d2.5 1 annual project meeting minutes · wp2: scientific and technical coordination mirco boschetti...

FP7-SPACE 2013-1 - Grant n° 606983

D2.5 1st annual project meeting minutes

Task Task Leader

Task 2.2: Annual Project meetings Lorenzo Busetto (CNR)

Work Package Work Package Leader

WP2: Scientific and technical coordination Mirco Boschetti (CNR-IREA)

Deliverable Number Deliverable Name

D2.5 1st annual project meeting minutes

Expected Delivery Date Actual Delivery Date

01/05/2015 XX/YY/ZZZZ

Author(s)

Lorenzo Busetto (CNR-IREA)

Mirco Boschetti (CNR-IREA)

Manuel-Campos (UVEG)

Reviewers Reviewer 1 (Meeting Participants)

Reviewer 2 (Meeting Participants)

Version 1.1

State (Final)

Dissemination Level Restricted

D2.5 1st annual project meeting minutes of 26

Document History

Actor Date Version Description

Lorenzo Busetto. 01/04/2015 1.0 First Draft

Lorenzo Busetto. 23/04/2015 1.1 Second draft, following participants

comments

Disclaimer

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research,

technological development and demonstration under grant agreement n° 606983.

All intellectual property rights are owned by the ERMES consortium members and are protected by the

applicable laws. Except where otherwise specified, all document contents are: “© ERMES – FP7 Project - All

rights reserved”. Reproduction is not authorized without prior written agreement. All ERMES FP7 consortium

members have agreed to full publication of this document. The commercial use of any information contained

in this document may require a license from the owner of that information.

All information in this document is provided "as is" and no guarantee or warranty is given that the information

is fit for any particular purpose. The user thereof uses the information at its sole risk. Both ERMES FP7

consortium members and the European Commission cannot accept liability for any inaccuracies or omissions

nor do they accept liability for any direct, indirect, special, consequential or other losses or damages of any

kind arising out of the use of this information.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive summary ......................................................................................................................... 4

Acronyms List ................................................................................................................................. 5

1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 6

2 Day 1 – 26/03/2015 .................................................................................................................. 7

2.1 Session 1: Registration and welcome ............................................................................... 7

2.2 Session 2: Opening session: crop modelling and remote sensing for agro-monitoring ...... 7

2.3 Session 3: The ERMES Project and its services ............................................................... 8

2.4 Session 4: ERMES instruments for data acquisition, access and analysis ........................ 8

2.5 Session 5: ERMES End users and their expectations / User Board Meeting ..................... 9

3 Day 2: Technical Project meeting ........................................................................................... 13

3.1 Session 1: Coordinator Recap ........................................................................................ 13

3.2 Session 2: WPs status and foreseen activities for 2015: requirements, issues and

problems ................................................................................................................................... 14

3.3 Session 3: Plan for Demonstration and validation: Expected work and responsibilities ... 21

3.4 Session 4: Management board meeting .......................................................................... 22

4 Actions List ............................................................................................................................ 23

Annex I: Meeting Agenda .............................................................................................................. 25

Annex II: User Board Report ......................................................................................................... 26


Executive summary

This Deliverable contains the minutes of the first ERMES annual meeting (An Earth obseRvation

Model based RicE information Service) project. The meeting was hosted on 26th e and 27th of

March 2015 on the premises of University of Valencia

The meeting agenda was spread on two days. In particular, the first day (26/03/2015) was

attended by more than 50 people including the Project Coordinator (PC), representatives of Project

Partners (PP) and of the Project present and potential End-Users (PU). It was dedicated mainly to:

1) Providing a general overview of the project to current and potential end-users and of its’

achievements during the first year of activities, by presenting example of ERMES products

prototypes and tools developed during 2014

2) Hosting the second ERMES User Board meeting, with the objective of collecting desiderata

and feedback from end-users regarding the foreseen ERMES products and tools.

The second day (27/03/2014) was attended by representatives of the different PP. It was

dedicated mainly to

3) Get an update on the status of the different WPs, in particular regarding deadlines related

to ERMES Millstone III.

4) Discussing and planning the activities related to the second year of the project;

This document provides a recap of the main contributions and discussions arisen during the

different sessions of the agenda, separated by the main meeting sessions.


Acronyms List

MB = Management Board

PC = Project Coordinator

PP = Project Partners

UB = Users Board


1 Introduction

This Deliverable contains the minutes of the first ERMES annual meeting (An Earth obseRvation

Model based RicE information Service) project. The meeting was hosted on 26th e and 27th of

March 2015 on the premises of University of Valencia.

The meeting was organized by UVEG and CNR-IREA personnel, and had two main objectives:

1) To describe the project objectives and preliminary results to present-day and potential

ERMES end-users, and to collect feedback from them regarding ERMES preliminary

results and their expectations/suggestions/specific requests regarding what ERMES is

going to provide them in the two “demonstration” years

2) To analyse the current status of the project, identify problems and criticalities and define

adequate time-lines and action lists towards the completion of Milestone III of the project

(Service Setup – Month 15) and the first Interim Report Meeting

The meeting agenda was spread on two days. In particular, the first day (26/03/2015) was

attended by more than 50 people including the Project Coordinator (PC), representatives of Project

Partners (PP) and of the Project present and potential End-Users (PU). It was dedicated mainly to:

1) Providing a general overview of the project to current and potential end-users and of its’

achievements during the first year of activities, by presenting example of ERMES products

prototypes and tools developed during 2014

2) Hosting the second ERMES User Board meeting, with the objective of collecting desiderata

and feedback from end-users regarding the foreseen ERMES products and tools.

The second day (27/03/2014) was attended by representatives of the different PP. It was

dedicated mainly to

3) Get an update on the status of the different WPs, in particular regarding deadlines related

to ERMES Milestone III.

4) Discussing and planning the activities related to the second year of the project;

This document provides a recap of the main contributions and discussions arisen during the

different sessions of the agenda, separated by the main meeting sessions.


2 Day 1 – 26/03/2015

The first meeting day was aimed at welcoming the meeting participants, describe the project

objectives and preliminary results to present-day and potential ERMES end-users, and to collect

feedback from them regarding ERMES preliminary results and their

expectations/suggestions/specific requests regarding what ERMES is going to provide them in the

two “demonstration” years.

The following sessions and presentations were held in this day:

2.1 Session 1: Registration and welcome

UVEG Welcome – Javier Garcia-Haro and Fernando Martínez (UVEG)

o Welcome to the meeting participants by organizer Institution

Project Coordinator Welcome - Mirco Boschetti (CNR-IREA)

o Welcome to meeting participants, general information about meeting agenda and logistic

information

2.2 Session 2: Opening session: crop modelling and remote

sensing for agro-monitoring

This session was aimed at providing ERMES present and potential and users and general public a

short divulgative introduction to the concepts of Remote Sensing and Crop Modeling and their

possible usefulness for agro-monitoring and farm management.

Two brief divulgative presentations were held in this session:

Remote sensing of agriculture: Experiences towards operational Monitoring Systems -

Francesco Holecz (SARMAP)

o Presentation on the concepts of Remote Sensing in agriculture and on the potential uses of

optical and SAR data for rice crop monitoring: main possible products and experiences of

ERMES project partners in crop monitoring several areas of the world

Crop modelling: from farming support to regional yield monitoring – Roberto Confalonieri

(UMIL)

o Presentation on the concepts of crop modelling and on the potential uses of modelling

solutions in support of agricultural monitoring at regional scale, and of farm management at

local scale


2.3 Session 3: The ERMES Project and its services

This session was aimed at describing the project objectives and preliminary results to present and

potential ERMES end-users and general public.

