EYE-LAND PROJECT

The monitoring of rural areas is a necessity to ensure the success of national and European strategies for the protection of consumer health and the environment. The project responds to the growing need of the EU and local administrations for a detailed knowledge of the territory and will become a model for data acquisition in the rural context. It integrates widespread technologies (GPS sensors, high quality and high resolution cameras) and widespread expertise (agronomists, agro-forestry operators) to produce detailed territorial data on a large scale. It also helps to raise awareness and sensitivity towards the environment and the territory by involving different actors in the development and implementation of this system. Due to the lack of field observations needed to calibrate and validate the information, remote sensing programmes cannot be fully exploited.

The aim of the project is to create a platform based on “crowd sensing”, which, through a network of voluntary “contributors” (producers, agronomists, etc.), collects the field observations that are essential to exploit the potential of remote sensing images, both from the consolidated multispectral platforms and from the more recent hyperspectral sensors. This research project aims to design a geodatabase that combines ground truth and in situ data to bridge the gap between the demand for geospatial information and its availability. Through innovative paradigms – such as mobile crowd sensing – and citizen science involving farmers, technicians and even trained citizens, different types of data on land cover, agricultural practices, rural structures and infrastructure, different landscape features and environmental conditions will be collected.

• Increasing the potential of remote sensing. The limited availability of GTs limits the large-scale use of imagery for classification and the production of detailed land use and land cover (LULC) maps; moreover, new hyperspectral systems have both quantitative and diagnostic potential, but require a huge amount of GTs.

• Remote sensing information integration. Small-scale elements of the rural landscape, such as hedgerows, streams, rows of trees, country lanes, terraces, buildings and infrastructure, are important indicators of landscape and environmental quality and of the availability of ecosystem services. They are of great importance for the management and planning of rural areas. However, because they require horizontal (close-up) imagery, they are not detectable by medium-scale remote sensing imagery.

• Optimization of resource use: Farm assessment systems are not detailed enough to allow traceability of farming practices; improving the quality of farm information will allow the introduction of innovative practices and easier access to technology for smaller farms.