“How can Earth Observation capabilities be actively used to prevent de-forestation?”
The decline in Biodiversity is one of the major challenge society is facing and will be in increasing form I the decades to come. Space capabilities, in particular Earth Observation and Meteorological satellites, have and will have an important role in understanding the growing crisis. But only better understanding the crisis (while still important) will not solve the problem. The question is; how can Earth Observation actively contribute to preventing the loss of biodiversity?
This question cannot be tackled by addressing the technical capabilities and limitations alone. It requires an holistic assessment from engineering, legal, business and climate science perspectives; being able to detect something from space (or with drones or other means) does not provide a means to regulate and enforce, for this requires regulations and the recognition of Earth Observation data as sufficient evidence for monitoring status.
With the EU regulations in place a firs step is taken with companies having to prove that their supply chain are deforestation free. The next question is; can Earth Observation data provide an economical viable service to industry to provide validated proof of their value chains?
In preparation for, and with follow after the Amsterdam Space Symposium, S[&]T and CGI are looking for students to work on this challenge with their graduation thesis project as part of the LDE Space for Biodiversity thesis team.
You will work on your individual thesis with a supervisor from your department in a small team with fellow students from different disciplines tackling the aspects from your discipline as part of this overall challenge.
We are looking for students who are interested to work on the following questions:
- Legal frame work:
- What are the key regulatory requirements needed to enable Earth Observation as proof of compliance for deforestation free supply chain?
- What insights and data would the Earth Observation need to contain to be of sufficient evidence?
- Business perspective:
- What are the commercial incentives for industry to use EO solutions as a service to comply with the EU regulation?
- What alternatives are there for companies to obtain the proof?
- Under what circumstances (regulation, price, ease of service?) would EO data as a paid service be commercially interesting for companies?
- Climate Sciences
- What data and insights will provide the necessary insights to assessment de-forestation and biodiversity loss?
- Technical capabilities:
- Do the current EO data provide enough and sufficient data to provide the require service?
- Are different spectral, spatial and temporal resolution required?
- What would be needed as a system to provide the required service?
By joining the Thesislab you join a programme with (bi-)weekly team sessions, sector expert lectures, company visits, and discussion sessions with the various stakeholders working on this challenge.
Highlight will be the active involvement in the preparation, execution and follow up of the space for biodiversity workshops at the Amsterdam Space Symposium in March together the sector. You will be involved in preparing contributions from your study for the discussions at the workshop with experts from around the world and be able to use the discussion results in your work after the symposium for your individual thesis project and for your shared roadmap and advice thesislab result you’ll present to Dutch space sector stakeholders at the end of June.
If you are interested to join this lab. You can send us your motivation and proposal for a thesis project (ideally already with a foreseen supervisor) addressing one or multiple of the questions above.
Meulman, Jeroen jeroen.meulman@cgi.com, Edo Loenen edo.loenen@stcorp.nl
Note that you'll also need to find a supervisor from your study department
The first sessions with the team will start in December (note that your thesis project can start a bit later but should ideally start no later than February in order to contribute to the Amsterdam Space Symposium preperations.