Innovative technologies for Earth Observation and modelling are emerging and European Protected Areas have the opportunity to be at the forefront of how they are used.

Around 60 scientists, park managers and Protected Area representatives from across Europe have gathered in Pisa, Italy to see how new Earth Observation tools such as satellite imagery can contribute to a better understanding of threats faced by Protected Areas.

The four-day event, titled ‘Application of Earth Observation tools in Protected Areas in Europe and beyond,’ took place in May and was organized by the Italian National Research Council together with the UN Environment and other ECOPOTENTIAL project partners.

Participants learned how to use a virtual laboratory platform and how to share data with the aim of effectively protecting ecosystems, ensuring that Protected Areas can be managed from an ecosystem services perspective, using ECOPOTENTIAL project tools such as satellite images of landscapes.

Funded by the European Union, ECOPOTENTIAL addresses long-term environmental challenges for Protected Areas by taking Earth Observation data and using it to model and assess changes to ecosystems.

“The increase in the number of remote sensing methods opens up new opportunities for assessing how ecosystems change.” said Matthias Jurek, Programme Officer at UN Environment.

A community of solution-sharing is also expected to be introduced in the framework of the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations, the Global Earth Observation System of Systems and the GEO Global Ecosystem Initiative.

“This meeting represents an important milestone for our project, as it allows us to share our views on the use of Earth Observation data for the benefit of scientific research on protected areas and for creating a Community of Practice,” said Antonello Provenzale, Director of the Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources, National Research Council of Italy, Coordinator of the ECOPOTENTIAL project.

For more details get in touch with matthias.jurek@unvienna.org