Support of EO exploitation activities within the European Investment Bank

 

Based on the positive experience with previous projects funding EO demonstration projects, ESA intensifies the cooperation with International Financing Institutions. 

In April last year, ESA and the European Investment Bank agreed on fostering their cooperation that started in 2007, by implementing a series of EO services supporting the information needs of the EIB for project assessment and monitoring. 

ESA entrusted LuxSpace with the task of a “Technical Agent” assisting ESA and the EIB during the entire program.  This includes helping in defining the user requirements in close coopeation with the EIB Project Officers, specifying the EO services, and finally assisting the EIB users in using the EO service results. 

More than 30 EIB financing projects were analysed by LuxSpace in close collaboration with responsible EIB Project Officers for potential of EO technology to support the information needs.  After a series of meetings, a number of 13 EO services have been selected for implementation, and were specified in detail together with ESA experts. 

 

	Project Title	EO Information Service	Area of Interest
A	Forest Plantation	Forest Mapping	Uganda (Namwasa)
B	Motorway Impact on Protected Sites	Land Cover Mapping Infrastructure Construction Monitoring	Poland (Motorway A1/A4)
C	Cement Plant	Infrastructure Construction Monitoring	Ethiopia (Oromiya)
D	Geothermal Energy Plant	Land Cover Mapping	Iceland (Hengill)
E	Waste Water Treatment	Land Cover Mapping	Morocco (Meknes)
F	Water Management	Land Cover Mapping Terrain Deformation Mapping	Jordan (Disi Acquifer, Azraq)
G	Hydropower Plant	Land Cover / Forest Mapping	Laos (Nam Theun)
H	Urban Development	Urban Change Mapping	Greece (Athens)
I	Potential Nature Protection Sites	Land Cover Mapping	Morocco (Fez)
J	Subsidence in River Estuaries	Terrain Deformation Mapping	River Estuaries (Loire, Gironde)
K	Coastal Water Quality	Water Quality Monitoring	Med Sea (Southern Coast)

 

In June 2011 ESA launched an Invitation To Tender procedure to select EO service providers implementing the EO services for the EIB.  These will probably be kicked-off in October 2011. The EO service results will be probably available mid 2012.