JavaScript is Disabled
Your browser's JavaScript functionality is disabled. It has to be enabled to use this function of ConfTool.
Here you can find information on how to enable JavaScript
If you have any problems, please contact the organisers at EO4Society.Conf@esa.int.

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).

Only Sessions at Location/Venue

Only Sessions at Date / Time

Agenda Overview

Location: Big Hall
Bld. 14

Date: Tuesday, 05/May/2026

9:30am - 10:30am

Introduction to the conference - welcome and high-level opening
Location: Big Hall

10:45am - 11:45am

Plenary session - Earth Observation for official statistics
Location: Big Hall

ID: 153 / 1.3: 1

Streamlining of reporting requirements across EU policies for reduction of the reporting burden, and integration of Earth Observation (EO) in official statistics

Francesca Somma¹, Meriam Lahsaini², Petra Remeta³, Carla Martins¹, Mark Dowell¹

¹EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Belgium; ²Arcadia SIT s.r.l., for the Joint Research Centre, European Commission; ³Independent Consultant

Aiming to enhance the uptake of Earth Observation (EO) in EU official statistics and identifying ways to reduce/rationalise the reporting burden of EU Member States through increased use of EO, the Knowledge Centre on Earth Observation (KCEO) conducted a comprehensive survey across 12 European Commission Directorates-General (DGs): the ensuing assessment explored opportunities for streamlining EU-policy reporting obligations and further integrate EO in EU statistics.

Reporting programmes within some policy areas present significant opportunities for consolidated data production across policies, following the principle: “measure once, report many times”. A more extensive integration of EO information in reporting represents a paradigm shift, leading to substantial reduction of reporting obligation.

In relation to EU official statistics, the analysis of survey’s submissions revealed that there is already some integration of EO-derived information in some policy areas (e.g., environmental monitoring, renewable energy). Transition to increasingly EO-based policy reporting will translate as well into more integration of similar products into Member States mandatory reporting to EUROSTAT.

Such transition will enable EUROSTAT to access unprecedented volumes of spatially explicit, temporally consistent, authoritative information, delivering multiple strategic benefits: (1) independent validation of survey-based statistics, (2) geographical (gaps-less) harmonisation in data collection across EU, (3) increased frequency of statistical updates, (4) development of indicators addressing emerging policy priorities including Sustainable Development Goal indicators, climate change adaptation, and urban development monitoring.

Further integration of EO information in monitoring, reporting and EU-wide statistics will require a few key strategic actions: (1) development of multi-scale EO data indicators serving local to EU-wide policy needs, beginning with priority domains where EO integration is most mature (e.g., land cover), (2) ensuring the semantic interoperability of policy-specific indicator requirements across policy frameworks, (3) investment in validation methodologies ensuring EO-derived statistics meet official statistics quality standards, and (4) capacity building across DGs and Member State agencies, to maximize utilization of enhanced geospatial capabilities.

ID: 227 / 1.3: 2

Earth Observation for Statistics (EO4S) in EUROSTAT

Carla Martins¹, Hannes Reuter¹, Zacharias KANDYLAKIS²

¹European Commission DG EUROSTAT, Luxembourg; ²Sword Group

The Warsaw Memorandum signed in 2021 by the National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) set out to explore the benefits of Earth Observation (EO) data for producing statistics. Since 2023, EUROSTAT has been carrying out several activities to implement the Memorandum‘s follow-up action plan. A Task Force on Earth observation involving NSIs has been carrying out regular meetings and is now implementing diverse work packages aiming at designing guidelines and streamlining the process of using EO data withing the European Statistics System. EUROSTAT manages grants that cover funding for innovation statistical projects focussing on EO. EUROSTAT’s alignment with DG DEFIS and the use of the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem (CDSE) is a highlight of cooperation efforts within the European Commission and has enabled a rich source of IT infrastructure for the EO operations. Research in concrete applications and methodologies was carried out in the areas of agricultural, energy, land use and air quality statistics.

