Duration

February 2020 – December 2022

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Abstract

The project aims to address the challenges that Earth Sciences and Environmental Monitoring must face in order to best respond to the needs of the Society in all its components, through the opportunities made available by progress in Information Sciences and Technologies.

In the past few decades, the world has undergone profound social, political and economic changes that have strongly influenced society. In particular, major challenges emerged related to local and global environmental risks, including climate change and resource degradation, which led to the recognition of the need for a new model of sustainable development.

In this context, Science in general, and Earth Sciences in particular, play a fundamental role in providing the knowledge necessary to optimize decision-making processes in the definition and implementation of policies at local, regional and global level.

In parallel, however, scientific and technological development has made available innovative methodologies for environmental monitoring (new sensors with high spectral, spatial and temporal resolution; new platforms such as drones and microsatellites; citizen observatories; etc.) and the development of large amount of data (Big Data technology, Cloud platforms, Machine Learning / Artificial intelligence techniques; etc.) with the possibility of acquiring a better knowledge of the environment.

The project aims to implement a specific line of research to investigate how progress in Information Sciences and Technologies can be best used for the generation of knowledge useful to the Society, either directly (e.g. generating services for decision makers) or indirectly (through the progress and multidisciplinary integration of Earth Sciences).

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Objectives

(a) To advance the research on the transition from Data to Knowledge implemented with transparent processes (according to the Open Science paradigm) of access, generation and formalization of multidisciplinary knowledge, which use environmental and socio-economic data and scientific models.

(b) To advance the research on the application of innovative processing techniques and methods (e.g. Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence) to Earth Observation data for the generation of products and services for the Society.

(c) To design and develop solutions and technologies for the implementation of the Open Science paradigm for the management and generation of multidisciplinary knowledge (data and knowledge mediators, Virtual Laboratories, multi-cloud solutions, etc.), in line with technological evolution in the sector, with particular reference to the European scenario.

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