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Extending User Uptake Activities in Asia and South America

Point of contact
Ali Nadir Arslan
Finnish Meteorological Institute
Erik Palménin aukio 1
FI-00560 Helsinki
Phone: +358-50-3203386


The main objective of the proposed action is Copernicus user uptake in Chile and Taiwan and possibly extending to other countries like Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Vietnam.

The action aims at targeted countries to (1) raise awareness and knowledge of the Copernicus program, (2) to engage Copernicus users in public and private sector, (3) to enable access to Copernicus data and information.

We are approached by our collaborators from Taiwan and Chile to help and guide them on Copernicus user uptake issues which we, FMI, are already doing with good and long experience. The collaborators are The Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research (CSRSR) at the National Central University (NCU) in Taiwan and EUROCHILE-Copernicus Relay in Chile with links also to the other Relays in Chile.

AL-Invest 5.0 is EU funding the growth and strengthening of SMEs in the Latin American area. EuroChile invited already a FMI expert on the expenses of the AL-Invest 5.0 program for a week of events tour in Chile in first half of 2019. This visit included a seminar, two field trips to municipalities and a webinar for other interested parties. In this Action we will continue on building up user uptake activities like meeting the government and the EU ambassador with engaging mainly with local municipalities and their SMEs. Based on one of these visits a more targeted plan will be elaborated. In Chile, SMEs (especially tourism and agro-food sector) will be targeted on how they could use Copernicus data to give them near real time content interesting for customers. On the other hand Copernicus utilization in Chile will need to engage with local web developers and foster more local knowhow in handling Copernicus data. It would be logical to follow this up with a Training/Hackathon event in Chile looking for apps with local demands and addressing both tech and business development. This action concentrates on making the connections to local SMEs and municipalities.

The importance of Copernicus data and dissemination in Taiwan cannot be overstressed. Researchers at their institution, Centre for Space and Remote Sensing Research (CSRSR) in Taiwan have been downloading Sentinel-1A data from data hubs since 2014 for multidisciplinary research and applications. The CSRSR plays a crucial role in a variety of programs for excellence associated with remote sensing research and development in Taiwan. The CSRSR research team utilizes aerospace science and remote sensing technology to environmental issues including hydrological cycles, natural hazards, eco-environment, and urban heat island, and attempts to advance the remote sensing technology. For example, we recently present an innovative index, namely Normalized Difference Latent heat Index (NDLI). NDLI’s advantage is in its optimizing the spectral sensitivity on water availability over the land surface. NDLI outperforms the other existing indices to access the potential latent heat flux of the land surfaces.

In recognition of the importance of Copernicus data and dissemination in Taiwan, it is their immediate plan to apply for national funding to support both the CSRSR research group’s finance and Copernicus user uptake activities. Also, the funding will support their group’s extended actions in Southern Asia, especially Vietnam.

With our partners in each targeted countries (starting with Taiwan and Chile), we will make a plan of Copernicus user uptake activities including series of face-to-face meetings, seminars and workshops. We will identify user needs in each targeted countries via these activities and also we will prepare a questionnaire on user requirements in language of each targeted country. This survey will be conducted via these activities and also be available online. Our partners in targeted countries will help us to distribute the online survey via their network.  Based on analysis and results of acquired user requirements we will make another more focused plan to implement our objectives of our proposed action.

Outputs and Results

  • Dissemination of data, products and services provided by Copernicus Program
  • Increased competence of the staff of the intermediary organizations in reaching and education user groups, that will lead to sustainably enhanced level of service
  • Increased capacity among different user groups (SMEs, students, public authorities and other intermediaries) to understand potential of Copernicus data and to utilize, that will gradually turn into increased market demand for EO systems and services