ID: 278 / 1.3: 3

Earth Observation Support to Nature Policies

Ludvig Forslund, Pavel Milenov, Jan-Erik Petersen

European Environment Agency

Recent European policy developments place increasing reliance on Earth Observation (EO) for the assessment and monitoring of biodiversity, nature and ecosystems. Legislative initiatives such as the Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR) and Soil Monitoring Law (SML) both specify measurable targets that require consistent, repeatable, and statistically robust indicators. Other policy files also require similar monitoring support.

There is therefore a growing expectation that EO-derived products will deliver operationally stable metrics that can support the regulatory process. This presentation aims to provide an overview of how EO is referenced across policy files, how monitoring expectations are being formulated, and what this implies for practices in the EO domain.

As environmental legislation evolves, policymakers are placing greater emphasis on spatially explicit and repeatable information. For biodiversity and ecosystems, Earth Observation is increasingly explored as a cost-effective approach to habitat mapping, vegetation condition assessment, structural ecosystem indicators, among others. These applications place significant demands on timeseries consistency, statistical design, uncertainty estimation, traceability, and model validation. As reliance on EO grows, the requirement for high-quality in situ reference data becomes equally important, both for algorithm development and for independent validation. Hybrid monitoring approaches, taking both into account, are therefore central to delivering results that can be used confidently in future integration of Earth Observation products in national reporting and policy evaluation.

The main topics of the presentation:

Overview of the main EU policy files that propose EO for ecosystem management, biodiversity, restoration and soil monitoring;
Provide examples of environmental monitoring for which EO is considered suitable and reflect on the role of in situ data;
Explore the increased demands for policy support and what it means for data producers and users;
The need for a systematic approach to ensure such demands are met with consistent, high quality earth observation data across political domains.

12:15pm - 1:15pm

Plenary session - Agriculture statistics
Location: Big Hall

2:30pm - 4:00pm

Workshop - User needs, Experiences, Challenges
Location: Big Hall

4:30pm - 5:30pm

Thematic sessions - Agriculture I
Location: Big Hall

ID: 122 / 1.2.1: 1

Cross-border cropland indicators and field-scale rice system mapping from multi-sensor Earth observation in the Senegal River Valley

Jonas Meier¹, Niklas Heiss¹, Verena Huber García¹, Ursula Gessner¹, Claudia Kuenzer^1,2

¹German Aerospace Center, Germany; ²Instute for Geography and Geology, University of Wuerzburg

ID: 125 / 1.2.1: 2

Comparison and Independent Validation of Global High-resolution Remote Sensing Cropland Extent Products

Pengyu Hao¹, Aiman Batkalova¹, Zhongxin Chen¹, Francesco N. Tubiello², Giulia Conchedda³, Leon Casse²

¹Digital FAO and Agro-Informatics Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; ²Statistics Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; ³Land and Water Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

ID: 196 / 1.2.1: 3

Implementation of a standardised approach for crop type area estimation and mapping as part of the Coperncisu4GEOGLAM initiative

Christophe Sannier¹, Daan van Setten¹, Kristoff Van Tricht², Paul van der Voet³, Koen De Vos², Menno de Vries³, Victor Mutepa⁴, Bogdan Dovleac⁵, Ilaria Palumbo⁶

¹GAF AG, Germany; ²VITO, Belgium; ³TerraSphere, The Netherlands; ⁴VH Consultores, Mozambique; ⁵GISBOX, Romania; ⁶Seidor S.A., Spain under contract with the European Commission, JRC, Ispra (VA), Italy

ID: 205 / 1.2.1: 4

Comparing Earth Observation and Traditional Survey Approaches for Estimating Rice Harvested Area: A Case Study from Indonesia

Achmad Firmansyah, Wida Widiastuti, Kadarmanto -, Nasiya Utami, Novia Permatasari, Fawcet Makay, Aldi Rauf, Maria Claire

BPS Statistics Indonesia, Indonesia

ID: 213 / 1.2.1: 5

Operational Crop Mapping at Scale: How ESA WorldCereal Supports Agricultural Statistics

