Field interventions in territories affected by armed conflicts are particularly risky and difficult, even after the fighting stops. Earth observation satellites offer a secure and cost-efficient way to get an overall picture of the situation and assess the impact on population and assets, as well as on land use and land cover. During the recovery phase, they also enable the regular monitoring of reconstruction efforts. Over the course of the ESA funded EO4SD-FCS, CLS and the partners offered some 20 demonstrations of the support that EO-based services could provide to stakeholders. Among them, two services, one in Cameroon and one in Iraq enabled the World Bank to evaluate the impact of armed conflicts and/or monitor infrastructure (re)construction efforts.

Since 2017, the English-speaking part of Cameroon has been experiencing an unprecedented crisis, a conflict between separatists and government armed forces with dramatic consequences for the population. A World Bank team therefore approached the EO4SD FCS consortium in 2020 for support in assessing the impact of the conflict. As a result, physical damages to buildings were analysed in fifteen localities via very high resolution satellite images. While many of the targeted municipalities exhibited signs of damages to buildings, all areas also showed an unexpected number of new constructions and buildings. The results were included in a study report published in January 2021, entitled “The Socio-Political Crisis in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon: Assessing the Economic and Social Impacts and Implications for the World Bank Group”. Following this service demonstration, another team of the World Bank requested CLS to provide similar satellite imaging analysis in support of the initiative called “Recovery and Peacebuilding Assessment for the North of Mozambique”, that proved the service relevance and uptake by this key stakeholder.

Another successful use case was related to the armed conflict from 2013 to December 2017 between the Iraqi government and its allies and the terrorist organisation well known as the Islamic State. This time, in addition to mapping the land use before and after the war and specifying the level of damage caused, the World Bank team asked the EO4SD FCS consortium for support in monitoring the reconstruction process as part of the Emergency Operation for Development. The consortium was requested to focus on three districts of Mosul which suffered extensive damages, including the old city. Reconstruction efforts were monitored from 2017 to 2020, using very high resolution satellite images. Moreover, the team carried out a yearly analysis, updating the original damage assessment mapping from the United Nations Satellite Centre - UNOSAT (2017). The status of each individual building identified as damaged by the conflict was re-examined every year, and all new constructions were inventoried. Cleared and rubble-free areas were also detected for potential future developments. The results highlight the massive ongoing efforts to rebuild Mosul at different levels. In 2020, out of almost 17,000 buildings inventoried, only 7,000 showed no signs of evolution, 2,000 were cleared or dismantled, and 7,900 were repaired or new.

These service demonstrations led by CLS were implemented with the support of UNOSAT and the Romanian company GISBOX. They are concrete examples of the relevance of EO services and geoinformation for the missions of the International Financing Institutions (IFIs) and their client states, as well as success stories proving that the goal of long-term uptake is on the way. User feedback analysis clearly showed that promotion and learning efforts should be maintained to make them able to easily trigger such services as any others. In addition, expectations are high in terms of reactivity and flexibility for service definition, scale and implementation, challenging service providers to leverage the variety of sensors and the most advanced image processing and analysis techniques.

The marine cluster within the ESA initiative Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD), one of the pre-cursers to the new ESA initiative ‘Space in support of Sustainable Development’, has recently concluded following a three-year period of delivery (2018 – 2021). Over this period EO4SD Marine has delivered a series of large-scale demonstrations of Earth Observation services and applications alongside capacity development in several active development regions across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
This talk, by members of the EO4SD Marine consortium, will focus on the experience and learning that has been gained during the execution of this project using the West African region as a case study. Here, the EO4SD team have been working in partnership with a range of organisations across 11 countries, with regional efforts co-ordinated by the Centre de Suive Ecologique (CSE). The talk will highlight some of the factors that contributed to successful uptake of services in this region and identify pathways to continue to expand these services and applications with the overall objective of mainstreaming the use of EO across the development sector. The services that have been developed and delivered in partnership with the regional counterparts covered a large range of products and built either on existing data and services (e.g. large scale land use data from LC-CCI or water quality data from OC-CCI), or based on new developments and processing. The latter was the case for shoreline changes, coastal habitat mapping, mapping of pollution from land, bathymetry and services on oil spills and ship detection. All these individual information layers were aggregated into a portal for ease of access. Uptake and usage by the stakeholders however required significant levels of interaction and training.
The talk will cover pathways for continuing the development of EO solutions tackling specific priority information needs, and identify the regional initiatives, partners and ongoing projects that provide conduits for realising this ambition. The talk will conclude with perspectives of the EO4SD team and regional EO4SD collaborators of the implementation activities needed to maximise the contribution of EO towards sustainable use of marine and coastal resources, and of the potential for EO to maximise regional socio-economic benefits for the coastal communities and stakeholders of the internationally important marine and coastal resources of West Africa.

