Exposure of citizens to potential disasters has led to vulnerable societies that require risk reduction measures. Drinking water is one main source of risk when its safety and security is not ensured. aqua3S combines novel technologies in water safety and security, aiming to standardise existing sensor technologies complemented by state-of-the-art detection mechanisms. On the one hand sensor networks are deployed in water supply networks and sources, supported by complex sensors for enhanced detection; on the other hand sensor measurements are supported by videos from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), satellite images and social media observations from the citizens that report low-quality water in their area (e.g. by colorisation), creating also social awareness and an interactive knowledge transfer. Semantic representation and data fusion provides intelligent DSS alerts and messages to the public through first responders’ mediums. The proposed technical solution is designed to offer a very effective detection system, taking into account the cost of the aqua3S platform and targets at very high return over investment ratio. A strategy for the insertion of aqua3S solution into the market is designed towards the standardisation of the proposed technologies and the aqua3S secure platform.

Coastal urban development incorporates a wide range of development activities that are taking place as a result of the water element existing in the fabric of the city. This element may have different forms (i.e. a bay, a river, or a brook) but in almost all cases the surrounding area constitutes what maybe considered as the heart of the city. Every city that incorporates the water-element in its fabric is confronted with the fundamental requirement of developing policies for driving development in the surrounding area, while balancing between: a) economic growth, b) protection of the environmental, and c) safeguarding social cohesion. This requirement is tightly connected with the concept of Urban Resilience, which is the capacity of individuals, communities, businesses and systems within a city to survive, adapt and grow no matter what chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience. In developing policies that add value to the resilience of a city, we shift the existing paradigm of policy making, which is largely based on intuition, towards an evidence-driven approach enabled by big data. Our attention is placed on policies related to the water element. Our basis is the sensing infrastructures installed in the cities offering demographic data, statistical information, sensor readings and user contributed content forming the big data layer. Methods for big data analytics are used to measure the economic activity, assess the environmental impact and evaluate the social consequences. The extracted pieces of evidence are used to inform, advice, monitor, evaluate and revise the decisions made by policy planners. Finally, effective policies are developed dealing with: a) the economic and urban development of Thermaikos Bay, Thessaloniki, b) the transformation of Düden Brook into a recreation and park area, Antalya, c) the development of a Storm Water Plan, Antwerp, and d) the review of the Country Development Plan in the River Lee territory, City of Cork.

Earth Observation data access through the Copernicus data distributor systems has paved the way to monitor changes on Earth, using Sentinel data. One of the main objectives of EOPEN is to fuse Sentinel data with multiple, heterogeneous and big data sources, to improve the monitoring capabilities of the future EO downstream sector. Additionally, the involvement of mature ICT solutions in the Earth Observation sector shall address major challenges in effectively handling and disseminating Copernicus-related information to the wider user community, beyond the EU borders. To achieve the aforementioned goals, EOPEN will fuse Copernicus big data content with other observations from non-EO data, such as weather, environmental and social media information, aiming at interactive, real-time and user-friendly visualisations and decisions from early warning notifications. The fusion is also done at the semantic level, to provide reasoning mechanisms and interoperable solutions, through the semantic linking of information. Processing of large streams of data is based on open-source and scalable algorithms in change detection, event detection, data clustering, which are built on High Performance Computing infrastructures. Alongside this enhanced data fusion, a new innovative, overarching Joint Decision & Information Governance architecture will be combined with the technical solution to assist decision making and visual analytics in EOPEN. Apart from EO product-oriented data management activities, EOPEN also exploits user-oriented feedback, tagging, tracking of interactions with other EOPEN users. EOPEN will be demonstrated in real use case scenarios in flood risk monitoring, food security and climate change monitoring.

THE MICS project brings together a transdisciplinary team to address a scientific and policy priority area where citizen science has the potential to promote a paradigm shift. Nature-based solutions (NBSs) are actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges and provide human well-being. NBSs have increasingly become policy and planning objectives, but major knowledge gaps in NBSs science have hindered their implementation and acceptance. This is largely due to a lack of locally specific information about the influence of: climate, location, condition and management on NBS function and impact. Furthermore, the sustainability of NBSs often depends on the perceptions and needs of stakeholders, including user groups, local communities, conservation bodies, farmers, land managers, policy makers and practitioners. Due to their systemic complexity and embedding in local context, NBSs offer a unique potential for citizen science to make a major contribution. The MICS project will support NBS research by developing strategies and tools to evaluate impacts on science and society resulting from the integration of citizen science. These tools will foster citizen science approaches that increase both scientific knowledge, and how scientific evidence is taken up by communities and policy makers. MICS will use novel impact-assessment metrics and instruments that measure costs and benefits of citizen science in relation to the NBSs, with particular attention in the domains of society; democracy; the economy; NBS science, and citizen scientists. These instruments will be grounded in a comprehensive conceptual framework and integrated into an open platform following rigorous validation in key pilot sites along a West-East EU axis. This will test the applicability of the MICS impact-assessment tools in regions with differing opportunities and constraints for NBSs, and with different levels of citizen science uptake.

The rising trend in citizen science has led to the development of Citizen Observatories (COs) for environmental monitoring, which have been supported in FP7 and H2020. To improve the coordination between existing COs and related regional, European and international activities, the WeObserve Coordination and Support Action will tackle three key challenges that face COs: awareness, acceptability and sustainability. The WeObserve mission is to create a sustainable ecosystem of COs that can systematically address these identified challenges and help move citizen science into the mainstream. The WeObserve approach will apply several key instruments to target, connect and coordinate relevant stakeholders. The first is to develop and foster five communities of practice to strengthen the current knowledge base surrounding COs. Topics will include citizen engagement, the value of COs for governance and CO data interoperability. In co-creating this knowledge base, CO practitioners will have a platform to effectively share best practices and avoid duplication. The second will expand the geographical reach of the knowledge base to different target groups via toolkits, a Massive Open Online Course, capacity development roadshows and an Open Data Exploitation Challenge, to strengthen the uptake of CO-powered science by public authorities and SMEs. A third mechanism will forge links with GEOSS and Copernicus to demonstrate how COs can complement the EU’s Earth Observation monitoring framework. The WeObserve consortium brings together the current H2020 COs (Ground Truth 2.0, GROW, LandSense, Scent) who will actively open up the CO landscape through wide ranging networks, users and stakeholders, including ECSA, GEOSS and Copernicus to foster social innovation opportunities. The WeObserve approach and outcomes have the potential to create a step-change in EO innovation and make COs a valuable component of managing environmental challenges and empowering resilient communities.