Kristof Van Tricht¹, Jeroen Degerickx¹, Christina Butsko¹, Hendrik Boogaard², Juan-Carlos Laso Bayas³, Santosh Karanam³, Shabarinath S. Nair⁴, Jeroen Dries¹, Vincent Verelst¹, Belen Franch Gras⁵, Italo Moletto-Lobos⁵, Andreu Guillem Valls⁵, Katarzyna Cyran⁵, Arun Pratihast², Lubos Kucera⁶, Martin Babic⁶, Inbal Becker-Reshef⁴, Steffen Fritz³, Sven Gilliams⁷, Benjamin Koetz⁸, Zoltan Szantoi⁸

¹VITO, Belgium; ²WUR, Netherlands; ³IIASA, Austria; ⁴University of Strassbourg, France; ⁵University of Valencia, Spain; ⁶GISAT, Czech Republic; ⁷GEOGLAM Secretariat, Switzerland; ⁸European Space Agency, Italy

ID: 221 / 1.2.1: 6

Mapping minor and mixed crops in Zambia and Zimbabwe using ESA WorldCereal crop classification system

Gerald Blasch¹, Shabarinath S Nair², Jeroen Degerickx³, Kristof Van Tricht³, Juan Carlos Laso Bayas⁴, Urs Schulthess¹, Kai Sonder¹, Mitelo Subakanya¹, Vimbayi Chimonyo¹, Inbal Becker Reshef⁵, Zoltan Szantoi⁶

¹International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT); ²University of Strasbourg, France; ³VITO, Belgium; ⁴International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria; ⁵University of Maryland, College Park, USA; ⁶European Space Agency

ID: 298 / 1.2.1: 7

Importance of In Situ data for EO integration in agricultural statistics: requirements and opportunities

Guillaume Jadot¹, Boris Nörgaard¹, Pierre Houdmont¹, Abdoulaye Guindo¹, Lorenzo De Simone², Pierre Defourny¹, Sophie Bontemps¹

¹UCLouvain, Belgium; ²FAO

ID: 252 / 1.2.1: 8

The Copernicus Agricultural Mapping Service to support Food Security: Copernicus4GEOGLAM

Ilaria Palumbo², Felix Rembold¹, Michele Meroni², Christophe Sannier³, Daan van Setten³, Kristoff Van Tricht⁴, Paul van der Voet⁵

¹European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra (VA), Italy; ²Seidor Consulting, Barcelona, Spain | Under contract with the European Commission, JRC, Ispra (VA), Italy; ³GAF AG, München, Germany; ⁴VITO Remote Sensing, Mol, Belgium; ⁵Terrasphere, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

5:30pm - 6:00pm

Workshop reporting to plenary
Location: Big Hall

Date: Wednesday, 06/May/2026

9:00am - 9:45am

Plenary session: the EU Copernicus programme
Location: Big Hall

10:00am - 11:30am

Thematic sessions - SDGs and environmental policies
Location: Big Hall

ID: 118 / 2.1.4: 1

High Resolution Land Degradation Neutrality Monitoring – Achievements of the ESA SEN4LDN Project

Carolien Toté¹, Ruben Van De Kerchove¹, Daniele Zanaga¹, Giorgia Milli¹, Cai Zhanzhang², Lars Eklundh², Katja Berger³, Martin Herold³, Nandika Tsendbazar⁴, Panpan Xu⁴, Gabriel Daldegan⁵, Marc Paganini⁶

¹VITO, Belgium; ²Lund University, Sweden; ³GFZ, Germany; ⁴Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands; ⁵Conservation International, USA; ⁶ESA-ESRIN, Italy

ID: 119 / 2.1.4: 2

Using EO data for policy-relevant indicators in global environmental frameworks

Louise Sieg, Mikaël J. A. Maes, Ivan Haščič

OECD, France

ID: 170 / 2.1.4: 3

Monitoring Climate Change Adaptation using Earth Observation

Sarah Connors

ESA, United Kingdom

ID: 194 / 2.1.4: 4

Remote Sensing-Based Estimation of Internal Renewable Water Resources: A global alternative to country statistics derived from ground-based hydrological estimates

