ESA Harmony Mission Performance and Requirement Consolidation Activity for Solid Earth & Land Ice (2021 - 2023)

The project aim is to justify, refine, trace and consolidate Harmony mission performances and mission requirements to SRL-5 or above. The primary output of this study is the scientific and technical documentation used to consolidate the Harmony MRD. Scientific Readiness Assessments, software tools, scientific models, algorithms, analysis results and recommendations, being elaborated in the project, are primarily used for this task and contributed to the Report for Mission Selection of the Earth Explorer 10 Candidate Mission Harmony (ESA - ESA selects Harmony as tenth Earth Explorer mission).

Project Team: German Aerospace Center, Microwaves and Radar Institute (DLR) (PI); Delft University of Technology; ENVEO IT GmbH; Pi Space Ltd; Simon Frazer University; University of Bristol; Universite Grenoble Alpes; University of Oslo

ESA Contract No. 4000135083/21/NL/FF/ab

ESA MS POLINSAR - Information Content of Multi-Spectral POLINSAR Data (2021 - 2023)

Within the project we assess the complementarity and synergy of multi-spectral PolInSAR data, from P- to X-Band, for improving the retrievals of bio- geo-physical parameters in various application areas, including agriculture, forest, wetland, land cover classification, sea ice, land ice, snow. ENVEO’s contribution refers to snow and land ice. The activities include sensitivity analysis of multi-spectral PolInSAR data, the selection of target scenarios, and the consolidation/development of multi-spectral/multi-temporal PolInSAR forward and inversion models for specific bio-geo-physical parameters.

Project Team: German Aerospace Center, Microwaves and Radar Institute (DLR) (PI); University of Alicante; ENVEO IT GmbH; Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)

ESA Contract No. 4000133590/20/NL/AS/hh

ESA SARSIMHT-NG Study on Simulation of Hydroterra SAR System Performance in the Mediterranean and the Alps based on Experimental Airborne SAR data (2021 - 2023)

SARSIMHT-NG analyses airborne SAR data at different wavelengths, including C- and L-band. The data are collected by DLRs F-SAR system and are acquired considering a possible simulation of interferometric backscatter and phase products for a geostationary SAR mission, such as the EE10 candidate mission Hydroterra, as well as for the Copernicus missions, ROSE-L and Sentinel-1 NG. Data are acquired over the high Alpine valley Wörgetal near Innsbruck, Austria, to study the retrieval of snow mass and other physical snow parameters. The second test site which the Apulian Tavoliere in the Puglia region near the town of Foggia to study soil moisture retrieval from SAR data under varying conditions.

Project Team: German Aerospace Center, Microwaves and Radar Institute (DLR) (PI), ENVEO IT GmbH; CNR

ESA Contract No. 4000134680/21/NL/FF/

ESA EXPRO+ Glaciers - Alps Regional Initiative - Glacier Science in the Alps (2021 - 2023)

The main objectives of this project are to provide enhanced observation capacity for end of season snow cover and glacier surface flow velocity, and to provide a sound assessment of hazard state due to glacier change from lake development and slope movement around glaciers.

Project Team: Department of Geography / University of Zurich (GIUZ) (PI), Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG), ENVEO Environmental Earth Observation IT GmbH, ETH Zurich, GAMMA Remote Sensing Research and Consulting AG, Institute for Environmental Geosciences (IGE), Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry (TESAF) / University of Padova.

Website: https://alpglacier.geo.uzh.ch/

ESA Contract No. 4000133436/20/I-NB

ESA EXPRO+ AlpSnow - Alps Regional Initiative - Science ALPSNOWATER (2020 - 2023)

The main objective of this project is to develop an integrated, coherent dataset as comprehensive and advanced as possible characterising snow parameters over the Alps. To achieve a new Alpine dedicated snow dataset describing the snow, its dynamics and its properties, novel EO-based algorithms and techniques will be explored, developed and validated. A coherent dataset of the following snow parameters will be developed and generated over the entire Alps: 1) snow area extent, 2) snow albedo, 3) snow water equivalent, 4) snow depth, 5) snow grain size, f) snow liquid water content (wet snow). 

Project Team: ENVEO Environmental Earth Observation IT GmbH (PI), EURAC Academia Europea Bolzano (EURAC), Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG), Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Environmental Protection Agency of Aosta Valley (ARPA VdA), University of Edinburgh (UED), University of Innsbruck (UIBK), Institut für Schnee- und Lawinenforschung (SLF).