The ESA Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD) Programme has the overall objectives to advance the current status of the EO based information services in the International Finance Institutes (IFIs) and Client States (CS) as a standard management tool. In this context the IFIs who fund forest management programmes in developing countries have a strong role in facilitating the mainstreaming of the technology in their work practices. The thematic cluster of the Earth Observation for Sustainable Development-Forest Management (EO4SD FM) which was initiated September 2020 and led by GAF AG with a Consortium of European Partners has the overall goals of 1) Demonstrating the value of mainstreaming Earth Observation (EO) based forest products and services in IFI programmes for improved forest management in Client States (CS); 2) Assisting IFIs and CS with better understanding of the EO technology, its costs and sustainability which will support the integration of the technology into IFI-funded initiatives and decision making in CS.

The EO4SD FM in consultation with World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, prepared a forest product portfolio which can support the main IFIs and CS forest themes of: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), Sustainable Forest Management, Coastal Ecosystems and Mangrove, Forest Landscape Restoration/Forest Restoration, Protected Areas and Community Based Forest Management/Monitoring. Strong stakeholder engagement with the IFIs and the different geographic regions resulted in collaboration with the following countries: Indonesia, Mozambique, Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Paraguay and a trans-boundary Programme in S. America which includes Columbia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. The different forest products prepared for the different Use Cases, include Forest Cover and Forest Area Change, Tree Cover Density, Land Use and Land Cover Change, Near Real Time Canopy Disturbance, Mangrove Area and Change as well the Global Biomass product from the ESA Climate Change initiative (CCI); these products have been finalised and are being disseminated to the counterparts. The user validation of these products, which will also address the stakeholder requirements for extended area mapping for Phase 2 of the project will be undertaken by end of 2021.

The overall goal of EO4SD FM is more than ever relevant to the international climate change policy process, as noted in the outcome of the recently convened United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)-Conference of Parties 26 (COP26) Glasgow Climate Pact. Also at the COP26, a new declaration by 100 world leaders committed to end and reverse deforestation by 2030 was signed, further highlighting the recognition on the important role forests play in reducing emissions. Key to addressing loss of forest area and habitats is information on the forest area loss, and monitoring systems that can support countries to track the changes, which underpins the product portfolio of EO4SD FM.

Climate change is the greatest environmental challenge in recorded history. It has wide-ranging impacts across socio-economic sectors and eco-biological systems, with the most severe consequences being faced by poor, vulnerable and neglected communities. Making climate-resilient decisions requires good quality data, often lacking in many developing regions of the world. Satellite Earth observations (EO) provide large quantities of timely and accurate environmental information, which, when combined with socioeconomic data, can give unique information for managing climate risks and incorporating adaptation solutions into climate policies to improve the resilience of livelihoods and production systems.

The Climate Resilience cluster of the Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD) initiative, promoted by the European Space Agency (ESA), aimed to provide insight into EO’s potential to support climate-resilient decision making at the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and their client states. Over the project lifetime (2018-2021), the cluster collaborated with World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) to develop EO-based integrated climate screening and risk management services, to help manage climate-related risks and capitalise on the opportunities that climate resilience creates. The provision of climate services was supported with activities of capacity building and transfer knowledge to IFI staff and key agencies in the client states.

One example of the cluster’s work is in Monrovia, Liberia. In collaboration with World Bank’s development activities in the region, which aim to identify policies that can help Monrovia to be better prepared to absorb urban growth in a context of extreme poverty/informality, fragility and increasing risks from climate change. Monrovia is at extremely high risk of coastal flooding, which has already displaced poor communities living along the coastline and will only worsen with climate change. The cluster developed coastal flood and erosion risk maps derived from satellite EOs and socio-economic data (population density and critical infrastructures) to facilitate the integration of climate resilience into investments under the Monrovia projects. The analysed coastal hazards considered the shoreline changes since the 1980’s, the sea-level rise and the land subsidence rate faced by the region.