Bert Coerver, Virginie Gillet, Jippe Hoogeveen, Patricia Mejias-Moreno, Livia Peiser

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 00153 Rome, Italy

ID: 258 / 2.1.4: 5

Validation of commodity prediction models to support the implementation of EUDR by EU Member states

Eric van Valkengoed¹, Frederick Numbisi², Menno de Vries¹, Christophe Sannier²

¹TerraSphere, Netherlands, The; ²GAF, Germany

ID: 270 / 2.1.4: 6

Towards a standardised baseline methodology to support the EU carbon farming certification in agricultural mineral soils

Timo Breure¹, Fernando Fahl², Panos Panagos¹, Leonidas Liakos³, Wouter Meijninger⁴, Marmar Sabetizadeh⁵, Taeken Wijmer⁶, Yue Zhou⁷, Daniele De rosa⁸, Davide Muraro¹, Emanuele Lugato¹

¹Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Italy; ²European Dynamics, Luxembourg; ³Unisystems, Luxembourg; ⁴Wageningen University and Research, Netherlands; ⁵Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium; ⁶University of Toulouse, France; ⁷Ecole Normale Superiere (ENS), France; ⁸University of Basilicata, Italy

ID: 271 / 2.1.4: 7

EO4Nature: From Earth Observation time series to statistics-ready indicators for nature-based climate action

Michael Foerster¹, Gregor Weyer¹, Benjamin Stoeckigt¹, Annett Frick¹, Thorsten Laufhuette², Lena Schultz-Lieckfeld²

¹Luftbild Umwelt Planung GmbH, Germany; ²German Space Agency at DLR

ID: 291 / 2.1.4: 8

A framework for global ensemble land cover mapping at 30 m resolution (2000–2024)

Mateo Moreno¹, Rolf Simoes², Tomislav Hengl¹

¹OpenGeoHub Foundation, Doorwerth, The Netherlands; ²Center for Agribusiness Studies, Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV Agro), São Paulo, Brazil

ID: 313 / 2.1.4: 9

ESA Coastal Blue Carbon : new products for seagrass and coastal wetlands conservation, restoration, and climate action. Achievements and perspectives.

Aurélie Dehouck¹, Benoit Beguet¹, Marie-Aude Sevin², Oscar Serrano³, Christophe Proisy⁴, Marlow Pellatt⁵, Karen Kohfeld⁵, Christine Dupuy⁶, Alvise Ca'Zorzi², Thibault Catry⁴, Elodie Blanchard⁴, Manon Tranchand¹, Virginie Lafon¹, Marie-Hélène Rio⁷, Javier Concha⁷

¹i-Sea, France; ²BlueSeeds, France; ³CEAB-CSIC, Spain; ⁴IRD, France; ⁵Simon Fraser University, Canada; ⁶La Rochelle University, France; ⁷ESA, Italy

11:45am - 1:15pm

Thematic sessions - Environmental Accounting
Location: Big Hall

ID: 101 / 2.2.3: 1

Earth Observation Roadmap for Ecosystem Services Accounting in the EU

Mayra Alejandra Zurbaran Nucci, Domenico Pisani

European Commission - Joint Research Centre, Italy

ID: 111 / 2.2.3: 2

World Ecosystem Extent Dynamics, a toolbox for countries to report on SEEA-EA accounts and GBF Headline indicator A.2

Bruno Smets¹, Marcel Buchhorn¹, Stefano Balbi², Alessio Bulckaen², Carsten Meyer³, Polina Tregubova³, Ruben Remelgado⁴, Ian McCallum⁵, Bert De Roo¹, Ferdinando Villa², Marc Paganini⁶

¹VITO, Belgium; ²BC3 Research, Spain; ³IDIV, Germany; ⁴University of Bonn, Germany; ⁵IIASA, Austria; ⁶ESA ESRIN, Italy

ID: 128 / 2.2.3: 3

Peatland mapping using Sentinel-2 in Ireland - a use case in Ecosystem Accounting

Sam Belton, Saloni Salria

Central Statistics Office, Ireland

ID: 177 / 2.2.3: 4

Ecosystem Service Accounting - Compatibility Assessment Tool (ESA-CAT) standardized reporting system