The following presentations were held in this session:

Project objectives, structure and status – Mirco Boschetti (CNR-IREA)

o Brief description of the ERMES projects’ main objectives and Study Areas

o Description of the ERMES approach for rice monitoring: integration of Remote Sensing, Crop

Modelling and ICT tools to provide information to authorities involved in crop monitoring and to

local farmers/cooperatives

The ERMES Regional Rice Service: providing information for monitoring the rice crop

season – Lorenzo Busetto (CNR-IREA)

o Brief description of the objectives and main foreseen products for the ERMES Regional Rice

Service

o Highlights on 2014 ERMES results: prototypes of the ERMES rice and flood maps, crop

monitoring and regional risk and yield modelling

The ERMES Local Rice Service: providing information to support management of rice

farms – Mirco Boschetti (CNR-IREA)

o Brief description of the objectives and main foreseen tools and products being developed for

the ERMES Local Rice Service

o Highlights on 2014 ERMES results: example maps related to within-farm crop variability useful

for fertilization planning and field-scale modelling results

2.4 Session 4: ERMES instruments for data acquisition, access

and analysis

This session was aimed at describing tools developed in the framework of ERMES to provide

useful information to end-users and facilitate their tasks for farm management and/or field

inspections activities

The following presentations were held in this session:


Smart applications for in field measurements: Pocket LAI and Pocket Nitrogen – Roberto

Confalonieri (UMIL)

o Brief description of two smart-apps developed by UMIL team for allowing easy and cheap

measurement of LAI and Nitrogen content in rice fields : Pocket-LAI and Pocket-N

The ERMES Regional Geoportal: presentation of first prototype – Carlos Granell (UJI)

o Practical demonstration of the main characteristics of the first prototype of the ERMES regional

service geo-portal: visualization of example ERMES products and on-the-fly generation of time-

series graphs of remote sensing data, biophysical variables and risk-alert information.

o Description of expected future functionalities: Meteorological data visualization and comparison

with Long Term Averages.

o Discussion with meeting attendees. In the discussion, both meeting attendees and ERMES

partners underlined the necessity to present information in a way that is more accessible to the

users, and that allows to better grasp the meaning of scientific information presented and of its

usefulness

Mobile applications for ground information collection and ERMES products visualization

and analysis - Sven Casteleyn (UJI)

o Practical demonstration of the foreseen characteristics of the first prototype of the ERMES

web-app for field-data collection: selection of parcels of interest and example of data collection

through a dedicated web application

o Discussion with meeting attendees. In the discussion:

o Santos Ruiz from CRDO underlined that the smart app and geoportal should allow to

visualize also information contained in the official WMS service of Spanish cadaster,

allowing them to select and visualize parcels by official polygon identifiers (Polygon and

Parcel). He also specified some desiderata for smart-app functionalities, and in

particular the desire to have a “navigation indication” useful to easily reach specific rice

parcels. UJI partner agreed to have a specific meeting with him in the post-meeting

phase to discuss on the topics raised.

2.5 Session 5: ERMES End users and their expectations / User

Board Meeting


This session was dedicated to presentations from the current ERMES end-users on their

expectations from ERMES, and on discussing the products presented in the morning1.

A self-Presentation of attendees and of their institution was first of all done by:

o Cesar Alepuz – Farmer – Spain

o Carlo Franchino – Farmer – Italy

o Christo Plastiras – Farmer – Greece

o Concha Domingo – IVIA (Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias) – Spain

o Anna Callegarin – ENR (Ente Nazionale Risi) – Italy

o Dimitrios Katsantonis – DEMETER – Greece

o Moses Abukari – IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) – United

Nations

o Lucia Peris Belenguer – TRAGSA (Empresa de Transformación Agraria, S.A) – Spain

o Arnaud Carrara – CEAM (Centro de Estudios Ambiental del Mediterraneo) - Spain

The following ERMES end-users presented then their main expectations for ERMES products and

services. Discussions occurred between attendees and PP is also reported here.

Presentation of expectations of Greek end-users for ERMES services (Dimitris Katsantonis

– DEMETER)

Description of some of the main DEMETER and Greek local farmers expectations/needs regarding

foreseen ERMES products.

Concerning DEMETER, particular interest was reported for products related to:

o Regional rice cultivated area

o Meteorological Forecasts

o Regional yield forecasting

o Regional Risk alerting

Moreover, it was stressed that:

o The regional service should produce not only maps, but also tables with numbers,

resulting from statistical analysis of results

o All the provided information should “point to” the regional policy makers

Concerning Greek farmers, interest was reported for products related to:

o Detection of poor emergence from High Resolution remote sensing images

o Detection of intra-field variability to assist nitrogen fertilization

1 A detailed description of the expectations of the different end-users regarding foreseen ERMES services

can be found in the Annex document provided alongside this deliverable.


o Detection of Rice blast zero-point and of weeds infestations (if possible)

o Early yield estimation even for comparison between cultivars (e.g. indica &

japonica), since this affect end of season prices

o Quality estimation, taking into account also the problem of Red Rice

o Yield forecasting at farm level

o Reliable systems for yield prediction and risk alerting, based on weather forecasts;

o Automatic field-positioning detection through smart apps, which should allow to

retrieve all available information regarding one field

Moreover, it was stressed that:

o Local services are the most difficult: most important thing are the users! They must

be convinced that what ERMES provide is what they need and that they are

confident of it.

o ERMES local geo-portal and smart apps should be very user friendly in order to be

useful for farmers. On this, Carlos Granell commented that it will be very important

that ERMES applications are tailored to the specific users

o All the provided information should be focused towards allowing a reduction of

costs and an improvement of the production

o FH commented that important ERMES end-users could also be the insurance

companies. In the ensuing discussion, SR underlined that, although Spanish rice

farmers are insured, incidentality is usually very low, so that costs of the insurance

are also usually low. AC underlined that, in the framework of the new CAP, farmers

are required to have a multirisk insurance. DK underlined that a potential user are

also the National agricultural Insurance Organizations of the different countries.

o Regarding the possibility of detecting weed infestations, MB underlined that it could

not be possible to detect it from satellite. CK underlined that a possibility could be to

use drones, although SR commented that drones are not allowed to fly in Spanish

protected areas, in which most of rice is cultivated

o FH commented that it would be very important to know the present cost to farmers

of activities related, for example, to crop monitoring, precision farming and pest

control, so that the added value of ERMES solutions can be better appraised

Presentation of expectations of Carlo Franchino (Italian Local User) for ERMES services

(held by Alberto Crema – CNR –IREA)

Presentation of activities conducted in Carlo Franchino’s farm in 2014 in the ERMES

framework and of expected activities for 2015

Presentation of main expectations of the user regarding ERMES product, which are related

to:


o Identification of areas with different vegetative vigor, useful to plan Operations

for correcting lack of germination, support top dressing during the season (1st and

2nd fertilization) and eventually support damage assessment

o Identification of areas with constant pattern through satellite archive images

analysis useful for characterizing the different field/part of field of the farm and

supporting basal dressing

o Availability of a smart-app to collect field data on his fields, related to a

database allowing him to keep track of the management practices and problems

encountered in the different years

Presentation of expectations of CRDO for ERMES services - Santos Ruiz (CRDO)

Presentation of main expectations of the user regarding ERMES product, which are related

to:

o Availability of tools (smart-app; geoportal) aiding in the field monitoring

activities of CRDO operators, allowing them to reduce time spent in the fields.

Particular focus was given on the fact that the ERMES smart tools should allow to

easily identify and reach specific fields according to official cadaster identifiers

(SIGPAC)

o Tools allowing to get reliable information on rice blast risk forecast

o Reliable field-level yield estimations

o Information on grain humidity. On this, FH commented that a test could be

conducted in 2015 to assess the possibility to detect grain humidity from SAR

images.

o Information on potentially blast-affected rice fields to be of aid to monitoring

efforts, since rice blast reduces quality and low-quality production is refused by

CRDO.

Presentation of IFAD and its expectations for ERMES services – Moses Abukari

Presentation of IFAD mission and their activities in west Africa

Presentation of past works of IFAD exploiting Remote Sensing for agricultural applications

Presentation of IFAD expectations regarding ERMES services, which are mainly related to:

o Estimation of rice Cultivated area

o Yield Estimation

o Analysis of irrigation patterns and single/double cropping areas

o Availability of weather forecasts

ENR – Anna Callegarin


Presentation of ENR activities in rice monitoring in Italy

Presentation of ENR expectations regarding ERMES services, as already formalized in the

SLA, which are mainly related to:

o Rice crop extent (flooding date & duration)

o Regional Yield forecasts

o Regional Yield and grain quality estimation

o Regional daily Meteorological maps

3 Day 2: Technical Project meeting

Day 2 of the meeting was dedicated to recap the activities conducted during the first year of the

project and to recap and plan activities to be conducted during the second year.

The different Actions to be performed in the next months and that were agreed upon partners are

highlighted in the document as Action XX in the text, and are summarized in § 4.

The attendants who took part to the main discussions are referred to with the following acronyms

within the document:

MB = Mirco Boschetti (CNR IREA) LB =Lorenzo Busetto (CNR IREA)

RC = Roberto Confalonieri (UMIL) DK = Dimitris Katsantonis (DEMETER)

SV = Vyzantinopoulos Spyridon (DEMETER)

GC = Granell Canut Carlos (UJI) SC = Sven Casteleyn (UJI)

CK = Christos Karydas (AUTH) FH = Francesco Holecz

SP = Stefano Pignatti (CNR-IMAA) ER = Elisabetta Ricciardelli (CNR-IMAA)

3.1 Session 1: Coordinator Recap

In this session, the Project Coordinator provided a recap on projects’ deadlines for Year 2, and on

discussions regarding users’ requirements emerged from day one of the meeting. Particular

importance was given on the importance of respecting deadlines for Milestone III and on the

importance of devising an incremental and sustainable roadmap for the Demonstration Phase in

crop season 2015. Moreover, the PC stressed the importance of replying efficiently to the external

reviewer comments on Deliverable 3.1 reported in his first annual review.


