1st Workshop: User Requirements

The Satellite-based Wetland Observation Service (SWOS) project was holding its user requirements workshop on 15 and 16 of March in the Netherlands. Stakeholders include policymakers, managers, and the scientific community including the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, EC MAES Working Group, GEO BON, European Space Agency, and representatives from national, regional, and local bodies.

SWOS will provide Earth Observation data and indicators to explore the conditions of wetland ecosystems and detect on-going changes. The user workshop is engaging stakeholders to jointly develop the user requirements that the SWOS products should comply with in order to improve wetland monitoring and conservation needs. The SWOS team will make use of this workshop to shape the development of its services and tools. 47 stakeholders and project partners from 18 countries were participating.

SWOS is a EC Horizon 2020 project to develop a monitoring and information service for wetland ecosystems that supports the consideration of wetlands in the implementation of key policy areas. The project has developed several preliminary results derived from satellite imagery for sites in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

SWOS is actively supporting the Municipality of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates in the monitoring of their wetland ecosystem

On March 15, 2016, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the SWOS project and the Municipality of Fujairah, UAE to provide support in their wetland ecosystem monitoring.

Eng. Mohamed Saif Al Afkham, Director of Fujairah Municipality on behalf of the Fujairah Municipality and Mrs. Kathrin Weise, on behalf of Jena-Optronik as the coordinator of SWOS signed the MoU that sets for the terms and understanding between Fujairah Municipality and the SWOS project on the provision of SWOS software and technical support to use remote sensing data and EO derived products for the ecological monitoring of Wadi Wurayah National Park. On the other hand, the National Park will participate to the project as end user, and will contribute in mapping and providing ground information.

This MoU is an important step for the outreach of the SWOS developed methodologies and an important step for the technology transfer to Middle East and other regions that could benefit from the technological and knowledge transferability.

The objective for Fujairah is to apply satellite derived methodologies for the monitoring and protection of the Wadi Wurayah National Park and other ecosystems in UAE. As for SWOS, the objective is to broaden its influence in its provision of supporting tools and methods for an improved monitoring of wetland ecosystems all over the globe.

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Read our previous article Satellite-based Wetland Observation Service (SWOS) project kick off

Contact

Kathrin Weise

Kathrin.weise@jena-optronik.de