The objective of the project SWOS is to develop a monitoring and information service focussing on wetland ecosystems. Globally wetlands are the ecosystems with the highest rate of loss. This is alarming, considering their significance as biodiversity hotspots and ecosystems with a central role in the water cycle, including improving water quality and reducing water scarcity, in climate regulation and the economic benefit gained from using their services. A key limitation to their more effective conservation, sustainable management and restoration is the missing knowledge underpinning the application of European policy by Member States. Under the Biodiversity Strategy, Member States have recently committed to the mapping and assessment of ecosystem services (MAES); this provides a key instrument for an improved integration of wetlands in policy. SWOS will take full advantage of the Sentinel satellites and integrate results from the ESA Globwetland projects. Status maps and indicators, as well as near real-time observations will allow the assessment of biodiversity and the monitoring of dynamic changes in an unmatched temporal and spatial resolution. The Service Portal will allow the integration and web-based analysis of new maps and in-situ measurements and provide a unique entry point to locate, access and connect existing information and databases. It follows a GEOSS compatible data-broker approach and adopts international standards. SWOS contributes to establishing a Global Wetland Observing System, as requested by Ramsar, it will facilitate local and EU monitoring tasks and input into international reporting obligations. SWOS will position Europe in a leading role for wetland activities within the GEO ecosystem, biodiversity, water, land cover tasks. The direct involvement of users working at different scales and support of key user organizations ensures the usability and acceptance of the service, the harmonization with related activities and a long-term impact.

The growing introduction of automated or even autonomous machinery on farms makes the need for good quality data more critical. Moreover, the demand is increasing to log the outputs of those machines for analysis, documentation and compliance. However, current datafiles sent to, or retrieved from machinery lack quality standards. They cannot be certified because any guarantee on the integrity of the used data and workflow is missing. HASHTAG is therefore leveraging space assets and services to safeguard the reliability of data ensuring trusted application and governance. Within a period of two years, three building blocks will be developed to proof our concept: 1. Standardising protocols, logging and verifying prescribed tasks using machine data flows to assure as-applied maps are trustworthy. 2. Standardising the processing of high quality EO data from Copernicus into prescription maps. 3. Using Galileo’s High Accuracy Service and Navigation Message Authenticator in a GNSS receiver to provide trusted and accurate machine positioning. Integrating these components will result in a workflow capable of generating a transparant and authenticated data chain of EO data to as-applied maps. This is relevant for current reality, where food production and processing are international businesses with ingredients from around the world, governed by food standards and environmental regulations. Our solution, deploying space assets, can be used anywhere in the world, hence leveraging European knowledge and expertise to enable the next level of sustainable and regenerative farming. International partners from Serbia are included and use cases in Brazil, Ukraine and Indonesia will be explored. HASHTAG will reach out to standardisation initiatives in agritech to promote its results and increase impacts. The specific advantages that the European space infrastructure offer, are important to develop globally acceptable and affordable private and public uptake of our space assets.