3.2 Session 2: WPs status and foreseen activities for 2015:

requirements, issues and problems

In this session, WP and task leaders presented the state of advancement of their work towards the

Milestone III deadlines, and reported problems and issues related to their specific tasks.

WP3: Users' requirements and services' evaluation - Dimitrios Katsantonis (DEMETER)

The presentation focused on illustrating the main concerns reported by the ERMES external

reviewer regarding Deliverable 3.1, and on describing the strategy that will be followed to address

them. In particular, it was underlined that:

The reviewer’s remarks will be addressed in Deliverable 3.2. However, DK underlined that it is

important to reply to the comments taking into account what was foreseen in the ERMES DOW

(e.g., a thorough socio-economical study of the rice sector in general and of the local study

areas in particular was not foreseen and would require an effort which cannot be afforded given

the work-load assigned to WP 3)

While some of the remarks can be addressed (e.g., better characterization of study areas),

reply to some others are very difficult (e.g., socioeconomic analysis, statistically significant

number of questionnaires) and also out of the scope of the project.

DEMETER will contact soon the PP to describe which information needs to be provided in the

revised description of the study areas. After that, PP will have to provide the revised

description, to be added to Deliverable D3.2. A similar, although simplified, description is

expected for the Gambia study area. (Action 1)

DEMETER also underlined that the “questionnaire” strategy for eliciting user’s requirements

was completely voluntary and not required in the DOW. Therefore, a widespread circulation of

them was not required and could not be expected. The questionnaires were meant to provide

the Consortium a “rule of thumb” understanding of user’s requirements, through involvement of

a certain number of power-users.

DEMETER provided some possible answers to some of reviewer remarks within their

presentation. These replies will have to be discussed and revised for addressing reviewer’s

comments within D3.2 and/or a formal reply to reviewer’s comments. (Action 2)

WP5: Geo-product from space-borne and in-situ data processing and integration


Task leaders of WP5 briefly described the status of their tasks. In particular, the following

presentations were held:

Task 5.2 – Rice Mapping and Spatial Variability – Francesco Holecz (SARMAP)

Description of a general overview of activities in WP5

Description of results obtained in 2014 on rice mapping: development of processing chains for

rice mapping from SAR and Optical EO data and their tests on Italy and Greece. First

validation results show very encouraging results.

Deliverables 5.4 and 5.6 are in track towards their deadline for what concerns SARMAP

contribution. Draft versions were already circulated to involved partners and SARMAP is

waiting for comments on them from AUTH and UVEG. IMAA and AUTH will have to provide

ASAP their contributions for the deliverable (Action 3)

A roadmap for product demonstration/validation phase was proposed by SARMAP, who is

waiting for PP feedback (Action 4)

Task 5.2 – Constant Patterns maps – Stefano Pignatti (CNR-IMAA)

Constant pattern maps methodology set up by IMAA on the basis of SPOT (HR1) and Landsat

(LR) inter-annual time series of images (i.e. winter images for bare soil and summer images for

biomass) was described.

Procedure can be adapted to be used in combination with in situ or available ancillary data for

each of the test sites.

Prototype products were created for Italy from SPOT and Landsat imagery, and for Spain and

Greece from Landsat imagery. However, SP underlined data available at the moment for Spain

and Greece are insufficient since they cover only one growing season (2014). Improved

datasets will have to be provided to IMAA by UVEG and AUTH to allow creating the constant

pattern maps prototypes also for these two study areas. (Action 4)

Shapefiles of polygon boundaries provided to IMAA by UVEG include really small parcels, that

cannot be exploited to detect constant patterns at Landsat-like scale. A modified shapefile will

have to be provided to IMAA soon by UVEG. The same will have to be done for Greece.

(Action 5)

FH suggested considering the possibility of using also archive SAR data for the creation of the

constant pattern maps. SP replied that it could be considered, but not in the first prototype

phase


Task 5.2 – Seasonal Patterns maps – Christos Karydas (AUTH)

Description of foreseen characteristics of Seasonal Pattern maps products (EP_L3), which

should allow to delineate homogeneous areas due to seasonal drivers (e.g., areas of the rice

parcels with different vigor/biomass)

Maps will be provided at critical dates in the season, exploiting High Resolution EO data

acquired on the local study areas. Current efforts are focused on definition of a processing

chain for optical data. Integration of SAR data will be addressed in the future

Current foreseen processing chain will focus on the use of spectral indices related to water

presence in the emergence phase, to greenness in tillering phase and to yellowness in heading

phase. Spectral indices images will be exploited to cluster the fields into homogeneous

areas. A calibration analysis will have to be done in order to assess the degree of

heterogeneity and decide on the number of classes. Usefulness of OBIA techniques will be

tested. A flow chart of the prototype processing chain was briefly described.

MB underlined that in the demonstration phase the analysis is to be done for each country by

local partners (IMAA and IREA for Italy; UVEG for Spain; AUTH for Greece). He also

underlined that timeliness is the key-factor for this product since they will be useless if provided

to local users too late to be useful for driving rice management practices such as fertilization.

Interaction with users when products are delivered will be also very important.

LB underlined that the report on processing chain definition will have to better describe the

approach, and that examples of application of the processing chain on 2014 HR imagery

(WorldView and SPOT) available in Italy should be made. (Action 6)

Task 5.3 - Crop bio-physical parameters and phenology – Javier Garcia-Haro (UVEG) and


JG described activities conducted towards the definition of processing chains for LAI mapping

at regional and local scale.

Regarding mapping at regional scale, prototypes processing chains for production of near real

time LAI maps on the ERMES 2x2 km regional grids are completed. They exploit both

Copernicus Global Land products (GEOV1 LAI/FAPAR) and MODIS LAI products (MOD15A2).

Copernicus and MODIS products show similar spatio-temporal patterns, although MODIS LAI

is noisier and show some problems of underestimation in the Greek area, probably due to land


cover missassignments .Copernicus will be therefore used as the main source of data, while

MODIS will be kept as a back-up solution.

Regarding LAI mapping at local scale from Landsat-like data, a standard pre-processing chain,

for OLI data was developed and is ready to be used. It includes atmospheric correction, cloud

masking and resizing on ERMES study areas.

An improved processing chain, allowing for cloud gap-filling and exploitation of SLC-OFF gap-

filled LANDSAT 7 data for increasing acquisition frequency was also developed. Since it cannot

be used for NRT applications, it will be tested in post-processing (i.e., at the end of the season)

to check its impact on quality of LAI time series and their usefulness for model simulations

A processing chain for creation of LAI maps from OLI imagery exploiting inversion of a

Radiative Transfer Model (PROSAIL) was developed and tested in Spain and Italy. Prototype

maps were produced and are currently being analyzed and compared with field measurements

conducted in 2014. Some problems were reported due to differences in LAI definition (e.g., OLI

data inversion provide a green LAI estimation, while measurements in Italy in the late growing

season provide a total PAI (Plant Area Index) value.

It should be noted since the OLI inversion method does not address the clumping within the

canopy volume, retrievals are closer to an effective LAI. This also applies to optical instruments

used to measure LAI, which typically rely on the Beer law. A decision will have to be made on

whether to provide True or Effective LAI maps (Action 7)

FH and MB commented that it is very important to define dates of LAI field measurements for

2015 related to satellite acquisition and to precisely define measurement protocols (Action 8)

LB described activities conducted in the first year for development of processing chains for

phenological mapping. Prototype softwares were developed and are ready to be used for the

2015 growing season. A monthly update of phenological maps is being considered. The maps

will provide estimations of sowing dates (At mid-June), sowing dates and emergence dates (at

mid-July), and sowing dates, emergence dates and heading dates (at mid-august). A draft

document describing the processing chain will be made available soon for inclusion in D5.8

deliverable (Action 9).

Task 5.4 - Processing chain for Meteorological variables – Elisabetta Ricciardelli (CNR-

IMAA)


ER described the activities conducted in 2014 regarding development of the meteorological

data archives and the processing chains for NRT production of meteorological maps at 2x2 km

resolution for ERMES regional study areas.

One processing chain was developed. This processing chain uses exclusively the ECMWF

ERA Interim data and produces daily meteorological maps for the study areas located in Italy,

Spain and Greece

The meteorological archives collect the meteorological data derived from the ECMWF ERA-

Interim dataset (ERA-Interim is a global atmospheric reanalysis from 1979, continuously

updated in real time) from 01/01/2000 to 31/12/2014 for the three areas of interest located in

Italy, Spain and Greece. In addition, because of the availability of the ground station meteo

data for the Italian area of interest, further meteo archives have been developed: a second

dataset implemented by the interpolation of the ground station meteo data collected between

01/01/2000 to 30/06/2014, and a third dataset implemented by considering both ground station

meteo data and ECMWF ERA-Interim meteo data. The second and third meteorological

archives were implemented only in Italy due to lack of sufficient ground stations data in Spain

and Greece. “Archive” datasets for the 2000-2014 period were created and deployed in the UJI

FTP folder structure.

