BirdWatch will support the restoration of spatial heterogeneity on farmland, a necessary component in the lasting recovery of our ecosystems. Farmland is a major source of our food and farmland biodiversity is vital for our subsistence, at least when it is in a healthy condition. BirdWatch will make this monitoring of farmland habitat suitability, a product of both rigorous species distribution modelling and EO data-based geospatial features of the individual farmland parcels, freely accessible to various stakeholders and the interested public. The bird species’ requirements regarding their habitat are the guiding factor of the habitat suitability assessment. With the knowledge on farmland bird habitat requirements and the capability to monitor farmland in terms of habitat suitability opens up the possibility to optimise the structural makeup of farmland and associated greening measures. Combined with the requirements of local stakeholders, including their budgetary and operational constraints, BirdWatch becomes a tool for the optimisation of greening measures both ins terms of farmland bird species requirements and stakeholder constraints. With more effective greening measures at optimised cost, farmers will be supported to increasingly reach ecological and economical sustainability. This will alleviate the burden of costs and economic pressure, thus incentivising landowners to take action towards the improvement of their lands. Additionally, economic instruments such as the CAP or the EAFRD which distribute financial aid to sustainable and organic farming activities will be provided with evidence-based support in monitoring compliance with national and EU biodiversity regulations and the definition of new, increasingly effective policies. With an evidence-based view on biodiversity and the effectiveness of greening measures, BirdWatch encourages the improvement in the communication and mutual understanding between scientists, farmers and administrative bodies.

DIONE proposes a close-to-market (TRL7) area-based direct payments monitoring toolbox that will address the forthcoming Modernised CAP regulation of using automated technologies to ensure more frequent, accurate and inexpensive compliance checks. In particular, DIONE will: (i) Capitalise on recent results of ESA’s SEN4CAP project that showcased the capability of Sentinel data to monitor the crop diversification rules. DIONE shall further integrate generated crop-type maps in a way directly exploitable by the paying agencies; (ii) Include in the analysis the so far neglected EFA types (fallow land of all sizes, buffer strips, hedges, trees), by making use of super-resolution technology that improves the 10-20m Sentinel resolution to an improved resolution range (5-10m). This is enabled through Machine-Learning (ML) based post-processing and data fusion of Copernicus DIAS-sourced data with targeted drone-obtained data. This aims to motivate the use of such EFAs over the –of ambiguous environmental impact- use of productive areas (nitrogen-fixing crops and catch crops). (iii) Complement the use of EO data with a system of reliable, ground-based geo-tagged photos, captured by the farmers that exploits (a) advances that allow for improved positional accuracy, (ii) low-footprint encryption techniques for improved data security and reliability and (iii) image detecting manipulation techniques (image forensics). The system will allow for an improved LC/LU annotation and ensure the process is untampered. (iv) Implement a Green Compliance toolbox, integrated with the paying agencies’ aforementioned tools. This will benefit from (a) low-cost spectral sensors measuring soil quality and assessing the status of land-degradation in the land parcels and (b) an ML-based inferencing system deployed on a larger scale (regional, national) to quantify the levels of some of the monitored parameters and consequently extract tangible environmental performance metrics for an entire region

The main objective of EO4AGRI is to catalyze the evolution of the European capacity for improving operational agriculture monitoring from local to global levels based on information derived from Copernicus satellite observation data and through exploitation of associated geospatial and socio-economic information services. EO4AGRI assists the implementation of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with special attention to the CAP2020 reform, to requirements of Paying Agencies, and for the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) processes. EO4AGRI works with farmers, farmer associations and agro-food industry on specifications of data-driven farming services with focus on increasing the utilization of EC investments into Copernicus Data and Information Services (DIAS). EO4AGRI addresses global food security challenges coordinated within the G20 Global Agricultural Monitoring initiative (GEOGLAM) capitalizing on Copernicus Open Data as input to the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEW-NET). EO4AGRI assesses information about land-use and agricultural service needs and offers to financial investors and insurances and the potential added value of fueling those services with Copernicus information. The EO4AGRI team consists of 11 organizations, complementary in their roles and expertise, covering a good part of the value-chain with a significant relevant networking capital as documented in numerous project affiliations and the formal support declarations collected for EO4AGRI. All partners show large records of activities either in Copernicus RTD, governmental functions, or downstream service operations. The Coordinator of EO4AGRI is a major industrial player with proven capacities to lead H2020 projects. The EO4AGRI project methodology is a combination of community building; service gap analysis; technology watch; strategic research agenda design and policy recommendations; dissemination (incl. organization of hackathons).

ENVISION aims to fulfil the need for continuous and systematic monitoring of agricultural land, shifting the focus from fragmented monitoring limited to specific fields and dates to territory-wide and all-year-round monitoring. It will make use of heterogeneous types of available data (EO-based, in situ, open data, and historical on-field check data) and state-of-the-art technologies and methodologies (automatic pixel/texture/object oriented change detection and classification methods, machine learning, data fusion, multi-source and multi-temporal data management) for providing a fully-automated and scalable toolbox of services, built in close interaction with its future customers. ENVISION will fully exploit the wealth of data made available through GEOSS and Copernicus and its synergetic use with other data to develop data products such as: Cultivated crop type maps; Soil Organic Carbon; Vegetation status; Crop growth (distinction of organic – conventional farming); Grassland mowing/ploughing; Soil erosion. The ENVISION toolbox will be comprised of: a monitoring service of sustainable agricultural practices, tools that PAs & CBs can provide to farmers for adhering to environmentally friendly agricultural practices, an Add-on Development Tool. The project will be tested and validated in a pre-operational environment by potential future customers of its products and services. ENVISION will have three categories of business cases (Monitoring of: multiple environmental and climate requirements of CAP, soil condition, organic farming requirements) and will also be tested by a group of Lighthouse Customers. A market analysis, business model experimentation techniques and appropriate decision-making tools will determine the commercially viable business models for the services and products of ENVISION, and define alternative business models, understand their implications and identify those that will create the greatest value.

Public administrations responsible for the implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) need to monitor farmers’ compliance to standards. Monitoring is performed by in-field visits and through remote sensing. Due to the high complexity and diversity of the obligations that need to be monitored, both methods have limitations, and entail a high cost for public administrations. RECAP proposes a methodology for improving the efficiency and transparency of the compliance monitoring procedure through a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) platform which will make use of large volumes of publicly available data provided by satellite remote sensing, and user-generated data provided by farmers through mobile devices (geo-referenced and time-stamped photos). The RECAP platform will extract useful features from Earth Observation open data, correlate them with user-generated and geo-information data available to public organisations, and model this information for enabling the identification of potential breaches of compliance by public authorities and inspectors. RECAP will offer farmers a tool supporting them to comply with regulations imposed by the CAP, providing personalised information for simplifying the interpretation of complex regulations, and early alerts on potential breaches. RECAP will allow agricultural consultants and developers to create add-ons to the main application that extend its functionality and exploit the data collected through an Application Programming Interface (API), and a Software Development Kit (SDK). Consultants will be able to access data available in the platform, subject to security and privacy policies, and to develop their own services within the platform using design tools, libraries, and communication with the database under an open approach. The RECAP services will be tested and validated in an operational environment in 5 countries with the participation of public authorities, farmers, and agricultural consultants.