GEOEssential is addressing the need for trusted sources of data and information to monitor the progresses made on environmental conditions towards policy targets. The project will demonstrate the feasibility of Essential Variables across GEO Societal Benefit Areas. It will create cross-thematic workflows to evaluate, predict and monitor natural resources to inform via Earth Observations the Sustainable Development Goals. Existing structures and platforms will be analysed in order to identify substantial gaps and synergies for addressing the needs of environmental policy in agriculture, soil, water, biodiversity, energy, light and raw materials. Solutions for improvements will be provided in cooperation with GEO and Copernicus programmes. GEOEssential will:

  1. Enhance the existing Knowledge Base infrastructure on EVs;
  2. Address identified gaps in the definition and selection of EVs;
  3. Contribute to the in-situ data and infrastructure coordination in Europe;
  4. Improve the availability of EVs services from GEOSS and Copernicus platforms;
  5. Assess the potential of synergies between ground and satellite observations;
  6. Develop specific data workflows and best practices to improve the interoperability;
  7. Build the GEOEssential Hub with a dashboard from EVs to SDGs; and
  8. Simplify and promote the use of EVs across the EO Communities of Practice.

The methodology proposed in GEOEssential is going beyond the outputs of the ConnectinGEO project that identified key gaps in the definition of GEO EVs. The main idea is to build demonstration workflows that will be using EVs served by the GEO infrastructure to derive policy relevant indicators. The GEOEssential project is addressing Strand 2 of the ERA-Planet project (Resource efficiency and environmental management) but it is also connected to the three other Strands through a common data infrastructure.