Processing chains for automatic daily data creation and deployment were also created, and are

already being used to constantly update the ERMES meteo datasets in the UJI FTP folder

structure.

Processing chains for automatic creation of 2x2 km maps of forecasted meteo data in the three

study areas are currently being developed and should be ready for May

Initial work was conducted on development of processing chains for retrieval of some

meteorological variables at local scale from METEOSAT imagery

RC commented that it will be important to decide on how to deal with eventual “NODATA”

values in the meteo time series, since the modelling solutions doesn’t allow actually to cope

with NODATA values (Action 10).

WP 6 - Geo-information from crop modeling and EO product assimilation – Roberto

Confalonieri (UMIL)

RC described briefly work conducted on the development of ERMES modelling solutions. Both

modelling solutions and the first prototype of the EO assimilation technique (including only


Forcing) are ready. Work was already conducted towards the use of more complex EO data

assimilation techniques (i.e., recalibration). These will be tested during the demonstration

phase.

Some changes were made with respect to what foreseen in the DOW. In particular, it was

decided to use the same simplified approach for hydrological modelling in the regional and

local modelling solution, due to the too high requirements of the more complex solutions

originally foreseen for the local solutions in terms of input data. RC asked approval of this

decision by the PC, who replied positively.

WP7 - Geo-services for information management: Integration and Communication - Sven

Casteleyn (UJI)

SC described briefly work already conducted on the development of ERMES geoportal and

smart app, towards Milestone III, which was already illustrated in Day 1 of the meeting

SC asked that priorities to be decided upon regarding improvement on regional geo-portal and

smart-app to be implemented for the Deliverable 7.4 and 7.7 deliverables. It was decided that

this will be agreed upon with the PC in the next two weeks (Action 11)

SC provided some hints on the next steps to be taken regarding improving functionalities of the

ERMES geoportal and smart-app. Priorities on these possible functionalities will have to be

decided with the PC (Action 11).

RC underlined that a very important functionality for the smart app will be its capability to work

off-line

WP10: Market analysis and business model development (Francesco Holecz)

FH described current activities being conducted for WP10 by SARMAP in collaboration with

Christian Biener (University of St. Gallen).

An analysis of current rice-monitoring activities at international level was conducted. It

highlighted that no activities are actually active in Europe and West Africa. These should be

therefore the focus areas for ERMES.

Since external reviewer underlined that the market analysis should focus also on Europe,

SARMAP prepared a specific questionnaire to be proposed to possible local users (farmers),

which will help in the market analysis phase.


FH asked for support to contact users and ask them to fill in the questionnaires to the different

PP. A deadline for questionnaire filling (about 50 per country) was proposed for the end of May

(Action 12)

WP11: Dissemination and promotion - Spyros Vizantinopoulos (DEMETER)

SV gave an overview of dissemination activities already conducted and highlighted that

ERMES already did a lot of work on the topic.

SV gave many proposals aimed to improve the dissemination and impact of ERMES results,

among which:

o Differentiate the contents of the leaflets/brochures according to users groups

o Consider that everyone can be an end-user (e.g. high-level authorities such as the

ministry of agriculture)

o Consider that the dissemination plan should cover all stages of the project (starting

phase, during the project, end of project and at least one year after)

o Focusing on local users (farmers/cooperatives/etc.):

Periodical meetings with selected leader growers should be planned to explain

results and their usefulness.

Simple and effective leaflets should be prepared

Final annual open-day where end-users participation should be planned in the

three countries

These activities however have a cost, and allocated budget in ERMES is

probably not sufficient

o Focusing on local users secondary sector (dealers, processors, traders)

Mailing lists should be prepared, and ERMES results disseminated through

appropriate newsletters

Material provided to these users should focus on results regarding yield and

quality estimation

o Focusing on regional authorities:

Reports on the significance and impact of the project in local and regional

agriculture should be provided

Meeting with competent authorities should also be planned

Proposals for incorporating the project results in future agricultural programs at

local and regional level should be made

o Focusing on for central governments

Pressure for achieving a follow up research or dissemination project funded by

the competent ministry of agriculture should be made

MB underlined the importance of the role of Demeter in this WP, who should lead and

coordinate the effort

LB, JG commented on the importance to have appropriate material to show to the users


CK underlined the importance to disseminate results also to the scientific community, since

ERMES is a scientific project. CK reported the positive feedback after the presentation at the

Third International Conference on Remote Sensing (March 16-19, 2015 King Evelthon Hotel -

Paphos, Cyprus) of AUTH work conducted in rice mapping. CK highlighted how a

representative of the GEOGLAM underlined the importance of the work presented.

RC commented that UMIL is currently organizing a workshop on crop modelling in Milano for

October 2015 (AGMIP 2015), and that could be a good opportunity to describe ERMES results

to the scientific community.

3.3 Session 3: Plan for Demonstration and validation:

Expected work and responsibilities

In this session, the Project Coordination Team provided a recap on future activities required in for

Work Packages 8 and 9, related to Service Demonstration and Services Technical and Scientific

Validation.

WP9: Service Demonstration: responsibilities and roadmap - Lorenzo Busetto (CNR-IREA)

LB presented the foreseen work required for WP 9 in 2015, which will be mostly related to:

o Demonstrating that the processing chains for EO product/WARM results are operational

(even “gradually”) and allow to provide the expected outputs for the 2015 crop season

o Demonstrating that the geoportal is able to retrieve and visualize information

o Demonstrating that the smart app is able to record information and send it to the SDI

o Demonstrating that the products are provided with the expected timeliness

LB provided a recap of WP organization and responsibilities for its main tasks

LB provided a tentative roadmap on activities to be conducted regarding ERMES products

generation and deployment during 2015 in order to fulfill requirements of WP 9. It was agreed

that a revised document detailing the roadmap will be provided to each PP in the next weeks

so to agree on activities to be performed in the next months (Action 13)

WP 8: scientific and technical validation of product and services - Lorenzo Busetto (CNR-

IREA)

LB presented the foreseen work required for WP 8 in 2015, which will be mostly related to:


o Defining validation strategies and protocols

o Perform field data collection to provide independent data for the validation of the

following products:

Rice crop maps

LAI High resolution maps

Yield estimation at local and regional scale

o Performing the validation on ERMES 2015 products

LB provided a recap of WP organization and responsibilities for its main tasks

LB will provide a tentative roadmap on activities to be conducted regarding field data

acquisition to be counduceted in 2015 in order to fulfill requirements of WP 8. It was agreed

that this information will be included in the Road map document (Action 13)

3.4 Session 4: Management board meeting

The session had to be skipped due to lack of time. It was agreed that a management board

meeting will be held via skype call in the next month to

i) discuss roadmaps provided by CNR-IREA on activities of WPs 8 and 9,

ii) further discuss on first year of activities and approve the action list reported in Section 4

of the present document

iii) define venue and tentative dates for the First interim meeting with REA and external

reviewer (Action 14).


4 Actions List

Action What Who When

Action 1 Contact the PP to describe which information needs to be provided in the revised description of the study areas. After that, PP will have to provide the revised description, to be added to Deliverable D3.2. A similar, although simplified, description is expected for the Gambia study area.

DEMETER End of

April

Action 2 Provided answers to some of reviewer remarks. These replies will have to be discussed and revised to provide a formal reply to reviewer’s comments.

DEMETER End of

April

Action 3 Draft versions were of D5.4 ad 5.6 already circulated to involved partners and SARMAP is waiting for comments on them from AUTH and UVEG. IMAA and AUTH will have to provide ASAP their contributions for the deliverable.

AUTH,

IMAA,

UVEG

Middle of

April

Action 4 IMAA underlined that data available at the moment for Spain and Greece are insufficient for EP_L3 prototype generation since they cover only one growing season (2014). Improved datasets will have to be provided to IMAA to allow creating the constant pattern maps prototypes also for these two study areas.

UVEG,

AUTH

Middle of

April

Action 5 Shapefiles of polygon boundaries provided to IMAA by UVEG include really small parcels, that cannot be exploited to detect constant patterns at Landsat-like scale. A modified shapefile will have to be provided to IMAA soon by UVEG. The same will have to be done for Greece.

UVEG,

AUTH

Beginning

of April

Action 6 Report on processing chain definition for EP_L2 will have to better describe the approach, and that examples of application of the processing chain on 2014 HR imagery (WorldView and SPOT) available in Italy should be made.

AUTH End of

April

Action 7 A decision on whether to provide True or Effective LAI maps in relation to crop model needs, radiative transfer model approach and field data measurements

UVEG Beginning

of May

Action 8 Define a protocol for LAI measurements that includes also dates of field LAI acquisition for 2015 related to satellite overpass.

