Imagine the complexity of one of the world’s largest databases of publicly available land use and land cover data for the whole of Europe: 170 different datasets with 26 data products – that’s the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS)!
We are happy to lead an international consortium under a new validation contract that will build a cloud-based system for the robust validation of most European CLMS products over the next four years!
To ensure that the CLMS is highly accurate and meets technical specifications and user requirements, it will undergo a rigorous quality control process. Both new and proven reference data (e.g. from the Copernicus in-situ component) are taken into account in the independent validation. Only in this way, the CLMS can remain the indispensable tool for research, planning and decision-making in a wide range of application areas.
The new validation contract focuses on standardising processes to a greater extent, making them more efficient and carrying out validation very quickly, which means that the data records shall be validated within three months of being created. Part of the concept is also that not only the precision of the products is assessed. Their technical suitability for the intended areas of application will also be evaluated.
At the beginning of March, the project entered its first phase with the kick-off at the European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen. In this phase, the IT system will be set up, suitable reference data will be prepared and the methods will be defined. This will establish a common CLMS validation framework aimed at consistency and efficiency, as well as transparency, reusability, reproducibility, sustainability and compliance with relevant standards.
As far as operational capability is achieved at the end of the start-up phase, the first validations can be carried out as early as 2024. The CLC+ backbone grid 2018/2021 and the upcoming high resolution layers are planned for this purpose.
The project is managed by EFTAS Fernerkundung Technologietransfer GmbH and supported by JBA Consulting Ireland and COBA.
