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GSELandSerie

Case Studies & Testimonials

All GSE Land products are assessed by the end-users. As in most cases the delivered products are still under evaluation the results presented below are still preliminary.

As the GSE Land project progresses, the user organisations involved will have received, used and evaluated GSE Land services and will present them upon various occasions.

Some of these presentations will – in agreement with the users – be made publicly available on this site:

2006-08 Urban services for Intercommunale Leiedal: The assessment done by the Intercommunale Leiedal (functioning as the main user/coordinator for the “Metropole district Lille ”) emphasizes the fact that the product provided did not exist previously covering the region of Leiedal and the neighbouring Walloon and French region. Therefore, the product provided will support the work that the user organisation is currently doing on urban and spatial planning for the region of South West Flanders. It should be highlighted as well that the scale, the MMU and the compatibility of the classification of the product provided fit with the user requirements and needs, although a product covering different years or periods (i.e. change information) for the same area would be far more usable by the user.  
2006-08 Urban services for City of Munich: The assessment done by the City of Munich highlights, as one of the main benefits of the product delivered, the up-to-date data used for the production and the detection of change in structure. However, this product is going to be used only as additional information because more accurate information is already available at the user side.  
2006-08 Urban services for the Patto Nord barese ofantino from Bari , the Patto Città del Fare from Napoli and the Region of Veneto from Veneto ) The main achievements that could be obtained using the M1.1 product are the following ones:
  • The product provided, with a higher level of detail, enables the evaluation of land uses distribution and calculates their percentages on the territory. It also enables to make an assessment regarding the level of execution of the local plans.
  • The product gives a harmonized framework on the regional territory, which facilitates the work of the user institutions when collecting data from the local municipalities, which is not homogeneous and quite old in some cases. Therefore, at this stage the product is very useful for all of them and could support the work that they are currently doing, without the necessity of reprocessing the data provided.
  • In a future stage, then, it seems that the proposed methodology and product could replace the current working process at the user institution or at least, be integrated in the user data system at a higher scale.
 
2006-09 Regional land cover (M2.1):
  • The Agence de l'eau Rhin-Meuse has provided feedback in the evaluation of the M2.1 product in the Saar-Mosel implementation site. It has been pointed out that the product seems to be more competitive than the current way of working due to the potential high update frequency and better accuracy. Moreover, data format and projection system of maps are compatible with the user facilities. Therefore, it is stated that the proposed product could replace the old working process, especially if the product is extended to the whole Rhin-Meuse Watershed, opening then new opportunities mainly for small scale studies.
  • FAL-LR Braunschweig ( on behalf of Fluss­ge­biets­gemein­schaft Weser ) in the Weser implementation site has stated that the product provided will address a central task of the user institution currently executed by other means, which is the analysis of land use and its changes along with environmental impacts. The data provided will be used to develop algorithms for land use simulations and interfaces between agricultural economics, hydrological and nutrient transport models; therefore, one of the main expectations by the user is the provision of harmonized datasets and products and harmonizing as well the existing different spatial resolutions of the models. The user highlights the fact that the data is fully compatible with the information already existing on the its hand.
 
