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Development of data infrastructure and services for the Earth Observation Information System (EOIS)

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Countries

Hungary

Policy areas

Central & local administrationCrisis managementDigitalisatione-GovernmentEnergy and climateGovernanceLicensing, inspectionsNatural resourcesResearch, innovation and digital economyTransport, tourism, agriculture

Organisation name KIFÜ – Governmental Agency for IT Development

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Contact person: Pál Rudan

info@kifu.gov.hu

Timely, reliable and relevant information about the environment is necessary in several areas of the public administration. Data collected at regular intervals covering a large area at one time support administrative tasks. The EU in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA) provides free and open access to satellite data. The groundwork for the ‘Development of data infrastructure and services for the Earth Observation Information System (EOIS)’ project was laid down in 2016.

The project aims to provide dedicated data downloading, processing, storage and archiving of satellite data using the solutions provided by the ESA. Furthermore, the project aims to implement applications and provide services based on the stored data.

With the development of services, Earth observation services will be provided to users to:

  • assist official tasks of the public administration;
  • reduce administrative burdens of enterprises;
  • supply IT regulatory systems with Earth observation data;
  • deliver value-added data to for-profit organisations.

The project implementation began in 2017, while hardware procurement started in the spring of 2019. The software environment development necessary for the operation of the system took place between the autumn of 2018 and the autumn of 2020.

The project consortium is led by the Kormányzati Informatikai Fejlesztési Ügynökség (KIFÜ) [Governmental Agency for IT Development]. Consortium partners include Lechner Tudásközpont Nonprofit Kft. [Lechner Knowledge Centre Nonprofit Ltd.], NISZ Nemzeti Infokommunikációs Zrt. [NISZ National Infocommunications Company PLC], and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Another seven professional organisations participated in the project implementation as collaborators.

The project’s key priority is to supply space remote sensing data to the territory of Hungary, to be used in administrative processes. The project has brought about a paradigm shift in the downloading, storage, processing and provision of such images recorded by Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-5P. In marked contrast with earlier ad hoc and uncoordinated data usage, the system supports alignment with the European Union’s programmes via continuous, near real-time (NRT) downloading, recursive storage, processing based on automated processes and distribution between organisations. In addition to the digitisation of administrative processes, the EOIS facilitates Hungary’s preparation for the European Union’s changes in agricultural policy, set to be implemented in the 2021–2027 period.

In November 2019, ESA and Hungary concluded the ‘Copernicus Space Component – ESA – Hungary Technical Collaborative Arrangement’ for the support of small and medium-sized enterprises. Based on the contents of the agreement, the storage system developed in the framework of the project can be used to store and provide access to future satellite images of Hungary and, as part of the Copernicus programme, to earlier ones as well. In addition to serving administrative purposes, the images are publicly available free of charge, after a simple registration process.

With the help of the available processing capacities, EOIS provides real-time access to ten band combinations and five types of indices. Based on the needs of various sectors, automated processes are used to perform grid-based and vector-based data processing.

All hardware elements of the system can be upscaled, if necessary. Most of the software components used are open-source and the elements of the processing chains can be linked using Python operators. The scalability of the software environment and the open-source software is used as a quasi-standard in the field of remote sensing, especially in remote sensing data processing. This ensures that operating the system and keeping the processing workflows updated or even adjusting them when needed are feasible in a sustainable manner by the hosting entity’s internal resources. The scalability of this environment makes data processing queries possible from other fields and disciplines, for example the ones related to the EU Common Agricultural Policy.

It is possible to define novel processing workflows in the system to process data deriving from other data sources. The system also provides a possibility for developing and testing new processing algorithms: separate sandbox environments are available specifically for this purpose.

The technical environment and the methods of receiving, processing and publishing space images are available for use for other disciplines or Member States. The IT infrastructure and the automated processing chains handling the tasks of space remote sensing data processing can be employed in other data processing mechanisms.

Some best practices from other Member States were integrated at the design of the system. Knowledge transfer was made possible thanks to the national and international conferences organised by ESA (for example BiDS).

Various parts of the project will be used to publish in various research areas (inland inundation, movement testing, single area payment scheme), thus the remote sensing processes can be integrated into systems of other Member States. The complete IT solution design could also be implemented in other national remote sensing centres in other Member States. This could be made available to the ESA Member States via the compensation mechanism of their contributions.

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