UVEG Beginning

of May

Action 9 A draft document describing the processing chain to be included in D5.8 deliverable.

IREA Middle of

April

Action 10 Decide on how to deal with eventual “NODATA” values in the meteo time series, since the modelling solutions doesn’t allow actually to cope with NODATA values.

UMIL Middle of

April


Action 11 Provision of an analysis of work required to finalize prototypes of regional geo-portal and smart-app to be implemented for the Deliverable 7.4 and 7.8 deliverables.

The document should provide some hints on the next steps to be taken regarding improving functionalities of the ERMES geoportal and smart-app. Priorities on these possible functionalities will have to be decided with the PC.

UJI Middle of

April

Action 12 Fill in the questionnaires for the Market Analysis. Support of local partner is needed to identify farmers/cooperative and help them in filling in the questionaries’ (about 50 per country)

IREA, UMIL

(IT)

UJI, UVEG

(SP)

DEMETER

(GR)

End of

May

Action 13 Provision of a document detailing a tentative roadmap on activities to be conducted regarding ERMES products generation and deployment during 2015 in order to fulfill requirements of WP 9. Aim of the document is to agree on activities to be performed in the next months.

The document will include also the validation activities required by WP8

IREA Middle of

April

Action 14 Skype call for Management board to discuss and approve:

i) roadmaps provided by CNR-IREA on activities of WPs 8 and 9,

ii) first year of activities and approve the action list reported in Section 4 of the present document

iii) venue and tentative dates for the First interim meeting with REA and external reviewer.

IREA End of

April


Annex I: Meeting Agenda

ERMES 1st Annual Meeting – Agenda Page 1 of 7

FP7-SPACE 2013-1 - Grant n° 606983

ERMES first annual meeting

March 26–27, 2015

Valencia, Spain

-

Agenda


Objectives and General Structure of the meeting

The meeting will have two main objectives:

1) To describe the project objectives and preliminary results to present-day and potential

ERMES end-users, and to collect feedback from them regarding ERMES preliminary

results and their expectations/suggestions/specific requests regarding what ERMES is

going to provide them in the two “demonstration” years

2) To analyse the current status of the project, identify problems and criticalities and define

adequate time-lines and action lists towards the completion of Milestone III of the project

(Service Setup – Month 15) and the first Interim Report Meeting

The first day of the meeting will be dedicated to an “open” meeting with present and potential

users, authorities and general public. The morning will be dedicated to the presentation of the

project, its preliminary results and the tools ERMES will provide to the User to collect field data and

visualise/analyse ERMES product. The afternoon will be dedicated to Users’ presentation (i.e.

expectation and interests), constitution of the User Board and discussion with users to collect their

feedback.

The second day of the meeting will be restricted to partners. In the first part, WP and Task leader

will report on the current status of their work, activities towards Milestone III and potential problems

and issues. In the second part, future activities related to WP 8 and WP 9 will be discussed.

Finally, a restricted management board session will focus on specific coordination/management

topics, and on wrapping-up the results of the meeting.


Day 1 - 26/03/2015

Day 1 – “Open day” with public, authorities and users

MORNING – 8:45 – 9:30

1 Session 1: Registration and welcome 08:45 – 9:30

o Welcome from the organizer 09:15 – 09:20

o Welcome from authorities 09:20 – 09:25

o Welcome from Project Coordinator (Mirco Boschetti) 09:25 – 09:30

2 Session 2: Opening session: crop modelling and remote sensing for agro-monitoring 9:30 – 10:00

o Remote sensing of agriculture: Experiences towards operational Monitoring Systems

(Francesco Holecz)

o Crop modelling: from farming support to regional yield monitoring (Roberto Confalonieri)

3 Session 3: The ERMES Project and its services – Part 1 10:00 – 10:40

o Project objectives, structure and status (Mirco Boschetti) 10:00 – 10:15

o The ERMES Regional Rice Service : providing information for monitoring the rice crop

season (Lorenzo Busetto) 10:15 – 10:40

Coffee Break 10:40 – 11:05

4 Session 3: The ERMES Project and its services – Part 2 11:05 – 11:40

o The ERMES Local Rice Service: providing information to support management of rice farms

(Mirco Boschetti) 11:05 – 11:30

o Future perspectives from the Sentinel mission (Mirco Boschetti) 11:30 – 11:40

5 Session 4: ERMES instruments for data acquisition, access and analysis 11:40 – 13:00

o Smart applications for in field measurements: Pocket LAI and Pocket Nitrogen

(Roberto Confalonieri)

o Web and mobile applications for ground information collection and ERMES products

visualisation and analysis (Sven Casteleyn)

13:00 – 14:00: Lunch

AFTERNOON – 14:00 – 17:30

6 Session 5: ERMES End users and their expectations 14:00 – 15:10

o Regional Users 14:00 – 14:30

o DEMETER (GR), Ente Nazionale Risi (IT), Regione Lombardia (IT) (To be cofirmane)

o Local Users 14:30 – 15:00

o Carlo Franchino (IT), Spyridon Vyzantinopoulos (GR), Santos Ruiz (ES) (To be

confirmed)

o International Users 15:00 – 15:10

o IFAD (Moses Abukari)

7 Session 6: User Board Meeting 15:10 – 17:20

lead by DEMETER

o What does it mean to be a ERMES user ?

o What is provided and what is “requested” (SLA and EID)

o Self-presentation of participants

o Open Discussion on the following topics:

o Feedback on foreseen products/services

o Specific and Desiderata regarding ERMES products/services to be taken into account for

ERMES year 2

Data to be collected in field using the Smart App or through web portal

Information we are willing/able to provide (e.g., info for pest management,

fertilization management, etc.)

o Definition of satisfaction criteria to be used/considered in the service evaluation

o From data to useful information: how to bridge the gap !

o How to involve more users: suggestions from Users !

o Other

16:15 – 16:30 : Coffee Break

21:00: Social Dinner

Day 2 - 27/03/2015

Day 2: Technical Project meeting - restricted to partners

Morning Session 9.15 -12.30

8 Session 1: Coordinator Recap 09:15 – 09:35

o Analysis of first year of work and criticalities for M14 (Milestone III)

o Analysis of Reviewer suggestions and criticalities to be addressed

o First year of demonstration and “Obligations” for M18 (Interim Review Meeting)

9 Session 2: WPs status and foreseen activities for 2015: requirements, issues and problems – Part 1 09:35 – 10:50

o WP3: Users' requirements and services' evaluation - Dimitrios Katsantonis 09:35 – 09:50

o WP5: Geo-product from space-borne and in-situ data processing and integration – Javier

Garcia-Haro

09:50 – 11:20

Coffee Break 10:50 – 11:05

10 Session 2: WPs status and foreseen activities for 2015: requirements, issues and problems – Part 2 11:05 – 12:30

o WP6 - Geo-information from crop modeling and EO product assimilation 11:20 – 11:40

(Roberto Confalonieri)

o WP7 - Geo-services for information management: Integration and Communication

(Sven Casteleyn) 11:40 – 12:00

o WP10: Market analysis and business model development (Francesco Holecz) 12:00-12:20

o WP11: Dissemination and promotion (Dimitris Katsandonis) 12:20 – 12:40

Lunch: 12:40 – 13:30

Afternoon Session 13:30 -17.30

11 Session 3: Plan for Demonstration and validation: Expected work and responsibilities 13:30 – 15:00

o WP9: Service demonstration (45 min)

o WP8: Scientific and technical validation of product and services (45 min)

12 Session 4: Management board meeting 15:00 – 17:30

(lead by IREA)

o Actions towards improving User involvement

o Feedback from partners on coordination activities in year 1: criticalities and suggestions

o Analysis of problems and criticalities reported by WP/task leaders during the meeting

16:15 – 16:30 : Coffee Break

o Financial aspects

o Agreement on Action Lists towards Milestone 3 and Interim Review Meeting

o Other Issues

o Open Discussion

Session 5: Wrap-up and conclusions

D2.5 1st annual project meeting minutes Page 26 of 26

Annex II: User Board Report

FP7-SPACE 2013-1 - Grant n° 606983

User Board meeting

User presentation and requirements

Task Task Leader

T3.1 - User requirements and case study definition Dimitris Katsantonis (DEMETER)

Work Package Work Package Leader

WP3: Users' requirements and services' evaluation Dimitris Katsantonis (DEMETER)

Internal Report Deliverable Name

- User Board meeting

User presentation and requirements

- Delivery Date

- 07/04/2015

Author(s)

Dimitris Katsantonis (DEMETER)


Mirco Boschetti (CNR-IREA)

Francesco Holecz (SARMAP)

Reviewers Reviewer 1 Coordination Team

Reviewer 2 Coordination Team

Version 1.0

State Final

Dissemination Level Restricted

D1.7 1st Interim review meeting minutes Page 2 of 24

Document History

Actor Date Version Description

Mirco Boschetti 5/04/2015 1.0 First Draft

Francesco Holecz 6/04/2015 1.0 Approval

Dimitriso Katsantonis 14/04/2015 2.0 Draft

Mirco Boschetti 5/04/2015 1.0 Fiinal version

Disclaimer

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research,

technological development and demonstration under grant agreement n° 606983.

