The European Space Agency
esa-logo
esa-logo
Navigation

Projects 

The Projects section highlights activities supported under ESA’s Sentinel User Preparation (SUP) initiative, with a focus on building the knowledge, skills, and methodologies needed to fully exploit data from upcoming Copernicus Sentinel Expansion and Next Generation missions. These projects serve as a testing ground for new approaches, enabling users to explore, refine, and validate techniques for working with next-generation Earth observation data.

CHILL-Y (CHIME + LSTM + ROSE-L): Assessment of Yield Quantity and Quality

Within CHILL-Y, representative datasets from three upcoming Sentinel Expansion missions (LSTM, CHIME, and ROSE-L) will be generated and used to demonstrate a novel service for improved assessment of yield quantity and quality. To achieve this, agricultural parameters will be derived from these thermal, hyperspectral, and L-band radar datasets and assimilated into a physical crop growth model, which will then be combined with an AI model.
The novel datasets and methods will be tested and evaluated for wheat and sugar beet in several AOIs across Europe in cooperation with stakeholders and so-called Champion Users, providing validation data. This ensures knowledge transfer and future benefits from the developed solution for the users by incorporating their needs in the co-development process.

Multisensor Water Discharges

Monitoring liquid discharges is vital for protecting coastal and freshwater ecosystems and safeguarding public health. Optical sensors work well in coastal zones, while applications in lakes and rivers remain limited. Thermal and hyperspectral sensors offer the strongest capability for detecting discharges, yet current non-commercial EO systems face spatial, temporal, and spectral constraints. Data from upcoming Copernicus CHIME and LSTM missions, combined with existing satellites, can improve detection. Led by Planetek Italia and the National Technical University of Athens, with the involvement of some end-users, the project aims to support early warning, continuous monitoring, and retrospective analysis in inland and coastal environments.

MULTIWATER (MULTI-sensor WATer resource management and Sentinel Expansion missions End-user Readiness)

MULTIWATER aims to advance EO-based approaches for water resource management by addressing critical gaps in monitoring agricultural and forest water use. The project focuses on developing and validating a prototype information system capable of delivering high-resolution, scalable water-use indicators to support sustainable management and food security. By integrating multi-sensor EO capabilities, MULTIWATER seeks to enable operational monitoring frameworks that improve decision-making under climate variability and resource constraints. The Mediterranean region, chosen for its vulnerability to climate change and water scarcity, serves as the testbed for demonstrating these methods. Engaging Champion Users ensures that the developed solutions are scientifically robust, practically relevant, and ready for future implementation.

Advancing Soil Health Monitoring through Sentinel Expansion Missions EO Data and Stakeholder-Driven Application Development | NextSoils+

The NextSoils+ project, funded under ESA’s Sentinel User Preparation (SUP) programme, addresses one of today’s most urgent environmental challenges: the monitoring and sustainable management of soil health. Soils are a non-renewable resource that underpin food security, biodiversity, and climate resilience. Yet, across Europe, they are increasingly degraded by unsustainable land use, climate change, and pollution, threatening their ability to provide essential ecosystem services such as carbon storage, water filtration, and crop production.

Teresa (Drought Sensing for Water and Food Security by Integrating Earth Observation and Agro-Hydrological Model)

Drought poses a critical threat to global water and food security. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop advanced methodologies for accurately assessing water security. This requires integrating cross-sectoral approaches that address both large-scale drivers of water availability and their local impacts on systems such as irrigation districts and river basins. Coupling water availability assessments with information on food production is critical to gaining a comprehensive understanding of food security challenges. The availability of high-quality, representative datasets on water and food security is essential for supporting global water management strategies. Under the TERESA project we aim to harness Earth Observation data and agro-hydrological models to pioneer new methods for drought sensing, water balance monitoring, crop yield estimation, and the development of water-food security metrics. These efforts are expected to enhance management strategies for sustainable food systems and agriculture.

