Living Planet Symposium 2016 : wetlands and Earth observation tools

The Mediterranean Wetlands Observatory (MWO) has recently participated in the Living Planet Symposium 2016 (LPS-2016), which was organized by the European Space Agency (ESA) from 9 to 13 May in Prague, Czech Republic.

The objective of the conference, which brought together over 3,300 participants from around the world, was to present the latest innovations in studying and monitoring of various environmental and human phenomena in the Earth observation tools (e.g. terrestrial and aquatic environments, agriculture, urban, geology, oceans, atmosphere and climate).

The MWO, with other team members of SWOS, the Satellite-based Wetland Observation Service (Jena-Optronic, RSS, University of Bonn, University of Malaga and UNEP-WCMW) presented the SWOS products and services, welcoming the public at the project’s booth, and presented a special event on “Wetlands and Earth observation tools“.

Visit of Volker Liebig (Director of Earth Observation Programs, ESA) to the SWOS booth

SWOS team at LPS-2016

This event was also an opportunity to meet other stakeholders working in the field of wetland monitoring with satellites images, especially the GlobWetland-Africa project coordinator and the Biodiversity and Ecosystems expert of the GEO group (Group on Earth Observation), which has just launched GEO-wetlands (a group specifically dedicated to wetlands and Earth observation). During these meetings, the strengthening of links between these initiatives was discussed, with the development of synergies to enable the integration of Earth observation tools in wetlands monitoring and study.

SWOS booth: meeting with Christian Tottrup (the GlobWetland-Africa project coordinator, left), Gary Geller (Biodiversity and Ecosystems expert of GEO group, middle) and Kathrin Weise (SWOS project coordinator, right).