All intellectual property rights are owned by the ERMES consortium members and are protected by the

applicable laws. Except where otherwise specified, all document contents are: “© ERMES – FP7 Project - All

rights reserved”. Reproduction is not authorized without prior written agreement. All ERMES FP7 consortium

members have agreed to full publication of this document. The commercial use of any information contained

in this document may require a license from the owner of that information.

All information in this document is provided "as is" and no guarantee or warranty is given that the information

is fit for any particular purpose. The user thereof uses the information at its sole risk. Both ERMES FP7

consortium members and the European Commission cannot accept liability for any inaccuracies or omissions

nor do they accept liability for any direct, indirect, special, consequential or other losses or damages of any

kind arising out of the use of this information.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Executive summary .................................................................................................................. 5

2 List of participant to the User Board meeting ............................................................................ 5

2.1 Spanish............................................................................................................................. 5

2.2 Italian ................................................................................................................................ 5

2.3 Greek ................................................................................................................................ 5

2.4 Extra European ................................................................................................................. 5

3 Recap of User board aim ......................................................................................................... 7

4 Summary of information provided to users ............................................................................... 7

4.1 What does it mean to be an ERMES user ......................................................................... 7

4.2 What you get from ERMES ............................................................................................... 8

4.3 What is required from you ................................................................................................. 8

4.4 ERMES project status: from prototype to demonstration ................................................... 8

4.4.1 First project year (2014) ............................................................................................. 8

5 User Presentation .................................................................................................................... 9

5.1 Dimitrios Katsantonis: expectation from DEMETER and Greek farmers needs ................. 9

5.2 Moses Abukari: IFAD role and The Gambia request from ERMES .................................... 9

5.3 Alberto Crema (CNR-IREA) for Carlo Franchino (Italian Farmer): Rice Italian precision

farmer expectation ....................................................................................................................... 9

5.4 Santos Ruiz: tools to support inspection activities of CRDO and farmer management

practices .................................................................................................................................... 10

5.5 Anna Callegarin (Ente Nazionale Risi): An Italian institutional user of the RRS ............... 10

6 End user requirement summary ............................................................................................. 11

7 Other users ............................................................................................................................ 18

7.1 Italy ................................................................................................................................. 18

7.2 Greece ............................................................................................................................ 19

7.3 International .................................................................................................................... 20


Report ANNEX I ............................................................................................................................ 21

Additional User requirements reported by Partners in the Valencia user board ............................. 21

Report ANNEX II ........................................................................................................................... 24

SLA status .................................................................................................................................... 24

Greece ...................................................................................................................................... 24

Italy ........................................................................................................................................... 24

SPAIN ....................................................................................................................................... 24

International .............................................................................................................................. 24

1 Executive summary

This document reports a summary of the second User Board session held in Valencia the 26th of

March during the First ERMES annual meeting.

The User Board session, led by Dimitris Katsantonis (DEMETER), was opened by ERMES user’

presentations and followed by open discussion regarding the morning presentation of ERMES

products and services (see figure 1).

2 List of participant to the User Board meeting

2.1 Spanish

Santos Ruiz D.O.P VALENCIA RICE (CRDO)

Cesar Alepuz – Farmer

Concha Domingo – IVIA (Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias) – rice

production unit

Josè Blasco IVIA (Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias) - detection

technology unit

Lucia Peris Belenguer – TRAGSA (Empresa de Transformación Agraria, S.A)

Rafael Peros Ruiz - TRAGSA (Empresa de Transformación Agraria, S.A)

Piedad Subiranas Heredia TRAGSA (Empresa de Transformación Agraria, S.A)

Arnaud Carrara – CEAM (Centro de Estudios Ambiental del Mediterraneo)

2.2 Italian

Anna Callegarin: Ente Nazionale Risi

Mr Carlo Franchino: Precision Farmer and deputy of Distretto agricolo "Risaie della Lomellina"

2.3 Greek

Dimitrios Katsantonis: DEMETER

Mr Christos Plastiras: Rice grower and rice crop service provider

2.4 Extra European

Moses Abukari – IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) – United

Nations

a b

c d

e f

Figure 1: User board meeting (a 6 b). Moses Abukari – Africa (c), Dimitrios Katsantonis – Greece (d), Santos

Ruiz – Spain (e) and Anna Callegarin – Italy (f)

3 Recap of User board aim

The User Board (UB) is an important part of the ERMES project. It will represent the interests and

points of view of the end-user. UB brings to the project the users’ interests and helps to better

shape ERMES services beyond the use cases directly addressed within the project. In fact, the

members of the UB act as a sounding board for quality and relevance of the products and services

developed.

Different End-Users (ERMES-User) have been identified and involved in the project at proposal

stage by ERMES partners in each study area among public authorities and private operators of the

agro-sector. ERMES-Users have been contacted exploiting relations consolidated in previous

projects or taking advantage of existing local networks. During the first year of the project

additional potential users have been involved. The User Board held in Valencia was also the

opportunity to show to Spanish stake holder and operator of agro sector the opportunity from

ERMES.

User Board had the aim of:

discuss the products/tools participant had seen in the mooring presentation

identify which products participant find more interesting to contribute to his work

Help ERMES consortium in further defining characteristics of the products in terms of

Information content requested

Characteristics of the product

Timeliness of the product

How to access the information

4 Summary of information provided to users

Here follow the content of the presentation provided by Project Coordinator to better explain the

participant what can be achieved participating as End User to the project.

4.1 What does it mean to be an ERMES user

Participate to the project by expressing interest in testing ERMES product and services

Help us in better understand how the foreseen product can be of help in your work

Work together to better develop the products for yours needs

Evaluate the usefulness of the products/services we provide

4.2 What you get from ERMES

Possibility to access all products and information developed in the project and use them for your work

Possibility to directly collaborate with ERMES staff to get a full understanding of potentialities of space technology, ICT tools and crop modelling for agro-monitoring activities

«capacity building & technological transfer»;

Possibility to use an innovative system for crop monitoring to support

Regional authorities in the implementation of agro-envir. policies

Union and farmers for local field inspection and management

4.3 What is required from you

To formally express your interest and sign a «service level agreement» that specifies

what we will provide to you

To participate in the «Service Demonstration» phase by:

Interacting with us in the products development and fine tuning

Evaluating the usefulness of our products at the end of the 2015-2016 crop season

and their potential use in your current work flow

Providing information/data useful for products development/validation

4.4 ERMES project status: from prototype to demonstration

4.4.1 First project year (2014)

ERMES scientific partners have collect first draft of User requirements develop the first

prototype

Some Users have already manifest their interest and specified what the would like to test

from ERMES foreseen services for 2015-2016

5 User Presentation

5.1 Dimitrios Katsantonis: expectation from DEMETER and

Greek farmers needs

D. Katsantonis and C. Plastiras showed in a combined presentation, due to the fact that Mr

Plastiras does not speak English, the user requirements on the regional and local level, starting by

defining what an end-user is. Furthermore, they described the regional and local rice service

requirements. Also, the presented their needs concerning the final output of both services as a web

interface portal and in the form of issued bulletins. Furthermore, an idea concerning the local

service will be the development of an interactive smart application that could provide online in situ

services. They concluded that if ERMES service is accurately developed would be of a great

assistance of the rice sector even in the rice policy making level.

5.2 Moses Abukari: IFAD role and The Gambia request from

ERMES

Moses Abukari presented IFAD mission and their activities in west Africa. Moses illustrated past

works of IFAD exploiting Remote Sensing for agricultural applications (ESA project

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/A_helping_hand_from_above_for_The_Ga

mbia). IFAD in ERMES is acting as facilitator for the relation with The Gambia ministry of

agriculture. IFAD/The Gambia expectations regarding ERMES services are mainly related to: i)

Estimation of rice Cultivated area; ii) Yield Estimation; iii) Analysis of irrigation patterns and

single/double cropping areas and iv) Availability of weather forecasts

5.3 Alberto Crema (CNR-IREA) for Carlo Franchino (Italian

Farmer): Rice Italian precision farmer expectation

Alberto Crema illustrated the activities conducted in Carlo Franchino’s farm in 2014 in the ERMES

framework and of expected activities for 2015. Alberto Crema presented the main expectations of

the user (representing rice farmer) regarding ERMES products to be use in support to crop

management: i) Identification of areas with different vegetative vigor, useful to plan Operations

for correcting lack of germination, support top dressing during the season (1st and 2nd fertilization)

and eventually support damage assessment; ii) Identification of areas with constant pattern

through satellite archive images analysis useful for characterizing the different field/part of field of

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/A_helping_hand_from_above_for_The_Gambia

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/A_helping_hand_from_above_for_The_Gambia

the farm and supporting basal dressing and iii) Availability of a smart-app to collect field data

on his fields, related to a database allowing him to keep track of the management practices and

problems encountered in the different years

5.4 Santos Ruiz: tools to support inspection activities of

CRDO and farmer management practices

Carlos Ruis presented the main expectations of the user regarding ERMES product, which are

related to: i) Availability of tools (smart-app; geoportal) aiding in the field monitoring

activities of CRDO operators, allowing them to reduce time spent in the fields. Particular focus

was given on the fact that the ERMES smart tools should allow to easily identify and reach specific

fields according to official cadaster identifiers (SIGPAC); ii) tools able to get reliable field-level

yield estimations; iii) Information on potentially blast-affected rice fields to be of aid to

monitoring efforts, since rice blast reduces quality and low-quality production is refused by CRDO.