HIRLOMAP: High resolution and local sea ice product generation for arctic operations

To address the Arctic operations priority area within the ESA’s SUP Initiative we established the project HIRLOMAP. Our focus is towards (a) tactical product delivery (sea ice maps, short-term forecasts of ice conditions, simulations of ice dynamics) for detailed local analysis in the vicinity of vessels or offshore structures to support immediate operations or operation planning, (b) extending detection capabilities to smaller icebergs and more detailed ice type / open water separation for route planning, (c) providing local charts of fast and fjord ice conditions to local communities for evaluations of the safety of on-ice travels, and (d) monitoring of coastal sea ice for research on coastal erosion and flooding. The required product coverage is tens of kilometers with the highest possible spatial resolution between 5 and 50 meters. For the project we use data from SAR, optical and thermal satellite sensors. 

Exploring Copernicus Expansion Missions for Advancing the MRV of European Forests Entering Nature Marketsperations

The aim of the EU-FOCIS project is to develop and demonstrate a forest health and carbon (above-ground) monitoring product for Europe, using ESA open-source satellites, to support voluntary (and compliance) market investment in forest carbon initiatives. There are currently no operational AGB/carbon data products available across Europe at the fine spatial and high temporal resolution appropriate for continuous monitoring of VCM project inventory. The EU-FOCIS product will combine two EO data streams: 1) Spatially and temporally explicit estimates of terrestrial vegetation GPP (gross primary productivity) derived from ESA Copernicus Sentinel-2 MSI, and future CHIME and LSTM expansion satellite missions; and 2) well quantified ground measurements of AGB made with terrestrial laser scanning at individual tree level that will be used to parameterise and test new empirical models of forest AGB.

DECSO-NRT-Europe

DECSO-NRT-Europe aims to develop a near-real time (NRT) NOx emission service for Europe based on Sentinel data. NRT means emissions estimates are derived less than one month after the actual emission. In the first phase, we plan to build the NRT service for Sentinel-5P data, using the existing state-of-the-art inversion algorithm DECSO. In the second phase we intend to prepare a new emission service based on the Sentinel-4 and CO2M missions which will be launched soon. Sentinel-4 has the advantage of hourly observations of Europe, which is expected to improve the weekly/monthly emission estimates (less cloudy pixels) but also allow us to derive the diurnal cycle of the NOx emissions.

EO4SEM

EO4SEM aims to advance towards the EO-driven monitoring of ship emissions, particularly GHGs such as CO2 and CH4 as well as air pollutants like NOx. The motivation comes from the need to improve our understanding of these emissions from ships and in view of new and future regulations within the European Union (EU) and at international level. EMSA supports the European Commission (EC) and the EU Member States with technical and technological means to guarantee a proper ship emission monitoring strategy as well as to verify that the regulations are properly applied and positively impacting at mid- and long-term the environment and life quality of the European citizens. The project will focus the attention on current (Sentinel-5P) and future (CHIME, CO2M) missions

SENWISE : New Sentinel Missions for Optimized Wildfire Hazard, Forestry and Agriculture Monitoring

The objective of SENWISE is to develop high-resolution geoinformation tools to advance our understanding of land-atmosphere-human interactions and provide decision-relevant data for facilitating agriculture and forest management practices in Belgium, France, and Italy. This project will help better understand and investigate the synergies between the Copernicus Expansions missions  ROSE-L, LSTM and CHIME for Land applications. The main geoinformation outputs of the study will include notably Historical vegetation inventory, Vegetation water status, Vegetation health, Historical mapping of wildfires, High-resolution fire hazard map and Fire risk map. The work will be performed in close collaboration with stakeholders dealing with civil protection and forest management of each country such as Organisme National des Forets (ONF), Service public de Wallonie (SPW) and Provincia autonoma di Bolzano authorities.