Apart from project-specific interventions, the cluster also collaborated with some IFIs’ corporate climate risk assessment tools. Some of the most well-known and established climate change data platforms were further enhanced by integrating EOs data. Through an ongoing collaboration between several IFIs and the cluster, Earth Observation products were integrated into platforms, including the World Bank’s Climate Change Knowledge Portal (CCKP). The CCKP aims to improve the integration of scientific data into decision making processes. The portal hosts historical data and climate projections and includes sectoral indicators. The cluster developed and integrated EO-derived climate indicators to be served to the platform seamlessly when demanded by users. This enabled the CCKP to include historic climate data based on satellite observations that were not previously available to its users including, for example, sea level anomaly data and sea surface temperatures released by the respective ESA Climate Change Initiatives.

Earth observations (EO) and its associated technologies currently play an important role in contributing to the generation of relevant information to support informed decision‐making regarding risk and vulnerability reduction and to address the underlying factors of disaster risk (UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, 2015, Sendai, Japan). Moreover, it is a technology being increasingly demanded and used within International Financing Institution´s (IFI’s) operations. However, after conducting missions in more than 25 countries in Asia, the Pacific region, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the United Nation´s platform facilitating the use of space-based technologies for disaster management and emergency response (UN-SPIDER) found that the use of Earth observations and Space‐based technologies in DRR is still weak as compared to its potential.
ESA´s funded EO4SD Disaster Risk Reduction project aims at promoting the integration of EO-based methodologies into the general working processes of IFIs funded projects that are focused on mitigating the adverse impacts of natural hazards in developing countries. The main objective of the project is to carry out convincing demonstrations on the benefit and utility of EO-based information to advance the status of the adoption, transfer and mainstreaming of these services as a standard management support tool within IFIs and their Client States.
During the period 2019-2021, EO4SD-DRR had run 11 demonstration exercises providing 41 EO-based services in support of several IFI projects and programmes. The IFIs supported were World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and the Development Bank of Latin America. This work raised significant interest to take the collaboration further with more strategic activities in several key thematic domains of disaster risk reduction (City resilience, reconstruction, small islands resilience, geospatial tools, DRR for infrastructures and DRR in agriculture). Several mature EO-based products and services for DRR have been identified as ready to be integrated into IFIs working practices. More than 50% of the services proved to successfully address declared user needs in the domain of Geohazards (terrain deformation analyses, landslide susceptibilities, building instabilities and damage and reconstruction assessments between others) , 20% in the domain of Hydrometeorological hazards and 20% looked at assets exposed and reference information about pre-disaster conditions.
In eDrift (Earth observation for Disaster Risk Financing – edrift.cimafoundation.org), a parallel ESA funded project, the potential of satellite information to support Disaster Risk Financing (DRF) specific services was demonstrated and put in operation in the context of the Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF – seadrif.org).
In order to achieve a successful mainstreaming, a series of key factors must be considered. Users have mostly been interested in information that can be actionable for decision-making, providing a holistic vision of risk. Moreover, entry-level products that the user can directly utilise to generate their own data and analyses have already been provided in a commercial environment as a direct outcome of the project. The service delivery infrastructure is considered essential to support both the service generation and the service delivery. Moreover, further capacity building activities have often been requested by users and stakeholders. Finally, from the original portfolio, the cluster has also identified several constraints that must be tackled to ensure a correct fit of the technology with the existing user needs.
Building on EO4SD-DRR experiences, ESA´s long-term objective remains to mainstream and operationalise the use of EO-based information for international development projects and activities in partnership with IFIs with the goal of transferring into sustainable financing mechanisms. To achieve this objective, ESA, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have partnered on a new initiative called ‘Space in support of International Development Assistance (SpaceforIDA)’ and have set up a new programme, Global Development Assistance (GDA).
In the Disaster Resilience domain, ESA´s GDA programme focuses on hazard, exposure, vulnerability and risk mapping knowledge development through the generation of new pre-operational technical products and services (EO Information Developments) in direct response to user requirements in developing countries. Developments are planned to enhance Earth observation products concerning both hazards and related risks from a very strict demand driven approach, understanding that the project will only be able to reach its mainstreaming objectives, if focused on satisfying declared key user demands.
The EO Information Developments are based on EO4SD-DRR conclusions on the areas that caught most attention within users and stakeholders. Therefore, the project will address hazards such as floods in urban context, landslides and subsidence in urban regions, surface motion, land use/land cover maps and geo-hazard risks in coastal regions, either individually or in multi-hazard assessments. The developed services will be serving different purposes and will support programs active in the Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and DRF domains. In doing so, the project will try and reach a good balance between specific bespoke services and the generation of entry-level platform-based products that can be produced swiftly, even without intervention of the service provider and applied on different scenarios.
This communication aims at highlighting the observed impact and benefit of EO-based products and services in the context of development assistance based on successful use cases demonstrated within the course of EO4SD-DRR and eDrift activities. Moreover, an introduction to future activities to be carried out under the new ESA´s GDA Disaster Resilience will be provided.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the European Space Agency (ESA) are supporting the Government of Indonesia to progress its 2020–2024 mid-term development plan (RPJMN) by bringing access to state-of-the-art Earth Observation Services (EOS). This effort is in collaboration with the Indonesian Remote Sensing Application Research Centre (IRSARC) of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).

