Lluís Pesquer, a researcher at CREAF, explores the power of satellite imagery and digital twins to connect research, policy, and society.
Why is it important to apply geostatistical analysis to research?
Geostatistical tools and statistics are essential for identifying spatial patterns in variables derived from remote sensing and other data sources. For example, our current project High Resolution Land Cover (HRLC) focuses on high-resolution data, emphasizing the importance of observing the Earth at a detailed spatial scale. Aggregated data often obscure critical variations that detailed data can reveal.
The European Space Agency (ESA) plays a vital role through the management of satellite sensors and processing of raw data. These datasets are refined through the Copernicus program, funded by the European Commission and the EU Member States. Copernicus transforms raw data into actionable products tailored for researchers, businesses, and local managers. This data is then used to support decision-making processes.
These products are crucial not only for monitoring climate changes but also for providing the data and evidence needed for climate projections and predictions. This combination of high-resolution observation and geostatistical analysis enables more precise insights into the Earth’s dynamic processes.
Are there certain projects or visions within the satellite images that stand out?
Remote sensing offers a range of possibilities, but its most significant value often lies beyond simple visualization. In some cases, such as during events like volcanic eruptions or wildfires, visualizing satellite images is crucial, as the images provide immediate and impactful insights into ongoing phenomena.
The primary strength of satellite data, however, lies in its ability to capture information across spectral bands that the human eye cannot perceive, such as thermal or infrared wavelengths. This type of data is vital for understanding processes like vegetation health, water resource dynamics, and land use changes.
To make this data interpretable, we often use false-color imaging, which assigns visible colors to non-visible wavelengths. For instance, electromagnetic radiation, such as that from a supernova or Earth observations, can be visualized in this way. These repeated measurements across different wavelengths provide critical insights into changes over time, offering invaluable information about the state of our planet.
Can changes in landscape over time in a given geographic area, such as desertification in the Mediterranean, be seen using Copernicus data?
Yes, Copernicus data allows us to observe changes in landscapes over time, such as desertification in the Mediterranean. While raw data with high mathematical precision and detailed uncertainty calculations are available, pre-processed products are often used for visualizations. These processed datasets enable tools that present changes over time, much like frames in a time-lapse, illustrating how certain areas degrade or, in some cases, recover.
These visualizations are particularly helpful for showcasing the impact of protective measures, such as conservation efforts that have maintained ecosystems and biodiversity in specific regions. Copernicus tools provide a clear picture of these changes, supporting efforts to sustain territories in good condition.
Findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data is a precondition for reliable research. How does the roadmap you’ve developed help turn this important research into reality? What real results are you hoping to see?
The roadmap developed through the Water-ForCE Project, which concluded in December 2023, provides recommendations for improving Copernicus’s services to better serve the water sector, researchers, companies, and other stakeholders. One critical recommendation is to enhance data sharing with users. Often, datasets are not easily accessible or widely known, leading to a duplication of effort that could otherwise be directed toward innovation.
Ultimately, clear communication and mutual understanding are essential to ensure that research findings effectively inform decision-making processes.
Lluís Pesquer, Researcher
Another key aspect is ensuring that research processes are transparent and reproducible. If other researchers cannot replicate results due to opaque methods or incomplete data, the reliability of the findings comes into question. Transparency in data use, algorithm application, and reproducibility is a cornerstone of research integrity.
By addressing these challenges, the roadmap aims to foster a more effective and reliable research ecosystem, ensuring that Copernicus data can be fully leveraged to address pressing water-related challenges.
How do you bring together all the data you have access to so that it reaches the right people to make the right decisions about avoiding certain phenomena like flooding?
In research, we disseminate findings through established channels like scientific journals, conferences, and congresses. However, the real decision-makers—politicians, policy-makers, and managers—may not be equipped to engage with this specialized language, nor is it their primary role. Bridging this gap requires effort on both sides.
Researchers must strive to present their findings in a clear, actionable, and relevant way to both policy and management contexts. At the same time, policy-makers must endeavor to engage with the scientific results comprehensively, even when it challenges their plans, ideologies, or interests.
