H2020 LANDSUPPORT Project: Development of an integrated web-based land decision support system to implement agricultural and environmental policies
- Type Project
- Status Filled
- Execution 2018 -2022
- Assigned Budget 6.999.771,00 €
- Scope Europeo
- Main source of financing H2020
- Project website Proyecto LANDSUPPORT
Everyday Earth observation satellites produce a vast amount of data (digital maps of land use, geology, soil, and biodiversity), while IoT and precision agriculture proximal sensors produce high spatial/temporal resolution maps. However, despite the above, there is a significant lack of an operational system that transforms all this data into systems that support informed decision-making, as required by the people and organizations that govern the rural landscape (e.g., farmers, organizations, institutions, municipalities, regions). In this regard, LANDSUPPORT has made significant progress through its 100+ tools. For example, the "Land Take" family of tools is designed for spatial planners and public authorities involved in land planning and management.
The free availability of urban data is crucial to preserving the precious resource of soil by providing important information for sustainable urban and rural planning. In the agricultural sector, tools for farmers and public authorities are designed to assess specific practices related to, for example, pollutants or the fate of nitrates in groundwater or changes in soil organic carbon. Operational tools in the ecotourism sector create environmental, cultural, and tourism information systems and enable SMEs and tour guides to create differentiated offers that foster conscious and informed tourism and promote rural areas and their economies. Some additional examples of socio-economic impact, broader societal implications and adoption of the results are as follows: - 320 of the registered users work in Public Authorities - ISPRA, Italy has further implemented the results using the National Recovery and Resilience Plan for Italy - The administration of the Regione Campania is planning further implementation using the National Recovery and Resilience Plan for the Campania Region - 1000 winegrowers in the Telesina Valley secured public funding from the Campania Region based on LANDSUPPORT.
Landsupport tools are used by the European Council of Spatial Planners and Italy's largest Urban Planning Association - use of our tools by the Cilento Natural Park. More than 200 users were interviewed last year, and the last two key questions in the questionnaire: - Does the LANDSUPPORT tool offer solutions to their problem? - Is the information obtained (map, table) adequate in detail and quality? They received very positive responses: "very much" and "excellent" ratings respectively in 71% and 84% of all questionnaires.
Initially, multi-level SWOT analyses were conducted to identify the needs of different types of users. Stakeholders from each application field were continuously involved in LANDSUPPORT, and their feedback was collected to tailor the tools to their specific needs. On this basis, a geospatial DSS was developed over the life of the project, comprising over 100 freely accessible, web-based operational tools dedicated to supporting the implementation of agricultural and environmental policies, responsible management and planning in agricultural systems, and the promotion of rural areas.
LANDSUPPORT tools connect databases and models and allow easy access to a wealth of multidisciplinary and multiscale information in a single system. Stakeholders are, essentially, all people concerned with soil and land: from policymakers who need to implement environmental policies, to farmers seeking the rational use of environmental resources, to spatial planners who must plan land use intelligently and effectively. Scenario analyses can be produced by pre-simulating the environmental impact of different types of actions, both in terms of spatial planning and agricultural sector management. Ecotourism-related tools improve rural areas and promote their economies, raising awareness among end-users for conscious and informed tourism.
Stakeholder participation was diversified with numerous technical workshops for public authorities, researchers, farmers, and SMEs, while a social media campaign was created for public outreach. Over the past two years, more than 900 individual users registered on our platform and regularly used our system (4,500 logins), obtaining maps, reports, tables, and graphs to make informed decisions on agriculture, forestry, environmental protection, spatial planning, biodiversity, and ecotourism. Spring and winter schools were organized to engage young scientists (more than 150 attendees). A cluster event was held with nine EU soil projects and initiatives to discuss synergies.
Every second, 1,908 square meters of fertile soil are lost in the EU due to degradation caused by a wide range of human activities. Since decisions affecting soil and land in the EU and beyond are made on the basis of incomplete data or a lack of information, there is a risk that good soils will be lost forever. These decision-makers are numerous and range from farmers to policymakers.
Despite numerous sound EU policies dedicated to environmental sustainability, the issue of the continued degradation of our environment remains relevant, as stated in many global, EU, and national reports (e.g., the SDGs, FAO, and IPCC). There are many reasons behind this enormous problem, but we strongly believe there is one that is generally overlooked: the lack of truly integrated operational tools to properly implement the above policies. LANDSUPPORT's mission is to provide an answer to these challenges by creating a free, web-based geospatial decision support system (S-DSS) accessible to anyone dealing with land and soil. The S-DSS consists of 15 different families of tools, each with a different focus, such as an agriculture tool for farmers or a land grab tool for spatial planners. LANDSUPPORT combines the variety and complexity of different platforms and data sets available into a single platform to provide the best, most efficient, and sustainable support for making informed decisions about land and soil.
Since humanity cannot afford to constantly lose more natural resources, LANDSUPPORT strives to make a difference in halting a trend of poor decisions affecting our nature and landscapes. LANDSUPPORT includes stakeholders in co-creation and co-development throughout the process. This active participation ensured that feedback was addressed and that tools were designed to provide real support and information to decision-makers. In this way, LANDSUPPORT helps society preserve and safeguard one of its most important natural resources: soil, and with it, the land.
The objective of LANDSUPPORT is to build an intelligent web-based geospatial decision support system (S-DSS) that will provide a powerful set of tools dedicated to:
- Support sustainable agriculture/forestry.
- Assess the balance between land uses (including spatial planning).
- Contribute to the implementation, impact, and execution of around 20 European territorial policies and selected UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, including the climate resilience goals and key SDG 15.3. This objective is achieved through the integration of existing databases (interoperability) at different scales with the development of high-performance modeling engines that simulate agriculture and forestry (e.g., crop growth), land degradation, and environmental issues (e.g., fate of pollutants, ecosystem services).
All of the above, including its validation using remote sensing data, will be supported by state-of-the-art technology for the developing environment (i.e., COMPS), high-performance computing (e.g., GPUs), and massive raster data management (e.g., RASDAMAN). LANDSUPPORT will be implemented at four geographic scales:
- EU; 3 Nations (Italy, Hungary, Austria).
- 2 European regions in IT and HU.
- 3 pilot sites in AU, IT, HU.
- 2 pilot sites in Tunisia and Malaysia.
In doing so, LANDSUPPORT will reconcile the grand ambitions of agricultural/environmental sustainability policies with the operational reality required by Call RUR-03-2017, such as assessing "land use offsets" and "incentivizing real actions/behaviors/investments." All of this requires activities at a detailed spatial scale. LANDSUPPORT fits with the priorities of this work program, as LANDSUPPORT S-DSS is:
- Scientific and technological innovation as a driver of rural development.
- A framework for innovation and new business models adapted to the rural context.
- Support for skills development in rural communities.
- A new approach to policy and governance (subarea 1).
- UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II (UNINA)
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