Thanks to the free and open data policy of Copernicus Sentinel missions, multiple downstream processing services are currently employing earth observations from the Sentinels due to their importance in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) applications. Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions provide big Earth Observation (EO) data volumes to be exploited for mapping land subsidence or flooding globally from space, supporting localized monitoring stability of buildings and critical infrastructures, detecting land cover changes, and monitoring water quality.

In the last few years, ESA has supported the development of the Geohazard TEP (GEP) under the Thematic Exploitation Platforms initiative and has promoted the usage of GEP, Rheticus and the e-DRIFT/WASDI platforms in multiple projects with the ADB and the World Bank.

This collaboration with international financing institutions (IFIs) helps to demonstrate how Earth Observation (EO) can be of benefit for global development assistance. The Space for International Development is an example of a joint effort between ESA, the World Bank, and the ADB. ESA's leadership in knowledge development through state-of-the-art EO services and the capacity building and skills transfer supported by ADB help to address water challenges in Asia and in the Pacific.

The project, ‘Support to Water and Food Security Planning and Investments in Indonesia through Earth Observation Services’ is led by an Italian SME company, Terradue, together with another Italian SME company, Planetek Italia, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), CIMA Research Foundation and the National Oceanography Center (NOC) as partners in collaboration with IRSARC.

The main objective of this project is to provide thematic analysis for decision-making and planning of the RPJMN major projects in flood risk management, reconstruction monitoring in Central Sulawesi, agriculture, and aquaculture development. Also, this project aims to transfer knowledge and build capacity in using the EOS platforms and exchange knowledge with IRSARC and key Indonesian agencies involved in water and food security. IRSARC is the focal agency for providing remote sensing application-based information and developing satellite technology innovations in Indonesia.

This project covers the following thematic areas: subsidence, stability of buildings and infrastructures, flooding, crop and water use, and inland and marine aquaculture.

Concerning the mapping of subsidence, ground deformation time series and mean velocity maps have been obtained over five urban areas in the North of Java Island by processing the Sentinel-1 data using the Parallel Small BAseline Subset (P-SBAS) and the Surface motioN mAPPING (SNAPPING) services available in the GEP. Over the same urban areas, a ground motion and buildings stability analysis have been performed using the Sentinel-1 images collected from 2015 to 2021 using the Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) technique and advanced geo-processing algorithms implemented within the Rheticus geospatial cloud platform, providing a level of inspection priority for each building located within the five monitored cities.

Using the e-DRIFT/WASDI platform, the full flood extent archive over Java has been computed using all the Sentinel-1 images available in the area from 2015. On top of this archive, a flood frequency map and the delineation of permanent waters have also been derived. For agriculture, several products for the detection of changes in vegetation and crops have been obtained, including land cover and land use maps, geo-analytics, and biomass health indicators over time. Finally, shoreline change rate along sandy beaches (2000-2021), marine and inland water quality trends (Chl, SST, turbidity, algae bloom) provided insights for planning aquaculture investment.

In November 2021, IRSARC hosted a 5-day event on “Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building of Earth Observations Services for Water and Food Security Planning in Indonesia” during which obtained products were presented in collaboration with the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan (RESTEC). Around 350 participants from line ministries and universities attended the event.

The sharing of knowledge, experience, and the results obtained in Central Sulawesi by the AIT’s team, under the project on Emergency Assistance for Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (EARR) with the support of the ADB, have been proven useful to further enrich the discussion held in the event about the detection of building stability using Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI).