News and Events

Kick-Off Meeting

On 21^st February 2013, HYGEOS welcomed the ImagineS partners, the Project Officer, the invited GMES Unit and GIO Global Land representatives, in its premises at Lille,  France, for the ImagineS kick-off meeting.

R. Lacaze, ImagineS' coordinator, recalled the projects objectives and challenges. V. Puzzolo, the Project Officer, presented the REA expectations in the Copernicus context and explained that ImagineS is an essential element for the European Commission since the project should ensure the transition between FP7/geoland2 and the Sentinel-3 and PROBA-V era. E. Bartholomé, as technical coordinator of the Copernicus Global Land Service, explained that, to ensure the continuity of the Global Land service at the end of the SPOT/VEGETATION mission in May 2014, it is necessary to first focus on PROBA-V data, which will be launched in May 2013, since Sentinel-3 and its operational service are still far away in time. F. Camacho, from EOLAB, presented the results of the first run of the collection of users requirements: 23 user institutions from 11 countries and 2 European organizations filled the survey. It is crucial to put in place an interactive process with the real final users since the reactions are based upon the experience.

The EO data needs for ImagineS development have been summarized and clarified. The draft project website has been presented and partners agreed on its structure. The organization by INRA of the Global Vegetation Monitoring and Modelling workshop, identified as an ImagineS milestone, and the content of the sessions have been discussed.

The First Progress Meeting will be hosted by VITO in Antwerp on July 3^rd, the day before the Probing Vegetation Conference.