Finally Santos indicated that information on grain humidity in the field in specific moment

would be of great help in particular because this information is requested by mill company

5.5 Anna Callegarin (Ente Nazionale Risi): An Italian

institutional user of the RRS

Anna Callegarin presented the the importance of Italian rice agriculture and the institutional role of

Ente Nazionale Risi in rice monitoring. Anna Callegarin mentioned that the ENR expectations

regarding ERMES services, as already formalized in the SLA, and are related to: i) Rice crop

extent (flooding date & duration); ii) Regional Yield forecasts; iii) Regional Yield and grain quality

estimation and iv) Regional daily Meteorological maps

6 End user requirement summary

Greek Actor

User Desiderata/need How it is performed now Requirements Feasibility Research

topic ERMES

product/service Priority

DEMETER: interest as Greek

agriculture research institute

Cultivated area It is provided by OPEKEPE (Greek Payment Authority of Common

Agricultural Policy Aid Schemes)** Early estimate High

Rice crop extent (EP_R1)

1

Yield forecast Not supporting activities After the middle of August until

September Medium/high

Yield forecast and end of season

estimation (EI_R2&R4)

2

Risk alerts Not supporting activities In time for issuing

warnings Medium/high

Crop monitoring information and

tools (EI_R1) 2

Meteorological forecast

National or local weather forecasts

Frequent Medium/high Regional

meteorological variable (EP_R4)

1

Agro bulletin Not supporting activities in

national level

A cumulative bulletin in late

August Medium/high

Crop monitoring information and tools (EI_R1)***

1

* Cultivated area from OPEKEPE is acquired through farmer declaration. In the begging of each cultivation period farmers have to go to the local offices of OSDE (Single Payment

Applications). Using their VAT number they declare by submitting online the kind and the area of the cultivation. In the case of rented land, they have to submit the original rent

contracts. For rice in our case submissions are carried out between March and the 15th of May. OPEKEPE already holds past satellite/aerial images as in most cases the rice

paddies structure remains similar. Every year OPEKEPE checks out with new satellite/aerial images the integrity of the application data.

**Ermes can provide information and tools for the redaction of agro-bulletin. These documents must be created by the local authority with a mandate/interest in that. ERMES

consortium can contribute providing all the support for data interpretation and use of the tools provided.

Greek Farmer

User Desiderata/need How it is performed

now Requirements Feasibility Research topic

ERMES product/service

Priority

DEMETER: expression of Greek farmer

interest

Weed infestation Visual inspection of the

paddies

A rough estimation of

weeds’ infestation

incidence in the paddies

Low

Very challenging. Potentially very high resolution data also from drone could be

used to identify patches in the fields

none 2

Yield map pattern Limited application of NDVI tractor facilities

Provide info on field variability

Medium/high Yield map pattern

(EI_L1) 2

N surface fertilisation timing assistance

Agro-sector support and Visual inspection

of the paddies In time Medium

Biomass seasonal pattern maps

(EP_L3) and EI_L1 1

Abiotic stresses (low or high temperatures)

Visual inspection of the paddies in early stages

In time Medium Crop monitoring information and

tools (EI_R1) 2

Biotic stresses (Rice blast)

Weather forecast and/or visual

inspection of the paddies

In time Medium/high Risk Alert (EI_R3) 1

Quality estimates No supporting

activities Before

harvesting Medium/high

Yield estimation and grain quality (EI_R4)

3

Poor emergence Visual inspection of the

paddies Early stages Medium/high

Biomass seasonal pattern maps

(EP_L3) 1

Meteorological forecast National or local meteorological

forecasts Frequent Medium/high

Local Meteo variables (EP_L5)

2

Italian Farmer




Priority

Italian farmer

Support for basic fertilization

Support from agri support technician/consultant.

Rarely soil measurements are performed

Provide info on field variability

High - Constant pattern

(EP_L2)

Support for poor emergence

Visual inspection of the paddies

Maps at early stage (from emerge to

tillering) that highlight pattern of low biomass

High

Seasonal Patter (EP_L3)

N surface fertilization

Support from agri support technician/consultant..

Information on plant status in key moment prior to top dressing

fertilisation

Medium

Development of smart app to quantitative

indicate Nitrogen level

Seasonal pattern (EP_L3)

Identification of Spatio and temporal variability in the field

Specific management practices according to

variety

Information on the moment

Medium Model estimation of development stage

(EI_L1)

Support for fungicide application against blast

fungus


Rational information to highlight when the risk

is high Medium

Model estimation of

blast risk (EI_L2)

Tools for field inspection and recording of agro-

practises and/or constraints observed in the field

Visual inspection of the paddies

info acquired by smart app in a database

available to be analysed

High

SMART APP and Web portal

Italian Authority

User Desiderata/need How it is performed now Requirements Feasibility Research

topic ERMES


ENR

Needs to provide figures of annual rice cultivated area for the different commercial varieties

From direct request to rice farmer*

Provide figure of cultivated area at mid july

High Rice crop extent (EP_R1) 1

Needs to acquire information on the agro-practices

- Information available at mid July

High Fusion of SAR and Optical data

Provision of flood dynamics for each available EO data**

2

Provide yield estimation

From direct farmers declaration, acquisition of information in field by ENR technicians and statistical interpretation of data

Forecast in August and final yield at the end of September

High Yield forecast and end of season estimation (EI_R2&R4)

1

Information useful to analyze the crop season

From expert knowledge and farm visit

Meteorological data and risk indicator

High Risk Alert (EI_R3) and Regional meteorological variable (EP_R4)

1

Exploitation of web tools to access the information

- Geoportal functionality

Geoportal and Crop monitoring information and tools (EI_R1*)

1

* From personal communication of Bruno Marabelli (ENR, data manager) only 25 % of farmers provides information in July

** Not foreseen as ERMES product. It will be generated to match End User request. It will be provided as separate layer and/or flag of EP_R1

Service Level Agreement with Ente Nazionale Risi was already signed.

Spanish Authority


now Requirements Feasibility

Research topic


Priority

CRDO

Tools to assess if farmer work properly

obliged to visit an aleatory number of fields in order to prove that our farmers

are working properly

- HIgh - Smart app and

geoportal

To provide tools to indicate the rice fields that appear to be under

risks in order to visit them for inspections

Field visit and visual assessment

Reduce time in field. Prioritization of

intervention Standardization of data

information

HIgh


Identification of Spatio and temporal variability

in the field

High - Smart app and web

interface to collect field data (EP_L6)

1

Identification of variety Field visit and visual assessment



Acquisition of information at field level

Support to reach a specific field where inspection must be

performed

Very Low

Smart app and web interface to collect field

data (EP_L6)

Crop damages Low

Weeds Very Low

Lodging Medium

Yield Estimation

Self-declaration of the farmer

Performed at the milling

Tools to support control Provide regional

estimation for market High

Yield estimation at regional level (EI_R4)

Field level yield estimation (EI_L1)

Spanish Farmer (expressed by Santos Ruiz)

CRDO, that involve 1300 rice farmer in Valencian area, is representing also the interest of farmers




Priority

Farmer

Assistance on fertilisation levels


Information on plant status in key moment prior to top dressing

fertilisation

Medium

Development of smart app to quantitative

indicate Nitrogen level


Identification of Spatio and temporal

variability in the field

Specific management practices according to

variety

Information on the moment

Medium Model estimation of development stage

(EI_L1)

Support to rational use of pesticide for controlling Pyricularia (Rice blast)

Support from agri support technician/consultant.*

Rational information to highlight when the risk

is high Medium

Model estimation of blast risk (EI_L2)

Assessment of grain humidity as harvesting

time indication (not less than 19%)

Grain humidity meters

Estimate grain humidity in field before

paddy rice reach the mill companies

- Test SAR technology to estimate in field

grain humidity - None

* Often farmers spray more than need to save their production. Strong economic and environmental problem.

