Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
|
Agenda Overview |
| 8:15am - 9:30am |
Registration and welcome coffee Location: Externat Tent |
||||
| 9:30am - 10:30am |
Introduction to the conference - welcome and high-level opening Location: Big Hall Chair: Giuseppe Ottavianelli |
||||
| 10:30am - 10:45am |
Coffee break Location: Externat Tent |
||||
| 10:45am - 11:45am |
Plenary session - Earth Observation for official statistics Location: Big Hall Chair: Márta Nagy-Rothengass |
||||
| 11:45am - 12:15pm |
Coffee break Location: Externat Tent |
||||
| 12:15pm - 1:30pm |
From Pilots to Operations: Earth Observation for Official Agricultural Statistics Location: Big Hall Chair: Valérie BizierSophie Bontemps (UCL) Zoltan Szantoi (ESA) Ousmane Sylla (DAPSA Senegal) Raphaël D’Andrimont (DG AGRI) |
||||
| 1:30pm - 2:30pm |
Lunch break Location: Canteen |
||||
| 2:30pm - 4:00pm |
Workshop - User needs, Experiences, Challenges Location: Big Hall Chairs: Sebastian Marcu and Rolf Maier Bode |
||||
| 4:00pm - 4:30pm |
Coffee break Location: Externat Tent |
||||
| 4:30pm - 5:40pm |
Thematic sessions - Agriculture I Location: Big Hall Chairs: Zoltan Szantoi and Katja Berger |
Thematic sessions - People & Urban areas Location: Magellan Chairs: Francesca Elisa Leonelli and Taeke Gjaltema |
Hands-on demos Location: Uliveto meeting room A |
Hands-on demos Location: Uliveto meeting room C |
Hands-on demos Location: Science Hub |
| 5:40pm - 6:10pm |
Workshop reporting to plenary Location: Big Hall |
||||
| 6:10pm - 7:40pm |
Welcome drink and POSTER SESSION 1 Location: Externat Tent |
||||
| 8:45am - 9:00am |
Welcome coffee Location: Externat Tent |
||
| 9:00am - 9:45am |
Plenary session: data and services accessibility Location: Big Hall Chair: Tim Lemmens |
||
| 9:45am - 10:00am |
Coffee break Location: Externat Tent |
||
| 10:00am - 11:30am |
Workshops - Accessibility, data infrastructures & interoperability (including Copernicus services) Location: Big Hall Background and objectives
The workshop addresses challenges in accessing and integrating Earth Observation (EO) data within broader data ecosystems for official statistics. It focuses on data platforms, metadata standards, and interoperability between EO data, tools, and infrastructures and traditional statistical systems. Within this context, the workshop introduces the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem (CDSE) as an operational and accessible platform, highlighting its role, together with other public services, in supporting national data infrastructures. The session aims to explore both technical and institutional solutions to improve accessibility and usability of EO data, including in low‑resource settings, and to identify remaining barriers to adoption of these systems by statistical offices. Expected outcomesParticipants will gain an overview of CDSE data collections and services relevant for statistics, including Sentinel data, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service products, Copernicus Contributing Missions, and options for onboarding users’ own data. Concrete examples from Eurostat will illustrate current operational use. The session is expected to generate ideas for establishing steps towards better integration of EO data into official statistical workflows. |
Workshops - Trust of EO data and uncertainty Location: Magellan Trust in EO information products is a fundamental condition for their uptake in official statistics.
While EO offers unprecedented opportunities (global coverage, consistency, and timeliness), EO also introduces new challenges related to transparency, uncertainty, and alignment with established statistical frameworks.
The workshop will explore how transparency, methodological robustness, and uncertainty quantification can strengthen confidence and trust in EO-derived information.
What factors build or erode trust in EO data when used in official statistics?
- How can we ensure transparency and reproducibility of EO workflows?
- How should uncertainty be quantified and communicated?
- What are the best practices for metadata and documentation ?
- Which frameworks for data quality assessment are needed?
