ExPert Integrated support system for CoastaL mixed urbAn – industrial – critical infrastructure monitoring using Combined technologies

The EPIPELAGIC project focuses on coastal area monitoring and addresses RIS3 priority for “Centers of excellence for environmental studies -Environment & Sustainable Growth because of the Climate Change”. The main objective is to contribute to “mitigation and adaptation to climate change and natural disasters” by providing methodologies and tools using time series of Chinese Satellites (optical,SAR,Geodetical/GPS GNSS) in combination with European Satellite data and auxiliary data.

EPIPELAGIC structure capitalizes on experience gained from previous successful projects of similar size and complexity, such as INDES-MUSA (www.indes-musa.gr). The INDES MUSA infrastructure will be used by EPIPELAGIC: GPS GNSS base stations (will be upgraded to Beidou technology), the tide gauge installed in the western dock of the port of Thessaloniki data, portable drilling gauges, the free field accelerometer as well as the available data from WV2, airborne RGBNIR imagery and LiDAR (obtained in 2014-15). The sustainability of the past infrastructure combined to the EPIPELAGIC results will establish a new procedure of moving forward, linked also with other older projects e.g. TERRAFIRMA.

Coastal, marine and riverine ecosystems benefit society in several ways, providing a range of ‘ecosystem services’ and acting as a buffer between the sea and the land. Conservation and appropriate management of these ecosystems can reduce the risk of coastal flooding, erosion, degradation and subsidence. The planning and implementation of the combined use of technologies and methodologies offered from the Copernicus Sentinels and collaborative missions, Galileo/EGNOS satellite systems, GaoFen-1/2/3 and Beidou, as well as accurate results by big data fusion, web process services and decision support systems are the main goals of EPIPELAGIC.

The project will monitor soil subsidence, erosion and degradation in coastal urban/suburban and heavily industrial areas (with gas and oil infrastructures among other industries) with mixed land use and population of all ages and professions, thus contributing to risk mitigation and new planning policies vs the climate change. The proposed integrated monitoring solutions will provide valuable knowledge, methodologies and state of the art techniques for investigating the related physical mechanisms and will offer an innovative Decision Support Tool to serve the society. The coastal flooding, erosion, degradation, subsidence and coastline change due to climate change have a social and environmental impact. Data for coastline monitoring (changes in the coastline, river delta beaches due to environmental conditions, e.g. high waves/climate change and ship traffic) and in-situ measurements vs satellite data (time-series) will also be collected and evaluated.

The proposed system architecture consists of Data collection and pre-processing, a Web Process Service (WPS) and a Decision Support System (DSS), implemented in a cloud computing environment. This includes processes for collecting data required for assessing marine and coastline monitoring; for sharing information with the methodologies and tools for coastal zone management; and for co-estimating data from various sources (auxiliary data), such as environmental and socio-economic and CoP input, with the objective to support appropriate actions. EPIPELAGIC aims at demonstrating the capabilities of satellites synergistic observations analysis to evaluate suitable indicators. The research activities to be carried out will provide sustainable support to local culture, society, economy and environment in both countries.