Maximizing Societal Benefit Across Multiple Hyperspectral Earth Observation Missions: A User Needs Approach

Abstract

Imaging spectroscopy is a powerful tool used to support diverse Earth science and applications objectives, ranging from understanding and mitigating widespread impacts of climate change to management of water at farm‐scale. Community studies, such as those deployed by NASA's Surface Biology and Geology and ESA's Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment, have offered new and tangible insights into user needs that are then incorporated into overall mission planning and design. These technologies and tools will be key to develop and consolidate downstream services for users and resource management, given the current pressures on the environment posed by climate change and population growth. This process has highlighted the degree to which planned mission capabilities are responsive to community needs. In this study, we analyze user requirements belonging to the Italian Copernicus User Forum and to the user pool of NASA's Surface Biology and Geology community for the synergic use of hyperspectral imaging technology, providing a reference for the development of earth observation services and the consolidation of existing ones. In addition, potential cross‐mission coordination is analyzed to highlight key benefits—(a) addressing shared community needs around products requiring more frequent temporal revisit and (b) shared resources and community expertise around algorithm development. This paper discusses the critical role of early engagement with users to establish a community of practice ready to work with high spatial resolution imaging spectroscopy data sets. The main outcome is a guide for the synergetic use of hyperspectral mission and data together with the identification of the main gaps between user needs and satellite capabilities influencing the development of key national and trans‐national downstream services.

Development of a Pre-Automatized Processing Chain for Agricultural Monitoring Using a Multi-Sensor and Multi-Temporal Approach

“…It can be applied to monitor crops in different seasons, providing a reliable tool for identifying agricultural practices such as crop rotation. The results can support the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Italian institutional users, which encourage the development of mapping and monitoring through semi-automatic algorithms for identifying crops and agricultural activities throughout the year [7]. The added value of this POC is related to the advantage of retrieving vegetation biomass and a vertical structure, supporting intra-annual crop-rotation mapping, which influences both the sustainability of agricultural practices and the payments related to the European CAP.…”

“…The European Commission (EC) requires each Member State to monitor the proper use of funds and is considering the use of satellite imagery and Earth Observation (EO) techniques to monitor the condition of crops [44]. Thus, using EO data for the requirements related to the emission of direct payments represents a consistent improvement in cost effectiveness [7].…”

“…However, official statistics on crop areas are often provided at the end of the season or later and are therefore not useful for supporting in-season crop management [6]. CAP regulations encourage the development of regular and systematic monitoring services [7].…”

“…The results of this work show that users request the development of consolidated agricultural EO products, the provisioning of seasonal and annual information on crop production, and in-season indicators of crop development and status. Furthermore, they express the need to monitor the degree of diversification of agri-environmental measures in the agricultural sector in order to support green direct payments [7]. Thus, an effective multi-temporal cropland mapping is fundamental for the correct management of natural resources and for the prevention of risks due to climatic conditions such as drought.…”

“…Thus, an effective multi-temporal cropland mapping is fundamental for the correct management of natural resources and for the prevention of risks due to climatic conditions such as drought. In fact, 14% and 12% of users indicated an interest in agricultural and water resources domains, respectively, and in the development of new EO products in these domains [7].…”