Identify practical approaches to ensure that EO information products are not only scientifically robust, but also trusted, accepted, and usable within official statistical frameworks |
Workshops - Earth Observations for Agrifood systems applications Location: James Cook Reliable statistics are foundational for evidence-based policy and for tracking progress toward national and global agri-food systems. Agricultural statistics inform decisions on productivity, resilience, and sustainability. But conventional sources, such as farm surveys, censuses, and administrative records are costly, infrequent, and uneven in coverage, creating gaps in timeliness, spatial detail, and comparability. These gaps are especially acute for emerging priorities such as land-use change, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture and land use, and the intensity and risks associated with fertilizer and pesticide applications.
Earth observations (EO) provide consistent, frequent, and scalable measures to help close these gaps. Optical and radar satellites reveal crop types, phenology, management intensity, and land conversion, and ancillary datasets support inference on emissions drivers and environmental risks. Integrating EO with in situ monitoring and standardized... |
| 11:30am - 11:45am |
Coffee break Location: Externat Tent |
||
| 11:45am - 1:30pm |
Workshops - Reference Data as a Backbone for EO-Based Environmental Statistics and Services Location: Big Hall Workshop Description: At the end of this workshop, we expect to have a clearer idea of the availability, the governance and accessibility, of In-Situ data sets that are the ground truth data for the EO datasets. The workshop will also explore the idea of a single federate In-Situ data repository, and the requirements from the statistical processing point of view for the In-Situ data (temporal, spatial and semantic). The Workshop will kick off with three lightening presentations from EEA, Eurostat and JRC, followed by breakout group work. The workshop will conclude with key messages from each breakout group |
Workshops - Capacity building Location: Magellan At the end of the workshop, we would like to have insights into the resources and the gaps related to EO for statistics among the participants. We expect to plot and match i) the gaps (problems), ii) the existing resources to fill these gaps (solutions), and iii) detect our blank spots. Another outcome is how to organize working together and how to overcome the blank spots. Organiser Details:
|
Workshop - GFOI R&D Session on integrating EO- and ground-data for enhanced forest-related biomass estimation Location: James Cook This workshop will delve into current needs and opportunities for integrating forest biomass information from forest inventories, national statistics and Earth Observation to strengthen the monitoring and reporting of forest biomass for environmental assessments and climate action. We will begin by reviewing the latest recommendations on using EO-based biomass products within MRV processes and international frameworks, as well as briefly touch upon ESA’s Biomass mission advances. Building upon recent discussions led by the Global Forest Observations Initiative (GFOI), we will discuss three different pathways leading towards the integration of these datasets, namely (1) key considerations informing the design of new ground-based campaigns to ensure both compatibility with and added value from EO datasets; (2) lessons learned from experiences combining and harmonizing different existing in-situ data (e.g., National Forest Inventories, among others) for their integration with EO... |
| 1:30pm - 2:30pm |
Lunch break Location: Canteen |
||
| 2:30pm - 4:00pm |
Workshop - From pixels to statistics: working toward validated EO and in-situ data integration practices Location: Big Hall This interactive workshop will bring together EO practitioners, statisticians, and data providers to jointly address how Earth Observation data can be responsibly combined with in-situ measurements, statistical survey data and administrative dat. Using short case studies (e.g. crop type mapping, yield estimation, biodiversity proxies), participants will explore where integration typically becomes difficult: spatial misalignment, scale effects, timing differences, and mismatches between observed variables and intended statistical constructs.
|
Workshop - Stadardization and quality of EO in Statistical processes Location: Magellan This session will address the challenges and solutions for standardizing Earth Observation (EO)-based information within official statistical systems and frameworks, as well as how to build solid data quality standards. The workshop should aim to discuss what quality information does data users and producers need, and how to align this to existing international statistical standards. Topics can include ensuring consistency across spatial, temporal scales, alignments with thematic classifications, and policy reporting coherence, including interinstitutional mechanisms and harmonisation. Discussions around metadata standards, the role of international statistical guidelines, and the potential of EO to support harmonized statistics across countries are encouraged. |
|
| 4:00pm - 4:15pm |
Coffee break Location: Externat Tent |
||
| 4:15pm - 5:15pm |
Workshops wrap up Location: Big Hall |
||
| 5:15pm - 5:30pm |
Conference closure Location: Big Hall |
||