Website: http://alpsnow.enveo.at/

ESA Contract No. 4000132770/20/I-NB

ESA SnowPEx+ - Satellite Snow Products Intercomparison and Evaluation Exercise CCN-2 (2020 - 2022)

The main objective of the SnowPEx+ project is to perform the intercomparison of recently developed snow extent and SWE products (new algorithms, new sensors) for the period 2015-2020, and document intercomparison and validation results, analyse temporal trends for snow extent and snow water equivalent. The 3^rd International Satellite Snow Product Intercomparison Workshop (ISSPI-3) is planned for 2021 as part of the SnowPEx+ project.

Project Team: ENVEO Environmental Earth Observation IT GmbH (PI), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).

Website: http://snowpex.enveo.at

ESA Contract No.4000111278/14/I-LG

ESA POLAR+ - Ice Shelves (2020 - 2022)

ENVEO is partner in the ESA POLAR+ Ice Shelves project, aiming on the exploitation of the 25-year record of ESA satellite observations to generate new measurements of ice shelf thickness change, ice speed, crack propagation, area change, and surface and basal melt across Antarctic Ice Shelves. The aim of this project is to produce a suite of Earth Observation datasets to characterise how ice shelves in Antarctica have changed over the last decade, and to make use of these data sets to investigate the physical processes driving this evolution.

Project Team: University of Leeds (UoL) (PI), ENVEO Environmental Earth Observation IT GmbH, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), University of Edinburgh (UE), EarthWave Ltd

Website: https://polar-iceshelf.org/

ESA Contract No. 4000132186/20/I-EF

ESA POLAR+ EO4SMB - Earth Observation for Surface Mass Balance (2020 - 2022)

ENVEO is partner in the Earth Observation for Surface Mass Balance (EO4SMB) project. The EO4SMB study addresses Theme 4 of ESA’s POLAR+ call, and forms part of ESA’s Polar Science Cluster of projects. The aim of EO4SMB is to investigate the feasibility of measuring ice sheet Surface Mass Balance from space. The study will focus primarily on exploiting measurements from ESA’s ice mission, CryoSat-2, to derive a portfolio of SMB parameters covering the period 2010-2020.

Project Team: Lancaster University (LU) (PI), Technical University of Denmark (DTU), ENVEO Environmental Earth Observation IT GmbH, Science [&] Technology AS (S[&]T), Shepherd Space Ltd

Website: https://smb.eo4cryo.dk/

ESA Contract No. 4000132154/20/I-EF

ESA POLAR+ 4DGreenland (2020 - 2022)

ENVEO is partner in the 4DGreenland Project. The main objective of the project is to perform an integrated assessment of the Greenland hydrology, with a focus on maximizing the use of Earth Observation data in determining each of the three major components and their interconnections: surface melt processes, supraglacial storage and drainage, and subglacial melt, drainage and lakes.

Project Team: Technical University of Denmark (DTU) (PI), ENVEO Environmental Earth Observation IT GmbH, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), Lancaster University (LU), Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), German Aerospace Center (DLR), EarthWave Ltd, Shepherd Space Ltd, Science [&] Technology AS (S[&]T)

Website: https://4dgreenland.eo4cryo.dk/

ESA Contract No.

ESA CCI+ Greenland Ice Sheet (2019 - 2021)

ENVEO is partner in the Greenland Ice Sheet CCI+ Project, which is part of the Climate Change Initiative of ESA and the continuation of the Ice Sheets CCI and Greenland Ice Sheet CCI (phase 2) projects. In GIS CCI+ ENVEO is leading the Greenland ice velocity product from Sentinel-1 SAR data.

Products are provided through ENVEO's CryoPortal and the CCI Open Data Portal.

Project Team: Asiaq Greenland Survey (ASIAQ), DTU-Space, Department of Geodynamics (DTU-S), DTU-Space, Department of Microwaves and Remote Sensing (DTU-N), Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), Environmental Earth Observation IT GmbH (ENVEO), Science [&] Technology AS (S&T), Technische Universität Dresden (TUDr), The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), The Niels Bohr Institute (NBI), University of Leeds, School of Earth and Environment (UL)

Website: http://www.esa-icesheets-greenland-cci.org/

 ESA/Contract No. 4000126023/19/I-NB