RADI-JRC Collaboration on
Earth Observation
Joint Conference Promoting Excellence through
Enhanced EU-China Researcher’s Mobility and Cooperation
7 Sept. 2015
Wu Bingfang
wubf@radi.ac.cn
Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital
Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Adv.-tech. Camp.
Mission:
An independent research institute of CAS focusing on EO
• Exploring leading technologies in Earth observation, geospatial
information science, and the mechanisms for acquiring and
distributing remote sensing information;
• Constructing and operating national Earth observation
Olympic Vil. Camp.
infrastructures ;
• Enhancing capacity to provide resource-environmental spatial
information at the regional and global levels by creating a digital
Earth science platform.
Olympic Vil. Camp.
Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital
Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences
3 China Satellite Ground Stations
1200 Employees and students
2 Cessna Citation S/II RS Aircrafts
303 Senior scientists &technicians
2 New ARJ 21-700ER RS Aircrafts
37 Average age and Ph.D. 43.98%
6 Research departments
4 International organizations
2.5 million scenes satellite data
Cessna Citation S/II
International Cooperation
4 International Organizations affiliated to RADI:
 International Center on Space Technology for Natural
and Cultural Heritage under the auspice of UNESCO (HIST)
 International Program Office of Integrated Research on
Disaster Risk (IRDR IPO)
 International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) &
International Journal of Digital Earth (IJDE)
 CAS-TWAS Centre of Excellence on Space Technologies
for Disaster Mitigation (SDIM)
Worldwide networking &
international programs:
UN Big Data Climate Challenge winners show how big
data can drive climate action
2 September 2014 (NEW YORK) – The United Nations today announced
the winners of the “Big Data Climate Challenge” as part of the buildup to
the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit on 23 September at UN
Headquarters in New York.
RADI’s Research Team of Big Earth Observation Data
for Global Change is one of them in the list.
A quick review of RADI-JRC Collaboration
Academic Exchange & Joint Seminar and Project:
 MoU with IPSC was signed in 2008
 Joint projects, Global land cover 2000, Illicit fishing vessel detection for inland
water (2003-2005), etc.
 Frequent exchanges between experts in RADI and JRC Institutes since 2008
 Participated in the joint workshops such as DE Vision Seminar, ISDE6, etc.
 JRC experts contribute to the ISDE & IJDE as members or editor
Earthquake Monitoring & Data Sharing:
 JRC provided high resolution RS data both in the Wenchuan Earthquake (2008)
and Yushu Earthquake (2010), and assisted in the assessment of house collapse
Cooperate in the framework of GEO:
 Conduct joint research in GEO task groups, incl. Digital Earth study, human
settlement, and global urban monitoring and assessment
Landcover2000 of China
DE Vision Seminar
Analysis of urban expansion
Wenchuan Earthquake
monitoring
EU-RADI collaboration best experiences
 Both RADI/CAS and IES/JRC have more than 15 years cooperation on crop
monitoring with remote sensing and have national mandates to operate global
agricultural monitoring systems (respectively CropWatch and MARS)
 Both, as co-chairs, contribute to the GEOGLAM flagship initiative to build a
system of systems
 Project cooperationStimulating Innovation for
Global Monitoring of
Agriculture (EC FP7）
 Full time visiting Prof. Rene
Gommes (FAO/JRC) in RADI
Units: 1000tons
Future prospect of EU-China collaborations
Collaborative Research Arrangement
signed during EU-China Summit in late June, witnessed by Chinese
Premier LI Keqiang, President of the European Council Donald Tusk and
President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker
Six major areas for collaboration:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Human settlements analysis
Agricultural monitoring
Air quality
Land cover mapping
Land and soil degradation
Digital Earth science platforms
Earth Observation for Belt and Road
Agriculture monitoring
 Crossing validation of CropWatch and Mars products especially on crop type area
estimates and yield estimates, through sharing or exchange of ground datasets
(field observation from China and Europe territory)
 Provide mutual access to new satellite data from China (GF 1/2/8) and Europe
(Copernicus Sentinels 1&2) and develop mechanism to facilitate access and use to
the data and toolboxes for crop monitoring
 Jointly design and testing of algorithm for operational crop monitoring by use of
these new satellite datasets using innovative big Data processing capability and
collaborative analysis tasks
 Developing on a ad hoc case basis, any join force on third country of mutual
interest, coordinating effort or expertise for better assessment of food insecurity,
or the building of national capacities in the field of crop monitoring and yield
forecast using satellite earth observation
Air quality
 To improve satellite retrieval of atmospheric components in order to better
quantify their amounts
•
•
JRC: evaluating satellite retrievals using data from ACTRIS project and JRC Ispra station
RADI: improve algorithms of satellite retrieval of aerosols, trace gases and greenhouse gases
 To evaluate sources of air pollution and greenhouse gases, crucial for
developing and implementing mitigation action plans
•
•
JRC: emission inverse modeling of greenhouse gases and exploring inverse modeling for trace gases
RADI: exploring use of satellite data for source apportionment studies
 To investigate interaction between climate change and air pollution
•
•
JRC: providing technical support of numerical modeling; sharing experience on policy choice impacts
RADI: investigating interactions between haze pollution and climate change based on multiple
satellite data
AOD
NO2
Sulfate
SO2
CO2
CO
Monitor Global Extreme Atmospheric Events
from Geostationary Satellites
 Aerosol Optical Depth-AOD (PM2.5/PM10) products at 1 hours
temporal resolution and 3km spatial resolution from Geostationary
satellites (MSG/Sentinel-4, FY4 and GOES-R)
 Over 35 years, global AOD products over land(AVHRR, MetOp,
Sentinel-5 Precursor, Sentinel-5)
 Arctic Region – Aerosol Pollution (SENTINEL-3 SLSTR data)
Land cover mapping
 Cooperation since 1999
 Classification system and object-oriented based automatic method
 Cooperation of remote sensing and in situ data
 Classification, modification and validation
Global Human Settlement Layer
Pesaresi & Guo.,
2013, IEEE JSTARS.
Global Human Settlement Working Group
A new generation of global settlement measurements and
products will be developed to support the UN Third
Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban
Development (Habitat III, 2016) and the concurrent post2015 processes on sustainable development, climate
change and Hyogo framework for disaster risk reduction.
Potential : CropWatch Satellite Constellation

Objective
•
•
•
Parallel flights of the two spacecrafts, allowing observation of the planet from different angels
Daily global coverage of all land masses and coastal areas
Imaging at 100m spatial resolution for all 7 bands
•
Innovative remote sensing products and service mode
– Joint CropWatch bulletin
– Cloud computing platform for global users

Application domain:
Global Food security, Global change, Water crisis,
Emergency responses
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Spacecraft(S/C)
Mission Control Center (MCC)
Data Reception station(DRS)
User Segment(US)