Discovery Day 2017 is focused on technology’s contribution to the implementation of the VGGT and on addressing some of the world’s most pressing tenure related issues, resulting from the negative impact of climate change, violent conflicts, mass migration, and growing urbanization. Bringing together speakers from the government, the private sector, FAO, World Bank, European Commission Joint Research Centre, the Discovery Day 2017 aims to demonstrate how technology could contribute to improving governance of tenure through transparency, accountability, and gender equality in land administration. © FAO: http://www.fao.org

1. The European Commission’s
science and knowledge service
Joint Research Centre
European Union spatial
data infrastructure and
innovative land monitoring
initiatives
Felix Rembold, Guido Lemoine, Alexander Kotsev
(Joint Research Centre)
Michel Massart (DG GROW)
«VGGT 5° year anniversary, Rome»

2. 2
The Joint Research Centre at a glance
• In-house science service of the European Commission
• Independent, evidence-based scientific and technical support for EU policies
• 3000 staff Almost 75% are scientists and researchers.

3. 3
Structure
• INSPIRE Pan European Spatial Data Infrastructure.
• COPERNICUS new Earth Observation data and services
• Opportunities for land tenure and agricultural monitoring based
on EO data
• Examples related to the European Common Agriculture Policy and
monitoring large land transfers in Africa

4. 4
INSPIRE – a pan-European spatial
data infrastructure
Legal foundation
 Framework Directive
 Into force since 2007
 Transposed in MS legislation
Community (bottom-up) driven
development approach
 Based on international standards (OGC, ISO)
 Facilitates the exchange and (re)use of geospatial
data across 34 data themes
metadata availability
Thematic scope

5. 5
Benefits from INSPIRE
Technological
 Multiple tools for sharing and reuse of spatial data
 Value added applications based on INSPIRE data
 Data ‘unlocked’ in machine-readable format
Organisational
 Improved workflows and transparency
 Increased data availability
Socio-economic
 Return of Investment (RoI) estimated between 3:1 and 5:1
 Multiple SMEs in the geospatial sector
 Better (informed) decision making processes
 Contribution to the global agenda
 Data for SDGs (baseline and benchmarking)
Applicability outside the EU

6. COPERNICUS
Examples of products in land
service:
- Urban atlas, tree cover density,
EU DEM, CORINE land cover…
http://land.copernicus.eu/

7. All 6 services use
Earth Observation
data to deliver …
Sentinels
Contributing missions
In situ
observations
…added-value products
in-situ
Contributing missions
Annual budget 800 Mio. Euros

8. Copernicus Sentinel 1A
Time composite VV @ 30 m resolution (Oct 23, Dec 10, Jan 15)
• Free and open data of COPERNICUS (Sentinel sensors), 3- 10 days revisit capacity, 10 m
spatial resolution range
• Towards global crop mapping, area and yield at high resolution – requires big data approach!
• Large benefits for applications in the 10m domain. Other applications (eg. cadaster) will still
need VHR and ortho-photos
Agricultural expansion in
Afar, (Ethiopia )
Big Data
AnalyticsCopernicus
Sentinels
Global Crop
Mapping
Potatoe fieds in
Noordoostpolder (NL)
Copernicus Sentinel 1A
Time composite VV @ 30 m resolution
18-16-4 April 2015 -superpose to IACS
land parcel system
New opportunities for land monitoring

9. Use of Sentinel 2 data integrated with EU land parcel identification system to
simplify monitoring and control activities
JRC is driving discussion on what measures can be considered in CAP 2020+
and environmental performance review.
9
CAP «greening»: monitoring permanent grasslands

10. Automatic edge-density statistics (for 1x1km cells) from actual S2 is used to
highlight problematic cases.
Left cell: too many fields in reference parcel
Right cell: poor correspondence between (old) cadastral boundaries with
physical parcel boundaries
Qality check of European land parcel registration systems
for CAP subsidy claims

11. “Land Grabbing” - monitoring large scale agric. investments in
Gambella (Ethiopia)
Sentinel-2 false color composite (vegetation in red) colors
Detection
of single
fields
Visual interpretation of Sentinel-2A
satellite image from March
2016 depicts various agricultural
activities and implementation levels
inside and outside LSAI
sites in Gambella
S1 and S2 images are very useful in
densely vegetated and often cloud
covered areas

12. ~110,000 ha of cultivated area detected
Includes ongoing development and partial
cultivation
Based entirely on S1 imagery!

13. Existing VHR
(e.g. GoogleEarth)
Visual
interpre
tation
Selected cloud-free optical
images / composites
Delineation of agricultural activities
via on-screen digitization
(use of automatic methods at later stage)
Auxiliary data
Selected SAR images
“Land Grabbing” - Developing a basic tool for comprehensive
monitoring
Identifying clearance, irrigated or rain
fed plots, plantations, and partly
shifting cultivation or smallholder
agriculture as well as new infrastrucure
Collaboration between GIZ, EU, JRC in developing a tool for Ethiopian
Authorities for monitoring large scale land investments with EO data

14. Pastoral land governance – mapping pastoral enclosures
Pastoral enclosures are typical for many rangeland areas in East Africa with increasing
pressure on natural resources and sedentarization
Objective: mapping enclosures and their changes over time for understanding main
governance and management dynamics as well as long term dynamics
Delimitation on VHR images
Change analysis on VHR and Sentinel
2006 2010 2013

15. Conclusions
• INSPIRE proves high value of SDI for data transparency, availability and
increased use. Quick return of investment.
• Rapidly increasing volumes of high resolution EO imagery (EU
Copernicus programe) require “bringing the user to the data” by applying
big data approaches and cloud computing
• Data needs to be transformed into valuable information and services
(role of research, private etc…).
• Need for supporting national services and information systems in the
above: training and education, development of tools and services.

16. •EU Science Hub: ec.europa.eu/jrc
•Twitter: @EU_ScienceHub
•Facebook: EU Science Hub - Joint Research Centre
•LinkedIn: Joint Research Centre
•YouTube: EU Science Hub
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COPERNICUS Land Monitoring video