMS). It provides detailed land cover information as an eleven class 10m resolution wall-to-wall land cover raster layer. It was produced for 2018 first and updated to 2021. Frequent two-yearly updates are planned. It is currently the standard for European high resolution land cover monitoring for e.g. environmental monitoring and serves as information source for policy- and decision making. 

Product Examples:  

• CLMS CLC+ Backbone

GeoVille Service References: 

• Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 

The European CLMS Grassland Mapping Service is a part of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS). It provides a raster layer with a 10m resolution differentiating between grassland and non-grassland. As additional information the service provides Moving Count that indicates how many times a grassland area was moved within a certain period. 

The service supports various application from Agricultural Management through biodiversity Conversation and Climate Change studies. 

Product Examples:  

• CLMS HRL VLCC Grassland

GeoVille Service References: 

• Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 

The European Priority Area Monitoring is part of the European Core Land Monitoring Services (CLMS). Compared to other CLMS the priority area monitoring provides a higher level of spatial (0,5 ha) and thematic detail in a vector layer for specific area of interests, like urban-, Natura 2000 areas or costal- or riparian zones. It is the source to make to help policymakers and scientist for precise decisions about spatial planning, natural protection and environmental conservation.  

Product Examples:  

• CLMS Hot-Spot Monitoring Coastal Zones

GeoVille Service References: 

• CLMS portfolio — Copernicus Land Monitoring Service

Sub‐Saharan rangelands are inhabited by 348 million people amounting to >40% of the total population in 2015.  

Native rangelands, such as uncultivated grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands and savannas cover 43% of the African land area. The population of the Sub-Saharan region will nearly double to more than 2 billion by 2050. Rangelands are thus a crucial resource for livelihoods in Africa. 

The project RAMONA develops and implements an EO-based rangeland monitoring system at continental scale for Africa, serving the full breadth of rangeland management. RAMONA aids livelihood decisions and strategies and thus, addresses and supports the reporting of 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG2 Zero Hunger, SDG 13 climate action, SDG15 Life on Land).

Product Examples:  

• Rangeland extent and type  

• Herbaceous biomass  

• Rangeland phenology 

GeoVille Service References: 

• Ramona

• UNCCD: GLO rangelands 

The value of Earth Observation (EO) for ecosystem service assessments and natural capital accounting is increasingly recognized. EO provides objective and repeated data collection over the same area making it possible to follow both seasonality and landscape change over time. This allows for improved land use planning, spatial analyses and natural resource management addressing also global climate change.  

San Martin in Peru is the country’s largest rice producer and thus, has to focus on a sustainable water resource management.  

Earth observation based monitoring of the extent and change of rice areas supported the local water resources management, food security and the calculation of gas emission estimates.  

Product Examples:  

• Satellite-based Mapping and monitoring of ecosystem services  

• Land cover mapping and monitoring 

• Vegetation mapping and monitoring  

GeoVille Service References:

• Space4Ecosystems

• System of Environmental Economic Accounting | 

Wealth Accounting measures assets and capital goods that are inputs to our economic well-being. To support the construction of ecosystem accounts, World Bank Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) commissioned GeoVille with a detailed assessment of the land cover and land use in Southern Palawan, Philippines. There, changes from natural vegetation to commercial oil palm plantations have caused increased soil erosion, leading to the loss of ecosystem services and environmental problems in the related catchments. These effects will be more costly in the long-term than the income generated by the oil palm plantations.   

With the support of Earth observation imagery, GeoVille assessed the current environmental state and its changes by providing spatially and temporal quantitative and qualitative land cover and land use information for two time periods.   

Earth observation derived information can furthermore be related to the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) that contains the internationally agreed standard concepts, definitions, classifications, accounting rules and tables for producing internationally-comparable statistics on the environment and their relationship with the economy. 

“The project has provided critical support to the development of ecosystem accounts under the Philippines WAVES project. The EO based maps have filled information gaps needed to model key ecosystem services and validate and improve upon existing data.“ 
 
Stefanie Sieber, World Bank WAVES

Product Examples:  

• Ecosystem mapping and monitoring 

• Land cover mapping and monitoring 

• Land use mapping and monitoring  

GeoVille Service References: 

• Space4Ecosystems