Development of a Support System for Improved Resilience and Sustainable Urban Areas to Cope with Climate Change and Extreme Events Based on GEOSS and Advanced Modelling Tools

Abstract

The proposed framework focuses on developing integrated solutions for urban environments, based on the European needs of security, health, prosperity and wellbeing, with regards to the detrimental impact of Climate Change (CC). To achieve that, this research will combine multiple Earth Observation (EO) datasets, such as GEOSS and Copernicus datasets and services, with ensemble modelling, socio-economic and in-situ data at the spatial and temporal scales, at which interactions in the land and atmosphere ecosystems operate. Regarding to the Sustainable Urban Development, this work posits that use of EO is a crucial tool towards resilient cities and the assessment of urban footprints, to promote equity, welfare and shared prosperity for all. Next, the proposed framework will test modern Remote Sensing (RS) tools and 3D and 4D monitoring, Machine Learning (ML)/Deep Learning (DL), Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to develop a modular scalable data-driven multi-layer urban areas observation information knowledge base. Information about the local level of neighborhoods/building blocks will be provided by the use of Satellite data time series, spatial information and auxiliary data. The scope focuses on two pillars: a) Natural and manmade hazards intensified by CC: urban flooding, soil degradation and geo-hazards (landslides, earthquake and ground deformation) and b) Manmade hazards: heat islands, urban heat fluxes, Air Quality (AQ) and gas emissions (e.g., Green House Gas (GHG) emissions). Therefore, pollution and microclimatic monitoring strategy will be developed based on a combination of satellite observation technologies (including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles-UAV) acquisitions Near-Infrared (NIR) caption, multiband Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), high-resolution thermal IR imaging, optical and infrared radiometers, atmospheric composition monitoring, altimetry caption - and onsite meteorological-AQ monitoring systems. Last but not least, this research will not neglect the social and humanitarian aspects of resilience planning and will use crowdsourced data under GDPR rules which can give invaluable information with respect to citizens’ lives.