Welcome to the seventh edition (April 2024) of the newsletter from the PROTECT project that provides an update on the developments in the market regarding climate services based on Earth Observation (EO). The focus is on five application domains, namely: Energy & Utilities, Sustainable Urban Communities, Agriculture, Forestry and other Land Uses, Marine and Coastal Environments and Civil Security and Protection.

2.Market Updates

The following section provides updates on the current developments, news and evolution of the Earth observation market, particularly with regard to the evolution of climate services relevant for the public authorities in Europe.

Energy & Utilities

• Satlantis received a contract from its parent company Encino Environmental Services to provide exclusive satellite-based methane monitoring data from its constellation.
• Planet announced a $20M agreement to provide hyperspectral data for Carbon Mapper’s greenhouse gas monitoring campaign, from 2026 to 2030.

Sustainable Urban Communities

• Open Cosmos won a €3.4M contract from the Spanish state of Catalonia for launching a small satellite with EO and IoT payloads focused on urban monitoring and disaster management applications.

Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use

• German EO services firm GAF was awarded a multi-year contract by the Bavarian state in Germany for monitoring agricultural areas in the region.
• The latest analysis from Global Forest Watch, which predominantly uses data from the Landsat missions, showed that the global tree cover loss continues despite dramatic progress made in Brazil and Colombia.
• Ecosia, a tree-planting search engine, has teamed up with French startup Kanop to monitor its reforestation efforts from space.

Marine and Coastal Environments

• EOMAP, a German EO services firm specialising in marine monitoring has launched a new solution for monitoring water quality with satellite data;
• ESA selected two applications focused on marine pollution to be integrated into Φsat-2 for demonstrating onboard processing capabilities.

Civil Security and Protection

• Kongsberg was awarded a contract by the Norwegian government to build and launch satellites for acquiring satellite maritime surveillance data.
• The World Meteorological Organization launched the latest edition of the European State of Climate report, which shows the impact of climate change on the continent.
• SAR data and solutions provider Iceye has raised $93M in a new funding round to use the funds to expand its business and develop new products and services, bringing the total amount raised to $438M.

3.Summary

The European State of Climate report published this month provides a grim view, as it showed 2023 to be the joint warmest or second warmest year on record with temperatures in Europe above average for 11 months of the year. As such, governments from countries such as Spain, Italy, Greece and Poland are launching their national EO satellite constellations for disaster management, urban planning and other environmental monitoring applications. The private sector is also stepping up its efforts with the announcements of new products and services across emission monitoring, water quality monitoring, carbon monitoring, deforestation monitoring among several others. The public and private sectors would need to collaborate further to build and deploy climate services leveraging EO for mitigation and adaptation.

Welcome to the sixth edition (March 2024) of the newsletter from the PROTECT project that provides an update on the developments in the market regarding climate services based on Earth Observation (EO). The focus is on five application domains, namely: Energy & Utilities, Sustainable Urban Communities, Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use, Marine and Coastal Environments and Civil Security and Protection.

2.Market Updates

The following section provides updates on the current developments, news and evolution of the Earth observation market, particularly with regard to the evolution of climate services relevant for the public authorities in Europe.

Energy & Utilities

• Orbio Earth, a Dutch startup building a satellite-based methane monitoring solution for energy firms has raised $4M in seed funding;
• EO-based infrastructure monitoring firm Asterra was awarded a multi-year contract with AEGEA, a sanitation company in Brazil to monitor water leaks.
• French EO analytics firm Kayrros, which specialises in GHG monitoring, is partnering with French bank BNP Paribas to reduce methane emissions;

Sustainable Urban Communities

• A recent report from the European Environment Agency has found that the continent is unprepared for rapidly growing climate risks;

Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use

• Planet announced a new data product as part of its Planetary Variables suite called Field Boundaries to detect boundaries of agricultural parcels;

Marine and Coastal Environments

• French EO startup Unseenlabs, which is launching a satellite constellation for maritime surveillance has raised $92M in a Series C round;
• Research led by Global Forest Watch, leveraging EO, showed that around three-fourths of all industrial fishing vessels are not publicly tracked, and likewise almost a third of all transport and energy vessels.

Civil Security and Protection

• Nvidia announces Earth-2 digital twin to forecast planet’s climate change
• Google launched a new flood forecasting tool that would enhance forecasts from zero to five days, specifically improving forecasts across regions in Africa and Asia.