2006-09 Forest Parameters (M2.3) This product has only been evaluated by the Swedish Water Authority for the Bothnian Sea River Basin, the unique user for this product at the current stage. From the user point of view, the preliminary classification as well as the methodology used and described seems credible, knowing that the quality assessment is inherent in the methodology, specifically for this product, and performed by the SP. Two other main benefits of this product is the good accuracy at pixel level and the correctness of the area estimation for small areas.  
2006-09 Changes in Sealing level (M2.4) This product has been internally evaluated by the Flanders Maritime Institute (VLIZ) in the SAIL region. The expected increase in accuracy has been described as essential in order to bring the added value that is needed to have a better view of the coastal zones evolution. Currently, Corine Land Cover and its minimum mapping unit is insufficient for the purposes of the Integrated Coastal Zone Management and sustainability indicators, particularly for issues such as evaluating trends in soil sealing, and the alternative of national datasets do not allow benchmarking between European countries. The main improvements to be done regarding the product delivered are the development of a more detailed metadata and the delivery of the data grouped by administrative units and / or buffers, due to the fact that currently, the user has to reprocess the data provided to be able to introduce it in the daily work of the user organisation  
2006-09-19 & 20 Regionalverband Bodensee-Oberschwaben :
Definition of Requirements at First DeCOVER User Workshop
using GSE Land examples (German language) 		download
(PDF, 2.7MB)
2007-02-07 & 08 4th geoland Forum The geoland Forum IV was held in Berlin on February 7th - 9th, 2007. On February 7th, in a technical session with parallel GMES projects of ESA and EC the findings of GSE Land were presented and discussed. In the afternoon, a User Workshop with representatives of mandated user organisations was conducted, which critically reviewed the results of the GMES projects and gave clear statements that the level of maturity is good enough for immediate implementation.  
2007-10-22 & 23 GMES Land User workshop in Madrid
The general feedback from the participants of the workshop, can be summarized as follows:
  • There is a need to provide regularly interesting and useful information to the users in order to encourage their involvement in the project, and to underline the reality that users are vital partners in the process. The GNU project aims to fulfilling this need.
  • There is a need for more promotion of what is being developed and the possible applications that could be derived. More training on the different products and on how the data could be used, will facilitate this requirement.
  • Not all the products are evolving in the way users expected, although some of them are well developed and fulfil user requirements.
All the critical reviews of GMES Land services voiced at the meeting were immediately responded to by the GMES Land project members, and specific actions where taken to improve the situation where deficits had been detected. In addition to that, two users from two different regions have requested the production of additional areas, at their own expenses, to the ones already agreed into the project specifications. 		Download Documents:
GMES Land Workshop Agenda
(PDF, 2.7MB)
Presentation GMES Funding Opportunities
(PDF, 2.7MB)
2008-05-26 & 27 GMES Land User Workshop, Stockholm The Scandinavian GMES Land User Workshop in Stockholm featured a presentation session of Scandinavian national and EU land cover programmes by Scandinavian Legally Mandated Organisation representatives, a review session on available national datasets and products and user experiences, and a session on LMCS Quality Asssurance
Additionally, thematic splinter sessions were conducted on user feedback, top-down vs. bottom-up approaches, and on crosss-border data set harmonisation and INSPIRE aspects. After a Panel discussion with members of the LMCS Implementation Group, the GMES Bureau, EEA and ETC-LUSI, a dedicated user training session was conducted.
Trainings were given as laptop-based presentations to users by experienced presenters from the Service Providers, on the following topics:
  • LMCS
  • National data sets
  • Downstream services on:
    • water quality
    • spatial planning,
    • forest monitoring / Kyoto
    • urban monitoring
 Download of presentations
2008-09-16 & 17 Within the frame of its Presidency of the European Union, France and the European Commission jointly organising the GMES Forum 2008, in Lille / France. The objectives of the forum were to:
  • demonstrate the capabilities of the initial pre-operational services,
  • show users the benefits of these services and
  • encourage companies to use these services to improve their competitiveness.
Besides the presentation of the services in the Plenary Session the GMES Land Information Services contributed to the forum by presenting a joint GMES Land Information Services booth in the exhibition hall. For the first time, the different services were presented independently of their project origin as an integrated, pre-operational GMES Land Information Service providing customized solution for different fields of applications. Thereby the overall goal of the GMES Land Information Services became much more visible than before.
To enable the booth visitors to evaluate the benefits of the GMES Land geo-information products on their own a number of web-mapping services and end user applications – the so called demonstrators - were presented at the booth. After an initial demonstration of the applications the visitors were able to play with the geo-information products guided and supported by GMES Land staff.
These demonstrators as well as the joint presentation of the GMES Land services were appreciated very much by the booth visitors as well as the representatives of the European Commission. Amongst the visitors also EU Vice President Günter Verheugen and Valerie Pecresse, the French Minister of Higher Education and Research, visited the GMES Land Information booth. 		List of Papers and Speeches