Ultimately, clear communication and mutual understanding are essential to ensure that research findings effectively inform decision-making processes, helping society tackle pressing challenges like flooding and other climate-related risks.
What do you think about the concept of digital twins and its effectiveness in bridging gaps between research and policy-makers or citizens?
The concept of digital twins involves creating a highly detailed replica of natural processes already existing on Earth. Digital twins can play a crucial role in addressing the doubts of policy-makers and managers by demonstrating that scientific experiments and models are not mere simplifications, but rather sophisticated tools that account for the complexity of the natural world and societal systems. While simplified models focus on the most critical factors, they can sometimes be viewed skeptically, as though they overlook important variables.
The strength of digital twins lies in their ability to incorporate a wide range of variables and scenarios, presenting a far more detailed and realistic picture of the phenomena under study. By doing so, they help dispel concerns about missing factors and build confidence in the robustness of the insights provided. Though it is impossible to capture absolutely everything, digital twins allow for many more variables and complexities to be accounted for, bridging the gap between researchers’ work and the needs of decision-makers.
As part of the CREAF team, you’re involved in various projects, such as the High Resolution Land Cover (HRLC) project, which focuses on three regions: the Amazon, the Sahel, and Siberia. What was the rationale behind choosing these regions?
These three regions represent three distinct, critical issues related to global change. The Amazon is experiencing significant deforestation, which has widespread environmental consequences. The Sahel region is suffering from severe drought, which is leading to major impacts such as population displacement, political conflicts, and other socio-economic challenges. Finally, Siberia is a vital case for understanding the Arctic’s changing conditions, such as the melting permafrost and the ongoing transformations in northern Arctic ecosystems, including vegetation changes.
Together, these regions serve as urgent indicators of the broader, current global changes.
Another project is Aquainfra which focuses on water management. What were the main results of this project, and how were the findings applied, particularly in the Mediterranean? What conclusions were drawn, and how are they useful in addressing regional challenges?
The Aquainfra Project bridges the gap between marine researchers, who study oceanic processes, and hydrogeologists, who focus on terrestrial water systems. It is primarily an infrastructure project, focusing on IT solutions that improve research and data sharing between these two distinct fields.
The project studied three case regions: the Baltic, the North Sea, and the Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean, where water management challenges like drought are significant, the research emphasized the importance of integrating land-based water quality data with coastal water studies. The Mediterranean region’s water management issues are unique, as they differ from those of the North Sea and other areas, especially in terms of the interaction between land and water.
A major outcome of this project was the creation of a cyber infrastructure designed to enhance communication between researchers working in different fields. This infrastructure allows a better understanding and management of water resources, taking into account both marine and terrestrial systems, which is particularly vital for managing droughts and water quality in coastal regions.
How do you work to bridge the gap between policy and science when studying water and drought management in the Mediterranean?
Drought is one of the most critical challenges in the Mediterranean basin, and it will continue to be so in the future. Its impacts are widespread, affecting agriculture, water supply for citizens, and natural ecosystems.
The challenge lies in aligning the longer-term impacts of drought with shorter political and management cycles. For example, in Catalonia, we’ve experienced at least three consecutive years of severe drought. After a rainy spring, some policy-makers or the public might perceive the drought to be over, but the reality is more complex. While rainfall has filled reservoirs a little, the effects of drought extend beyond a single season and require extended periods of analysis to understand the phenomena and its consequences fully.
Digital twins allow for many more variables and complexities to be accounted for, bridging the gap between researchers’ work and the needs of decision-makers.
Lluís Pesquer, Researcher
Water resource management projects and initiatives must adapt to this reality, including strategic planning for crop irrigation and considering which crops might need to be replaced or moved to different regions. However, these shifts require a much slower, long-term planning horizon, which often doesn’t align with the typical four-year political cycle. As a result, drought management often loses focus after one drought ends and is not revisited until the next one arrives.
To bridge this gap, it is essential to learn from past droughts and prepare for their increasing frequency and severity. Climate projections indicate that droughts will become more frequent and intense, so policy-makers and researchers must adopt a long-term perspective to mitigate these impacts and prepare for the future.