3.Summary

March saw the World Meteorological Organization release the State of Climate report for 2023 in which it provided insights on the greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat, sea level rise and more. Initiatives from the public and private sectors continue to focus on providing tools that leverage EO for climate adaptation as seen from the Nvidia and Google announcements. In the meantime, greenhouse gas emission monitoring remains a key use case of EO, especially as the pressure increases on the energy sector to reduce emissions and transition towards renewable energy. Clearly, EO has an important role to play in the monitoring of this change as well as for other industries such as agriculture and maritime to decarbonise, leading towards climate mitigation strategies.

Welcome to the fifth edition (February 2024) of the newsletter from the PROTECT project that provides an update on the developments in the market regarding climate services based on Earth Observation (EO). The focus is on five application domains, namely: Energy & Utilities, Sustainable Urban Communities, Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use, Marine and Coastal Environments and Civil Security and Protection.

2.Market Updates

The following section provides updates on the current developments, news and evolution of the Earth observation market, particularly with regard to the evolution of climate services relevant for the public authorities in Europe.

Energy & Utilities

• Mobile GIS Services a UK-based provider of geospatial software for utility companies, raised £600K in funding;
• Google is partnering with MethaneSAT to provide AI, cloud and mapping services to monitor methane emissions from around the world;
• ESA has selected a Dutch satellite system to monitor greenhouse gas emissions at source level from power plants, coal mines, landfills and factories;

Sustainable Urban Communities

• The average global temperature has for the first time breached the critical benchmark of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels over 12 months, according to data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S);
• The C3S has launched Climate Pulse, a new interactive application that gives a concise and precise picture of the near-real time status of our climate;

Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use

• DLR conducted a survey of German forests and found that the horizontal and vertical structure has changed in recent years;

Marine and Coastal Environments

• Spire was awarded contracts worth multi-million euros by the European Maritime Safety Agency to provide automatic identification system data for vessel traffic monitoring;
• Satellites are becoming increasingly important in providing unique information on ocean health to guide climate mitigation and adaptation efforts.

Civil Security and Protection

• Greece announced plans to invest EUR 60M to develop its national constellation to provide optical, multispectral, and hyperspectral data;
  Swiss startup Jua, which aims to build a foundational model for the natural world, using EO data among other sources, has raised $16M in seed funding.

3.Summary

February saw an increased focus on the announcement of new initiatives to monitor climate change from space and contribute to the efforts of climate adaptation. The Greek government decided to invest in launching its own national constellation to monitor and prepare for the impact of climate change such as wildfires, droughts and urban planning, while the Dutch proposal to build a satellite constellation to track emissions from energy infrastructure and utilities got approval from the ESA. On the private sector front, companies such as Jua and Mobile GIS got funding to build EO-based solutions for monitoring critical infrastructure and preparing for extreme weather events. The interest in using EO technologies by both public and private sector continues to increase as global warming reaches new extremes.

Market Updates

The following section provides updates on the current developments, news and evolution of the Earth observation market, particularly with regard to the evolution of climate services relevant for the public authorities in Europe. 

Energy & Utilities

• AiDash has raised $50 million to build satellite data enabled monitoring solutions to protect critical infrastructure globally from climate-related threats such as wildfires, floods, hurricanes and other extreme weather events; 
• Spanish startup Sateliot, which is planning to launch a constellation of satellites for providing connectivity in remote areas to serve the mining sector, has raised €6 million and is looking to raise more funds to scale up; 
• The European Union will place methane emissions limits on Europe’s oil and gas imports from 2030, which will be tracked by using satellite data.  

Sustainable Urban Communities

• The Copernicus Climate Change Service, part of the EU’s Copernicus programme, announced that December 2023 was the warmest December on record globally, making 2023 the warmest year since records began.  

Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use

• UP42, a geospatial developer platform, and OroraTech, the leader in space-based thermal intelligence, have signed a partnership agreement to grant easy and fast access to global data to monitor wildfires; 
• Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative and the Bezos Earth Fund are joining forces to continue to provide access to high-resolution satellite imagery of the tropics, with data from satellite companies including Planet, Airbus and KSAT; 
• Fairtrade International, a non-profit focused on sustainable agriculture is teaming up with Dutch startup Satelligence, for EO-based monitoring of farms of all certified cocoa- and coffee-producing organisations globally. 

Marine and Coastal Environments

• Google’s DeepMind released an AI-based model that can deliver faster and more accurate weather land-based and ocean-based forecasts than the gold-standard weather model from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). 