Domenico Pisani¹, Alessandra La Notte²

¹Joint Reseach Centre, Italy; ²European Dynamics SA, Italy

ID: 200 / 2.2.3: 5

Accounting for Nature: EO-Derived Biodiversity Metric for Green National Income

Georg Kodl¹, Pernille Lykke Jørgensen², Niels Strange², Andy Shaw¹, Jette Bredahl Jacobsen², Gerardo Lopez Saldana¹

¹Assimila, United Kingdom; ²University of Copenhagen, Denmark

ID: 223 / 2.2.3: 6

Integrating Earth Observation into Official Statistics: The German Ecosystem Accounts

Jonathan Reith

Federal Statistical Office Germany

ID: 247 / 2.2.3: 7

From Sentinel to national Land Cover mapping to Ecosystem Accounting: A roadmap for integrating Earth Observation data into official statistics for Environmental-Economic Accounting

Nina Hofer, Mathias Kästenbauer, Sylvia Gierlinger

Statistics Austria, Austria

ID: 275 / 2.2.3: 8

Bridging SEEA Air Emission Accounts and IPCC Inventories through Earth Observation–Based LULUCF Carbon Estimates

Roberto ASTOLFI, Pearl HERRERO

OECD, France

ID: 282 / 2.2.3: 9

Data foundation for the next-generation EU ecosystem mapping product

Pavel Milenov, Ludvig Forslund, Jan-Erik Petersen

European Environment Agency, Denmark

2:30pm - 4:00pm

Thematic sessions - Land Use/Land Cover
Location: Big Hall

ID: 100 / 2.3.3: 1

Generalising Earth Observation AI/ML pipelines for European statistics

Remco Paulussen

Statistics Netherlands (CBS)

ID: 114 / 2.3.3: 2

Map quality assessment and area estimation to support the use of global land cover maps at (sub)national level

Nandika Tsendbazar¹, Panpan Xu², Martin Herold³, Sytze de Bruin¹, Sarah Carter⁴

¹Laboratory of Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing, Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands; ²College of Marine Geosciences, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China; ³Section 1.4 Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics, Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum, Potsdam, Germany; ⁴World Resources Insititute, the Hague, Netherlands

ID: 115 / 2.3.3: 3

Promoting Good Practices for Land Cover and Change Map accuracy assessment and area estimation

Alexandra Tyukavina^1,2, Nandika Tsendbazar^2,3

¹University of Maryland; ²Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, Land Product Validation Subgroup; ³Wageningen University, The Netherlands

ID: 124 / 2.3.3: 4

Very High-Resolution Land Cover Mapping: A Reusable Pipeline for Official Statistics.

Fabrizio De Fausti¹, Anatol Garioud², Jolien Cremers³, Nils von Norsinski⁴, Stefano Mugnoli¹

¹Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), Italy; ²National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information (IGN), France; ³Statistics Denmark (Danmarks Statistik),Denmark; ⁴Statistics Austria (Statistik Austria),Austria

ID: 172 / 2.3.3: 5

The Copernicus LCFM Service: Next-Generation Global Land Cover at 10 m Resolution

Daniele Zanaga¹, Ruben Van De Kerchove¹, Joris Coddé¹, Ioannis Kalfas¹, Giorgia Milli¹, Mathilde De Vroey¹, Carolien Toté¹, Stelios Lagaras¹, Victor Verhaert¹, Dirk Daems¹, Peter Van Bouwel¹, Luc Bertels¹, Astrid Verhegghen¹, Manu Goudar¹, Francesco Perfetto¹, Myroslava Lesiv², Steffen Fritz², Antoine Masse³, Gabriel Jaffrain³, Adrien Moiret³, Andrea Lupi⁴, René Colditz⁴, Frédéric Achard⁴, Andreas Brink⁴

¹VITO - Flemish Institute for Technological Research, Belgium; ²IIASA - International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria; ³IGNFI - Geographic engineering and spatial information consultancy, France; ⁴JRC - Joint Research Centre (European Commission), Italy