Rail-adjacent vegetation monitoring with Copernicus Expansions (RAVE)

Rail operators continually face challenges in monitoring their networks for maintenance, and preventing potentially catastrophic accidents. Earth Observation technology has greatly enhanced our ability to undertake large-area monitoring, yet some challenges persist. This project assesses the synergistic utility of the upcoming CHIME and ROSE-L Copernicus Expansion Missions for a range of railside vegetation monitoring applications. These include mapping tree species and height, as well as identifying risks from tree disease, windthrow and flooding. Airbus is collaborating with UK-based rail operator Network Rail and their French counterpart, the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français (SNFC Réseau), to provide actionable insights for enhancing lineside management activities.

Advanced Agricultural Monitoring with Copernicus Expansion Missions (AgriCEM)

The upcoming Copernicus Expansion Missions present unprecedented opportunities to advance current Earth Observation (EO), particularly for agricultural applications. The AgriCEM project leverages this potential by focusing on the hyperspectral CHIME and the thermal LSTM missions. The main objectives are: 1) Generate a representative dataset that reflects the unique capabilities of CHIME and LSTM in terms of spatial resolution, spectral coverage, and revisit time; 2) Develop synergistic EO products for advanced sugar beet monitoring .

Synthetic CHIME and LSTM data are generated using a complex, physically based end-to-end simulation workflow. Retrieval algorithms for LST and ET, vegetation traits, and vegetation stress indicators are developed based on the simulated dataset, proxy satellite, and in-situ data. The consortium works closely with stakeholders like the champion user KWS SAAT to achieve user-oriented EO products.

HEATWISE

Objective of the activity is to develop three key urban products that can be generated through the synergistic use of hyperspectral and thermal data of LSTM and CHIME together with S-2, S-3 and ESA’s Next Generations Sentinel Continuation missions. Specifically, the products are: Maps of the thermal properties of Urban Materials; Advanced Local Climate Zone maps (LCZ) and Urban water characterization. The products will be developed and tested in the cities of Berlin, Athens, and Helsinki together with local partners providing thematic expertise and datasets, and the involvement of city administrations.

EO4Resilience

The EO4Resilience project aims to develop innovative Earth Observation (EO)-based biodiversity indicators to assess forest resilience to drought. By leveraging data from hyperspectral and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) missions, the project seeks to establish a set of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) to monitor and better understand the role of biodiversity in resilience to environmental stress. The technical objectives include creating representative datasets, developing EO-based solutions to assess forest ecosystem resilience, validating EBVs with field data, and implementing a prototype software. The project is also aligned with the aim of preparing users for the upcoming Copernicus Expansion missions,  namely CHIME and ROSE-L, under the Sentinel Users Preparation (SUP) initiative. Key stakeholders include environmental organizations such as WWF and myclimate, forest certification bodies such as PEFC and FSC, park authorities such as Parco Ticino, research institutions such as WSL and Tetis-INRAE, and the insurance sector represented by SCOR. These stakeholders will contribute to validating the developed products and will benefit from new solutions for sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation.

AquaSUP

The objective of the AquaSUP project is to develop and validate novel concepts for the integrated use of data from the CHIME and LSTM missions, to overcome prevailing information deficiencies in inland water and coastal monitoring and management, focusing on enhanced water quality and ecosystem assessment. Combining hyperspectral and thermal imagery for advanced applications presents a promising pathway for addressing a multitude of societal challenges in the future holding the potential for understanding various impacts, such as the response of both inland and coastal ecosystems to population growth and climate change enabling to establish mitigation action plans. The project marks a first step in facilitating the adoption of the new Copernicus Expansion missions together with selected key stakeholders. Utilizing simulated CHIME and LSTM data, applications will be developed focused on mapping and monitoring both inland and coastal aquatic environment, including: i) phytoplankton classification and quantification; ii) benthic composition and seagrass monitoring; iii) macrophytes classification; iv) ecosystem stress evaluation in rivers; and v) calibration and validation of ocean colour.

