Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already part of our lives and is extensively entering the space sector to offer value-added Earth Observation (EO) products and services. Copernicus data and other georeferenced data sources are often highly heterogeneous, distributed and semantically fragmented. Large volumes of satellite data (images and associated metadata) are frequently coming to the Earth from Sentinel constellation, offering a basis for creating value-added products that go beyond the space sector. The analysis and data fusion of all streams of data need to take advantage of the existing DIAS and HPC infrastructures, as well as the Galileo-enabled mobile devices when required by the involved end users to deliver fully automated processes in decision support systems. CALLISTO project integrates Copernicus data, already indexed in DIAS platforms such as ONDA-DIAS, utilising High Performance Computing infrastructures for enhanced scalability when needed. Complementary distributed data sources involve Galileo positioning data, visual content from UAVs, Web and social media data linking them with open geospatial data, in-situ sensor data. On top of these data sources, AI methods are applied to extract meaningful knowledge such as concepts, changes, activities, events, 3D-models, videos and animations of the user community. AI methods are also executed at the edge, offering enhanced scalability and timely services. The analysis of the extracted knowledge is performed in a semantic way and the associated analytics are delivered to the end users in non-traditional interfaces, including Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixer Reality in general. Data fusion among several types of data sources is provided on-demand, based on the end user requirements. The AI methods are trained to offer new virtual and augmented reality applications to water utility operators, journalists for the media sector, EU agriculture and CAP policymakers, and security agencies.

NATALIE addresses the risks posed by climate change and its impacts and proposes to advance the concepts of “ecosystem-based adaptation” in Europe combined with climate resilient development pathways, as the means for impact driven Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), to accelerate and mainstreaming the adoption of NBS for resilience to climate change, which is also the cornerstone identified in the recent IPCC AR6 WGII Report. NATALIE will deliver innovative and practical innovations in co-creation of solutions and stakeholder engagement, modelling, testing, monitoring and validation mechanisms that will support regions and municipalities to plan and develop adaptation actions bringing along valuable knowledge and experience as actionable knowledge for adaptation and impact-driven NBS. To achieve this goal, NATALIE will develop a transformative NBS booster pack of 25 solutions (innovative actions that address the key six levers for transformative change: (1) socially acceptable, smart and financial innovative solutions; (2) societal, stakeholder and citizen engagement; (3) larger systemic solutions at regional level; 4) monitoring, evaluation and cost-benefit analysis of solutions; 5) pre-feasibility study; 6) evidence-based outcomes and recommendations). The main goal is to accelerate and foster the mainstreaming of NBS, by forming an ecosystem based adaptation for regional resilience. The booster Innovation Package includes innovative technical, modelling and IT solutions (including an innovative NBS knowledge booster and digital twin), governance, policy recommendations at EU and regional level, financing and public engagement transformative solutions. 18 NBS measures will be demonstrated at 8 case studies, in different biogeographical regions of Europe in Greece, Romania, Latvia, Canary Islands, Belgium (Flanders), France, Iceland and Italy (Veneto region), as well as four follower regions in the Balearic Islands, Romania, France and Lithuania).

High-quality, safe, and sufficient drinking water is essential for life: we use it for drinking, food preparation and cleaning. Agriculture is the biggest source of pesticides and nitrate pollution in European fresh waters. The overarching objective of WATERPROTECT is to contribute to effective uptake and realisation of management practices and mitigation measures to protect drinking water resources. Therefore WATERPROTECT will create an integrative multi-actor participatory framework including innovative instruments that enable actors to monitor, to finance and to effectively implement management practices and measures for the protection of water sources. We propose seven case studies involving multiple actors in implementing good practices (land management, farming, product stewardship, point source pollution prevention) to ensure safe drinking water supply. The seven case studies cover different pedo-climatic conditions, different types of farming systems, different legal frameworks, larger and smaller water collection areas across the EU. In close cooperation with actors in the field in the case studies (farmers associations, local authorities, water producing companies, private water companies, consumer organisations) and other stakeholders (fertilizer and plant protection industry, environment agencies, nature conservation agencies, agricultural administrations) at local and EU level, WATERPROTECT will develop innovative water governance models investigating alternative pathways from focusing on the ‘costs of water treatment’ to ‘rewarding water quality delivering farming systems’. Water governance structures will be built upon cost-efficiency analysis related to mitigation and cost-benefit analysis for society, and will be supported by spatially explicit GIS analyses and predictive models that account for temporal and spatial scaling issues. The outcome will be improved participatory methods and public policy instruments to protect drinking water resources.

PERIVALLON aims to provide an improved and comprehensive intelligence picture of organised environmental crime and develop effective and efficient tools and solutions for detecting and preventing such types of criminal activities and for assessing their environmental impact based on geospatial intelligence, remote sensing, scanning, online monitoring, analysis, correlation, risk assessment, and predictive analytics technologies, by leveraging the latest advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the fields of computer vision and multimodal analytics. As a result, enhanced investigation processes and methodologies will be derived through the capabilities provided by the developed tools and solutions, and the insights obtained though the proposed Environmental Crime Observatory. The capacity of end users (including Police Authorities and Border Guards) will also be improved and will enable them to tackle such criminal activities in an effective manner based on advanced tools and solutions and also on the innovative training curricula developed using physical and/or digital twins of relevant environmental crime scenarios. Moreover, improved international cooperation will be facilitated through improved data sharing enabled by blockchain technologies, while improved regulation shaping and tuning will be supported through relevant policy recommendations. PERIVALLON will be validated in field tests and demonstrations in four operational use cases. Extensive training, hands-on experience, joint exercises, and training material will boost the uptake of PERIVALLON tools and technologies. With a Consortium 5 Police and Border Guard Authorities, 3 authorities related to environmental protection, 6 Research/Academic institutions, 8 industry partners (including seven SMEs), one EU Agency, and one Foundation, PERIVALLON delivers a strong representation of the challenges, requirements and tools to meet its objectives.