GHG-KIT Midterm Review Meeting with FFG and UBA
The GHG-KIT Midterm Review Meeting took place last week on the 12th of December in hybrid mode hosted by FFG at their premises in Vienna, with a small committee of in-person participants, including Work Package leads and additional representative(s) of each partner institution: GeoVille (Prime), EODC, SISTEMA, CloudFlight, GeoSphere, University of Vienna and Technical University of Vienna, two members of the Advisory Board from NILU and EOX, as well as from The Environment Agency Austria (Umweltbundesamt). The Jury was composed of 4 relevant experts in their fields (confidential) and together with the online participants, 31 people in total attended this major and successful milestone of the GHG-KIT project.
During the first phase of the project, based on the user requirements consolidated in close collaboration with UBA, the foundations were laid for the overall concept design for the EO-integrated GHG flux estimate and the LULUCF prototypes, as well as the ICT system architecture design. The work in this next and last phase now focuses on the development and implementation of the two above-mentioned prototypes.
A series of specific midterm interim deliverables were provided including a White Paper and Blueprints (which will be made publicly available at the end of the project), as well as benchmarking datasets, such as the gridded CO2 and CH4 emissions from Austria at national and regional level and the first LULUCF Activity Data map for the reference year 2018 along with a report on uncertainty assessment. It is worth highlighting the very good team collaboration despite the various backgrounds and the engagement of all stakeholders, as well as the outstanding outreach of GHG-KIT (presentation or poster in over 10 conferences, 1613 website views, 629 visitors, 9 social media posts in 2023).
The discussion with the Jury included the outreach to other European and international stakeholders and connectivity to other related projects. A GHG-KIT Conference and Promotional event with involved stakeholders, users, data providers, and public bodies is planned on 18th and 19th of September 2024 (check out our GHG-KIT website for upcoming news on the location and preliminary agenda).
The LULUCF prototype is expected to reach a pre-commercial scale (TRL 6-7) for operational roll-out on a European cloud ICT infrastructure linked to a user dashboard by the end of the project. The delivery of the validated nine-year time series Activity Data transition maps and matrices for the period 2015-2019 is planned for the Annual Review Meeting 4 with FFG and UBA to be held the first week of July 2024. In connection with CLC+ LULUCF Instances where GeoVille is also lead, GHG-KIT provides a useful country specific example, and can contribute to drive the future landscape of a LULUCF Monitoring Reporting and Verification (MRV) System scalable at European level.
With regards to the Verification prototype, developments in the first phase focused on the enhancement of the models, such as Rona Thompson’s FLEXINVERT complex model for inverse modelling. All the parameters based on in-situ and meteorological data are set-up and work in the upcoming months will fully focus on further integration of satellite data (Sentinel-5P TROPOMI, OCO-3, GOSAT and hyperspectral sensors) despite the known limitations for Austria (limited ground station network, low diffuse emission and steep slopes) and prepare the field for future Copernicus satellite expansion missions (CO2M). For the fist time, GHG monitoring satellite data will contribute in the enhancement and verification of the Austrian GHG national inventory report.
With it’s GHG-KIT flagship project, Austria stands out as a best practice example at the forefront of the integration of remote sensing in GHG reporting in Europe for both the GHG flux monitoring and the LULUCF prototypes.
