Earth Observation, Science & Society Symposium

On October 10^th, the Netherlands Space Office (NSO) and the The Dutch Research Council (NWO) organised the second Earth Observation Science & Society Symposium (EO3S). This year the theme was data science; bringing scientists, companies and public organisations together.

The Earth observation (EO) community is both producing and using ever more data. At the same time, data science technologies have been evolving rapidly. The combination of these two relatively recent developments provides great potential for advancing Earth observation research and applications. We aimed to help optimise this potential by strengthening the connections between the EO and data science fields. This EO3S symposium provided inspiring examples of data science applications and fruitful collaborations. We had a full-day programme with keynote speakers, a plenary session with invited talks and parallel technical sessions. Also, dedicated data science projects recently granted within the national User Support Programme Space Research (GO programme) were showcased.

The keynote speakers were:

• Devis Tuia, Professor at Laboratory of Geoinformation Science and Remote Sensing at Wageningen University
• Holger Hoos, Professor of Machine learning at Leiden University and founder of the CLAIRE initiative.

There was also the opportunity to present your work in a Poster Session during the day. Over 20 posters were on display.

Raymond Sluiter (NSO)
Nout van Deijck (NSO)
Radboud Koop (NSO)
Jennifer Grant (NSO)
Niels van den Berg (NWO)

Program [presentation and poster files added]

Time	Topic	Presenter
9.00	Registration
9.30	Welcome and Introduction	Harm van de Wetering (Director NSO)
9.45	Keynote	Devis Tuia (WUR) "Deep learning and remote sensing: beyond classifying pixels"
10.15	Session 1 – Data Analysis
		Erik van Sebille (UU) "Mapping floating marine plastic debris using Earth Observation" Richard de Jeu (VanderSat) "The characteristics of satellite soil moisture at different spatial scales" Lyana Curier (CBS) "How can National Statistics Offices benefit from Earth Observations?"
11.10	Coffee break
11.30	Session 2 – Data Engineering
		Joris Timmermans (CML Leiden University) "MULTIPLY: Exploiting Benefits of Multi-sensor Synergies for EO Applications" Sacha van Hijum (KPMG) "Hyperlocalized demand forecasting using geographically-linked data sources" Andrea Pagani (KNMI) "From gathering to analysis: data pipeline examples at KNMI"
12.25	Poster session + lunch [poster files are added below this program]
13.40	GO-Research
	"Eratosthenes - chasing shadows to investigate worldwide glacier change"	Bas Altena (University of Oslo (UiO))
	"Remote sensing of damage feedbacks and ice shelf instability in Antarctica"	Stef Lhermitte (TUD)
	"A new perspective on global vegetation water dynamics from radar satellite data"	Susan Steele-Dunne (TUD)
14:35	Transition
14.45	Technical Parallel Sessions
	Big Analysis Ready Data in the Cloud - Introduction to data platform developments - Big Sentinel-1 based analytics for forest disturbance and recovery monitoring - What is Google Earth Engine? - Walk through: processing petabytes of EO data using Google Earth Engine	- Raymond Sluiter (NSO) - Jan Verbesselt (WUR) - Gennadii Donchyts (Deltares) - Gennadii Donchyts (Deltares)
	Workshop data science tooling	Johan Hidding & Faruk Diblen (NL eScience Center), moderated by Nout van Deijck (NSO)
	Data Science Applications - "Applications of TROPOMI data" - " AI-based automated parcel monitoring " - "Modelling the impacts of deforestation on rainfall patterns in Africa: a machine learning approach"	- Jos de Laat (KNMI) - Cornelis Valk & Rob Beck (NEO) - Pieter Bas Leezenberg (SkyGeo)
15.45	Transition
16.00	Keynote	Holger Hoos (Leiden University, CLAIRE (video)) "AI and Earth Observation - a Match Made in Heaven"
16.30	Poster session & drinks

Posters

• "Long-Term Backscattering Observations over and Alpine Meadow with a ground-based Broadband full polarimetric Scatterometer"
  By Jan Hofste (ITC, University of Twente), Rogier van der Velde, Xin Wang, ZuolangWang, DonghaiZheng, Jun Wen, and ZhongboSu.
• "Making Environmental Data Accessible and Understandable for Everyone"
  By Koko Alberti (Geofolio)
• "Measuring carbon using random forests to better assess forest conservation policy"
  By Ilan Havinga (Wageningen University & Research)
• "Legal Aspects of Space Data Sharing"
  By Dimitra Stefoudi (International Institute of Air & Space Law, Leiden University)
• "Seasonal permafrost changes from Sentinel time-series"
  By Kanayim Teshebaeva, Ko J. van Huissteden (VU Amsterdam, Department of Earth Sciences). Hein Noorbergen, Mark van Persie (Netherlands Aerospace Centre, NLR)
• "OpenLandMap.org — Global Complete Environmental Layers. A system for global soil and vegetation mapping using legacy field observations and Machine Learning"
  By Tomislav Hengl, Robert A. MacMillan, Ichsani Wheeler
• "Data driven streamflow modelling in ungauged basins: to regionalize or not?"
  By Arnan Araza, Lars Hein and Confidence Duku (Environmental Systems Analysis (ESA) and Geo Information and Remote Sensing (GRS), Wageningen UR)
• "Saltmarsh Dynamics Derived from Long-Term Satellite Data"
  By M.L. Laengker, K. Siteur, D. van der Wal (ITC, University of Twente)
• "Fostering a Young, Creative and Inclusive European Space Community"
  By Suzana Filipecki (Space EU, Leiden University)
• "Working together for Earth Observation"
  By Annette Langedijk and Natalie Danezi (SURF)
• "Satsense: a python library for land-use and landcover classification of earth observation data"
  By Bouwe Andela, Berend Wee1, Elena Ranguelov1, Niels Drost (all from Netherlands eScience Center), and Maximilian Filtenborg, Derk Barten, Debraj Roy, and Mike Lees (all from University of Amsterdam)
• "The built environment and the survival of neighborhood-based social organizations in Amsterdam"
  By Mingshu Wang (University of Twente) and Floris Vermeulen (University of Amsterdam)

Summary

• What: EO Science & Society Symposium (EO3S)
• When: Thursday October 10^th
• Where: Netherlands Space Office, Prinses Beatrixlaan 2, The Hague