IFAD (Facilitator for The Gambia Ministry of Agriculture)

User Desiderata/need How it is

performed now Requirements Feasibility Research topic ERMES product/service Priority

IFAD

Agricultural area Maps of cultivated area High Product specifically

produce for The Gambia

Rice area Maps of rice cultivated area Medium/high Rice crop extent (EP_R1)

Rice phenology/seasonal dynamics

Information on the

seasonality of the rice production

Medium/high Rice Phenology (EP_R2)

End of season yield estimation

Information on the seasonal

rice production Medium/high

Yield estimation at the end of season (EI_R4)

Service Level Agreement with “The Gambia Ministry of Agriculture” is under revision in the legal part. IFAD will countersign the SLA and will act as

facilitator of the activities between ERMES and The Gambia.

7 Other users

Other users, that not participated to the User Board in Valencia, have manifested their interest in

participating to the ERMES project. Here is reported the status of the relation between ERMES and

users.

7.1 Italy

Regione Lombardia - Servizio Fitosanitario

Regione Lombardia - Servizio Fitosanitario (Regional Plant Health Service) expressed is interest in

participating to the projet as End user. Servizio fitosanitario is required to monitor rice cultivations

from European Union law

COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2000/29/EC of 8 May 2000 on protective measures against the

introduction into the Community of organisms harmful to plants or plant products

and against their spread within the Community

COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING DECISION of 8 November 2012 as regards measures to

prevent the introduction into and the spread within the Union of the genus Pomacea

(Perry) (notified under document C(2012) 7803) (2012/697/EU)

DIRECTIVE 2009/128/EC of the European Parliament and of the council of 21 October

2009 establishing a framework for Community action to achieve the sustainable use

of pesticides

o Limitation to the use of herbicide Oxadiazon in «dry-sowed» rice fields in Lombardy

Region, since alternative products can be used.

RL considers that ERMES products related to the monitoring of flooded areas can help in

identifying extent and location of dry-sowing areas and in verify spatial distribution of monitored

rice parcels, conducted by RL technicians, to check if these location are «representative» of the

main characteristics of the rice cultivation areas.

RL provided to IREA a presentation to be used during the User Board to express their interest for

ERMES project and products. In the Annex is reported the table of interest for Regione Lombardia.

Service Level Agreement with “Regione Lombardia” is under revision; a draft is circulating.

“Distretto risicolo terre della lomellina”

The “Distretto risicolo terre della lomellina” invited ERMES coordinator to present ERMES

potentiality at the official meeting of the group that involved all the farmers. Mirco Bochetti and

Alberto Crema (IREA-CNR) participate to the meeting the 20th of March.

“Distretto” manifest the interest to support the project and support the direct participation of other

farmers. Riccardo Braggio and Fulco Gallarati Scotti request to be involved and to received Local

Rice Service information.

Service Level Agreement with the farmers will be defined according to their real interest similar to

the one already signed with Carlo Franchino.

7.2 Greece

There are several end-users that they have expressed interest in ERMES project and the

developing service and products.

First of all DEMETER (Hellenic Agricultural Organization), believes that the derived information will

be a step further to an intensive cultivation such as rice towards precision agriculture. Furthermore,

if ERMES leads to the development of a reliable service will be a regional tool capable gfor the rice

policy making.

Mr Christos Plastiras is a farmer, who owns a family business of 250 ha of rice cultivation, while

the company offers professional management services to another 400 ha approximately. He

showed a great amount of interest in specific issues such as N fertilization assistance, risk alerting

and yield map patterns. He already signed a SLA.

Chalastra Cooperation B, has been informed by the Greek partner about the progress of the first

year of the project. In fact they expressed their support and they are interested in a presentation of

the ERMES service to its members (300 active rice growers). The event has to be scheduled

accordingly.

The Local Organization of land Reclamation (TOEV) of Chalastra and Kalochori area has been

briefed about the ERMES project. The president need to be informed properly, after an

appointment been scheduled.

Kanakas Bros SA, is a rice trading company trading 20 to 30.000 tn of rice product every year.

Dimitrios Kanakas, one of the owners has been briefed and he is interested in the regional and

local rice services as they also cultivate rice.

Additionally, there are two major actors that are already briefed and they have expressed their

interest. One is the Crop Production Directorate of the Ministry of Reconstruction of Production,

Environment and Energy, Rural Development and OPEKEP the Greek Payment Authority of

Common Agricultural Policy. It needs further contracts with the new administration as the 2014 one

has been replaced by the government after the elections. The meetings have to be scheduled in

Athens where is the base of both of them.

7.3 International

AfricaRice

According to Reviewer suggestion ERME consortium as contacted AfricaRice to be involved in the

experimentation conducted with IFAD and The Gambia in West Africa. Additional interest of

AfricaRice have been taken into account and a SLA is already signed between SARMAP, on

behalf of ERMES consortium, and AFRICARICE. In the Annex is reported the table of interest for

Regione Lombardia.

Portugal

ERMES project was presented during a visit of D. Katsantonis in Portugal, at a group of

agronomist of the Aparroz-Agrupamento De Produtores De Arroz Do Vale Do Sado, Lda.The

agronomists were very interested in the idea of testing the system and the services of ERMES. It

was explained to them that the service will not be available during the project period. They agreed

that they could validate the geo-portal and the smart application that will be kindly provided by the

ERMES consortium.

Report ANNEX I

Additional User requirements reported by Partners in

the Valencia user board

Regione Lombardia (RL) - Servizio Fitosanitario

User Desiderata/need How it is

performed now Requirements Feasibility

Research topic

ERMES product/service Priority

RL

Information of rice agro-practises

Survey by in situ observation

Mapping of rice cultivated areas in relation to agro-practices (Dry vs

Water sowing)* High

Provision of flood dynamics for each available EO data**

1

Biotic Risk Alert Not performed Information to support «early

warning» bulletins; High

Risk Alert (EI_R3) and Regional meteorological variable (EP_R4

1

* Satellite rice crop/flooding mapping are considered useful to plan field operators work:

e.g., relate rice cultivations positions with potential sources of phitosanitary risk (e.g., companies involved in production of acquarium

plants)

Relate rice cultivations with main rivers positions

Verify spatial distributiuon of monitored rice parcels to check if they are «representative» of the main characteristics of the rice cultivation

areas

ERMES product allowing monitoring of flooded areas can help in identifying extent and location of dry-sowing areas

** Not foreseen as ERMES product. It will be generated to match End User request. It will be provided as separate layer and/or flag of EP_R1.

Strong synergy with ENR requirements. Product will be generated on the same study area and discussed with both Regional Italian Users

AfricaRice

User Desiderata/need How it is performed now Requirements Feasibility Research topic ERMES


AFRICARICE

Annual rice extent in Senegal River Valley (SRV).

Photointerpretation of cloud free images from google earth

Maps of cultivated area from 2000-2014

Medium

Product specifically produced for Africarice*

Rice phenology/seasonal dynamics

Expert knowledge Maps of crop dynamic from 2000-2014

Medium Rice Phenology (EP_R2)

Flooded rice extent and frequency (2000-2014)**

Grey literature and expert knowledge

Medium

Product specifically produced for Africarice*

Rice area and seasonal dynamics **

Not performed Information on the current season 2015

Medium Rice crop extent (EP_R1)

* Side product of EP_R2. Results need to be tested in African Environment. The product will be produced exploiting MODIS data archive

** seasonal dynamics side product of Rice crop extent. The product will be produced if Sentinel 1 data will be available.

Report ANNEX II

SLA status

Greece

Commitment with DEMETER as end user are covered by the Grant Agreement).

SLA with Cooperation of Chalastra B, Kanakas and OPEKEPE is under discussion in the

technical part. Drafts are circulating.

SLA with Mr Christos Plastiras has been already signed

Italy

SLA with Carlo Franchino was already signed

“Distretto risicolo terre della lomellina” manifested is interest in the project. A formal

meeting has been conducted with the general assemply the 20th of March. During Annual

Meeting in Valencia the Representative of Distretto requested to the coordinator Project

information to be send to Regione Lombardia to promote the collaboration.

o Other two farmers from distretto (Riccardo Braggio ~ 200 ha and Fulco Gallarati

Scotti ~ 300ha) manifested their interest in the experimentation. SLA will be

discussed with them in May.

SLA with ENR was already signed

SLA with Regione Lombardia - Servizio Fitosanitario

SPAIN

SLA with CRDO is under discussion in the technical part.

Discussion with IVIA started after the Valencian Annual meeting

International

SLA with AfricaRice was already signed

SLA with The Gambia in under ministerial verification

d2.5 1 annual project meeting minutes · wp2: scientific and technical coordination mirco boschetti...

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