Civil Security and Protection

• Japan has launched a new satellite focused on improving disaster preparedness in the country, but also around the world. 

Summary

While January is usually a quieter month, this one saw several updates regarding the increasing importance and the use of EO for climate-related events. Governments remain the largest stakeholder and enabler in the development of EO solutions for climate monitoring, through launching new satellites and setting up policies to track environmental changes. However, the role of the private sector continues to expand especially as commercial EO companies continue to launch more satellites and build EO-enabled products to monitor climate change and support organisations with protecting their assets. The market continues to evolve as more public-private partnerships are formed to develop climate services that take advantage of the capabilities of both sectors, providing end-users with the best digital solutions for climate. 

Events

We would like to invite all our partners and interested authorities and suppliers to the special PROTECT Final Event, in collaboration with EARSC EXPANDEO in Brussels on 11 June 2024. Click the image for all information:

Welcome to the third edition (December 2023) of the newsletter from the PROTECT project that provides an update on the developments in the market regarding climate services based on Earth Observation (EO). The focus is on five application domains, namely: Energy & Utilities, Sustainable Urban Communities, Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use, Marine and Coastal Environments and Civil Security and Protection.

2.Market Updates

The following section provides updates on the current developments, news and evolution of the Earth observation market, particularly with regard to the evolution of climate services relevant for the public authorities in Europe.

Energy & Utilities

• French environmental and energy analytics firm Kayrros launched a free version of its global methane tracker, leveraging data from the Sentinel-5P satellite and a sensor on the International Space Station, aimed at tracking emissions from the energy sector;
• German startup LiveEO, which provides EO-based infrastructure and deforestation monitoring solutions raised $10M, and plans to expand into the regulatory compliance market;

Sustainable Urban Communities

• VIDA, a German EO analytics startup raised €3M to provide physical climate risk information for infrastructure-related investments within urban environments;
• Portuguese EO firm GEOSAT has announced that it will be launching 11 high and very high- resolution satellites in 2025, focused on several applications, including urban planning and development as well as high-resolution mapping services for governments;

Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use

• Insights derived from satellite data are being used by winemakers trying to harvest at the right time, helping farmers adapt to global warming;
• Wildfire monitoring startup OroraTech won a contract from the Forestry Corporation of New South Wales, to improve wildfire management in Australia;
• Estonian startup KappaZeta, which builds agriculture and forestry solutions in Europe based on synthetic aperture data has raised €480K;

Marine and Coastal Environments

• Advancements in artificial intelligence and its applications for the EO sector has been demonstrated with one algorithm able to swiftly and accurately chart the expanse of large Antarctic icebergs in satellite images, faster than manual monitoring;

Civil Security and Protection

• European meteorological agency EUMETSAT released preliminary data from the MTG-I1 weather satellite, showing combined data from the imagers;
• Smallsat manufacturer Open Cosmos raised $50M in a Series B round to focus on building Earth observation satellites used for a range of Earth observation applications, from agriculture to disaster management.

3.Summary

December, being the month of COP28, the annual climate conference, saw several new developments and information with respect to the use of satellites for businesses and governments, such as for tracking greenhouse gas emissions and monitoring climate change. The EO sector also demonstrated its importance for climate change, as seen from Kayrros launch of global methane tracker and the release of data from the weather satellite launched by EUMETSAT. Venture capital funding for EO solutions that have implications for the growth of the climate services market continued in December, with investments across almost all domains relevant for PROTECT. Finally, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for the EO sector and its relevance for tracking climate change got more validation with the demonstration of the algorithm reported by ESA, which not only has implications for the marine and coastal environmental domain, but also for every other domain due to the cross-functional nature of AI.

Market Updates

The following section provides updates on the current developments, news and evolution of the Earth observation market, particularly with regard to the evolution of climate services relevant for the public authorities in Europe.

Energy & Utilities

• Austrian geospatial company Blackshark.ai which is creating the first 3D digital twin of the entire Earth used for energy, utilities and infrastructure monitoring applications raised $15 million in Series A extension;

Sustainable Urban Communities

• Luxembourg-based weather startup Databourg, which uses satellite signals from tens of thousands of existing satellite terminals to monitor real-time weather for urban protection and disaster management, has raised a seed round of $1M;

Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use

• Finnish EO startup Kuva Space, which plans to launch a constellation of hyperspectral satellites, used to provide accurate global yield forecasts and crop health analysis raised €16.6M in Series A funding;
• New data on global sea levels was published, thanks to data collected from the SWOT mission, jointly launched by the French Space Agency (CNES) and NASA, which is focused on monitoring almost all of Earth’s water resources;
• Planet announced the launch of its Forest Carbon Diligence product – a global, 30-meter historical time series of forest carbon, as well as tree height and cover, expected to be used in carbon accounting projects.