CROSCIM

The focus of CROSCIM is Arctic operations and forecast. The forecast focus on sea ice and it is based on the principles of direct observation to predictions (AI-DOP). CROSCIM will take advantage of existing datasets that estimate the Arctic conditions and modify these to match the expected outcome form the Copernicus Expansion missions with respect to the resolution, coverage and uncertainties. This dataset will be used for training of the AI model and it will primarily focus on the added value from the polar missions: CRISTAL (dual frequency radar altimeter), ROSE-L (SAR L band) and CIMR (passive microwave). The end products are co-developed with 2 champion who will demonstrate the output to end users in order to ensure the usefulness.

The demonstration of the improvements will be based on two Arctic domains with different characteristics. The first domain is pan-Arctic, which will demonstrate the value of the products from all three sensors and how they contribute with increased coverage and improved monitoring of the Arctic wide sea ice. The second demonstrator is a near coastal demonstration of the impact of ROSE-L, CRISTAL and CIMR products and how they will improve the observations of the sea ice coverage in a High Arctic fjord, namely Disko Bay in Greenland. 

ANACONDA: Co-creating New Water Quality and Biodiversity Management Products from Sentinel Expansion Mission Data

ANACONDA is an SUP project preparing for the upcoming Copernicus Expansion Missions CHIME (hyperspectral), LSTM (thermal), and ROSE-L (L-band SAR). The project develops innovative methodologies and applications for inland water quality monitoring and ecosystem/biodiversity assessment by combining simulated Sentinel Expansion Mission data with existing Sentinel and in-situ datasets. Key applications include enhanced water quality modelling and detection of harmful algal blooms, improved water temperature modelling, and wetland dynamics and biodiversity monitoring. Developed in collaboration with end-users including water authorities and environmental agencies, the applications are demonstrated across three European test sites (Forth Estuary, Scotland; Volkerak-Zoommeer; Netherlands; Danube Delta, Romania) and designed to be scalable, supporting policy frameworks such as the EU Water Framework Directive and Biodiversity Strategy. The project ultimately aims to maximise the scientific and operational readiness in the relevant domains of the user community ahead of mission launches.

AQUATIME

The AQUATIME project aims to prepare the future synergistic use of Copernicus Sentinel Expansion missions CHIME and LSTM to improve the understanding of aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity through the development of novel phytoplankton information algorithms and products. Representative dataset based on CHIME and LSTM simulations are being produced and analysed over four different areas targeting different applications:

  1. Phaeocystis globosa bloom quantification and early detection in the Belgian Coastal Zone / North Sea

  2. Detection and prediction of algal toxins dangerous for aquaculture activities in the Stockholm Archipelago, Sweden

  3. Improved phytoplankton community information providing better basis for ecosystem-based water management of lakes and rivers in Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Germany

  4. Long-term and short-term phytoplankton community dynamics in response to weather and climate in marine areas in South-West Finland. 

The consortium is composed of Brockmann Geomatics in Sweden as prime with SYKE in Finland, Spectral Earth and Brockmann Consult in Germany, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) in Belgium, Tartu University in Estonia and Swedish Agricultural University, SLU, in Sweden as partners.

Urban Land Surface Temperature for Public Health

The objective of this activity is to develop a retrieval algorithm for LST with high temporal and spatial resolution over urban areas aimed at public health applications: providing health authorities with high-quality data for heat risk assessment and mitigation. High temporal resolution will be achieved by a synergistic use of data from multiple TIR missions, including medium-resolution Sentinel-3 data and high-resolution data from the upcoming LSTM mission. Radiometric harmonisation of the instruments will be ensured, after a rigorous uncertainty analysis. High spatial resolution is targeted by downscaling relying on an Optimal Estimation (OE) method based on LSE derived from land cover maps produced by sub-pixel classification (spectral unmixing) of hyperspectral data from the future ESA CHIME mission. The developed retrieval will be validated and demonstrated with (1) a high-fidelity simulation dataset where input data will be simulated by a high-resolution RTM developed for urban environments and sampled, spatially and spectrally, to represent the missions of interest; and (2) a representative mission dataset where input data will be obtained from currently available missions (ECOSTRESS, Landsat-8/9, Sentinel-3 SLSTR, PRISMA, EnMAP).