ID: 185 / 2.3.3: 6

Developing Land Use and Land Cover Statistics with Earth Observation - Statistics Portugal experience

Célia Ferreira

Statistics Portugal, Portugal

ID: 191 / 2.3.3: 7

Challenges in the Validation of Land Use and Land Cover Change Maps

Myroslava Lesiv¹, Steffen Fritz¹, Ruben Van De Kerchove², Daniele Zanaga², Antoine Masse³, Gabriel Jaffrain³, Maria Shchepashchenko¹, Ivelina Georgieva¹, Dmitry Schepaschenko¹, Maxim Neumann⁴, Linda See¹, Ian McCallum¹

¹IIASA, Austria; ²VITO, Belgium; ³IGNFI, France; ⁴Google DeepMind, Switzerland

ID: 201 / 2.3.3: 8

Artificial Intelligence for Reliable Land Use Statistics: Opportunities and Challenges from Switzerland

Gillian Milani, Michèle Gillard, Romain Douard

Federal Statistical Office, Switzerland

ID: 220 / 2.3.3: 9

Statistical calibration of land cover changes in CLMS CLCplus Backbone time-series

André Stumpf¹, Fabian Berndt¹, Christophe Sannier¹, Benjamin Argyle-Ross², Manuel Mayr³, Massimiliano Rossi³

¹GAF AG, Arnulfstr. 199, 80634 Munich, Germany; ²GeoVille GmbH, Sparkassenplatz 2, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria; ³European Environment Agency, Kongens Nytorv 6, 1050 Copenhagen, Denmark

4:15pm - 5:15pm

Plenary session - Thematic sessions wrap-up
Location: Big Hall

Date: Thursday, 07/May/2026

9:00am - 9:45am

Plenary session: data and services accessibility
Location: Big Hall

10:00am - 11:30am

Workshops - Accessibility, data infrastructures & interoperability (including Copernicus services)
Location: Big Hall

ID: 235 / 3.1.1: 1

CDSE for European Statistical System

Carla Martins¹, Hannes Reuter¹, Zacharias Kandylakis²

¹European Commission DG EUROSTAT, Luxembourg; ²Sword Group

ID: 268 / 3.1.1: 2

Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem - European funded and governed Earth Observation processing capacity

William Ray¹, András Zlinszky¹, Maxim Lamare¹, Grega Milcinski¹, Jurry de la Mar²

¹Sinergise Solutions GmbH, Austria; ²T-Systems International

11:45am - 1:15pm

Workshops - Reference data for EO-based statistics
Location: Big Hall

ID: 236 / 3.2.3: 1

Reference Data as a Backbone for EO-Based Environmental Statistics and Services

Jose Miguel Rubio³, Timo Breure⁴, Hannes Reuter¹, Zacharias Kandylakis², Carla Martins¹

¹European Commission DG EUROSTAT, Luxembourg; ²Sword Group; ³European Environmental Agency; ⁴European Commision DG Joint Reserach Center

ID: 256 / 3.2.3: 2

Standardised Reference Data Framework for Global Crop Mapping and Agricultural Statistics

Arun Pratihast¹, Hendrik Boogaard¹, Jeroen Degerickx², Belen Franch Gras³, Steffen Fritz⁴, Sven Gilliams⁵

¹Wageningen Environmental Research, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, Netherlands; ²Vlaamse Instelling Technologisch Onderzoek (VITO), Mol, Belgium; ³Global Change Unit, Image Processing Laboratory, Universitat de València, 46980 València, Spain; ⁴International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria; ⁵GEOGLAM Secretariat 7 bis Avenue de la Paix, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland

ID: 231 / 3.2.3: 3

One million LUCAS points

Hannes Reuter, Alessandra Palmieri, Beatrice Eiselt

European Commission DG EUROSTAT, Luxembourg

2:30pm - 4:00pm

Workshop - Stadardization and quality of EO in Statistical processes
Location: Big Hall

4:15pm - 5:15pm

Workshops wrap up
Location: Big Hall

5:15pm - 5:30pm

Conference closure
Location: Big Hall