Marine and Coastal Environments

• The Copernicus Ocean State report which provides an overview of the state of the global oceans, was released by the Copernicus Marine Service leveraging data from data from Sentinel satellites;
  The European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) handed out €2.85M, as part of CASSINI prizes to three teams from Germany, Greece and France to detect, and remove plastics from oceans and waterways;

Civil Security and Protection

• ESA and the European Commission are joining forces to accelerate the use of Earth- observing satellites and the information they provide to address the pressing challenge of climate change, particularly encompassing the European Green Deal;
• German startup Marble Imaging and Polish firm Scanway Space are partnering to develop a satellite constellation with multispectral sensors to perform environmental monitoring, implementation of sustainability and climate adaptation regulations, ensuring food security, as
  well as security, stability, and humanitarian aid purposes.

Summary

The EO sector continues to grow with growing venture capital investments in both upstream and downstream segments, as demonstrated by examples in this edition – Austrian startup Blackshark.ai, Finnish startup Kuva Space and Luxembourgish startup Databourg. All of these  companies are building solutions that are critical to the climate services being developed by public authorities, not only due to the innovative technologies they are based on, but also due to the inherent focus they have on monitoring and responding to climate change. Furthermore, the growth of the ecosystem is also supplemented by support from public funding such as the prizes handed out by EUSPA for plastic detection in oceans, part of the CASSINI initiative. Resources such as the Copernicus Ocean State report, mentioned above, leverage analytics derived from satellites and are important inputs for public authorities to develop policy measures to protect the coastal and marine environments.

Market Updates

The following section provides updates on the current developments, news and evolution of the Earth observation market, particularly with regard to the evolution of climate services relevant for the public authorities in Europe.

Energy & Utilities

• Open Cosmos announced plans for the launch of the MANTIS satellite, which will include a multispectral instrument and an edge computing unit, aimed at addressing the challenges of accessibility and periodicity in the energy and mining sector;
• Overstory, which offers EO-based vegetation monitoring products for the utility sector, has closed a $14M Series A funding round;

Sustainable Urban Communities

• Earth Observation firm SatelliteVu has released the first images from its HotSat-1 satellite, showing heat variations through the thermal infrared sensor, which is useful for mapping urban heat islands on a global scale;

Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use

• Poland has signed an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) to launch its first constellation of satellites in 2027, which will be used to gather information to monitor and manage land use and agriculture within the country;
  CarbonFarm, a French startup, which offers an EO-based carbon measurement, reporting and verification platform for rice farming, raised a €2.5M seed round;

Marine and Coastal Environments

• Thales Alenia Space, with a consortium of European companies, won a contract from ESA to build a proof of concept of Digital Twin with capabilities for flood inundation forecasting, coastal impacts and prediction of disasters;

Civil Security and Protection

• OHB Digital Services, a subsidiary of the space group OHB, was awarded a contract worth €1.7M by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) to lead the “Copernicus Demonstrators – Mobility, Emergency and Infrastructures” project;
  Planet has expanded contracts with existing customers across four Canadian provincial governments, to support disaster response operations;
  ESA is partnering with European synthetic aperture radar firm Iceye to participate in the Civil Security from Space Programme aimed at improving disaster and crisis management using space technologies;

Summary

The rapidly growing EO market provides opportunities for public authorities to leverage the insights gathered from satellites for mitigating and adapting to climate change. New satellites launched by the private sector from companies such as Open Cosmos and SatelliteVu are critical for monitoring energy production, deforestation and land use monitoring, water resource management, biodiversity conservation and sustainable agriculture. Investments from the public sector such as the Polish satellite constellation in the upstream segment, the Copernicus Demonstrator for OHB by EUSPA and the Digital Twin for Thales Alenia Space by ESA are crucial for improving the local capabilities to respond to climate change. The rapidly growing startup ecosystem through private funding such as the ones reported in this edition – Overstory and CarbonFarm –  are crucial solutions for both businesses and governments to benefit from the applications of EO.