Highlights from Remote sensing and Earth Observation Workshop at the Geological Survey of Finland

The event attracted more than 50 participants and benefitted from speakers’ contributions representing authorities, research centers, data providers and mining companies. Stakeholders gave an overview of their activities and Finnish status related to Earth Observation (EO). The project is financed by HaDEA – European Health and Digital Executive Agency.

The workshop revealed that several agencies and companies gain from EO data for monitoring and improving performance of their own activities. Isabel Donner from SPATINEO, showed that the benefit of using EO methods in e.g., ground motion monitoring in Norway is now accessible to the end user (citizens), after having benefitted construction companies and road administration.

The same applies to extractive activity. The value of a project is not only economic. An example is the value tree analysis of the use of EO data in Arctic environment (figure 1). It shows the aspects that can be involved in the use of EO data.

Tuomas Häme from VTT showed that there are several data providers on the market with VHR optical, High optical resolution, low optical resolution and microwave wavelength and all of them have suitable application fields. Copernicus data is available and expanding. Two Finnish data providers showed their activities: ICEYE and Kuva Space. Jarkko Anttila, CEO of Kuva Space, showed their hyperspectral satellite sensors and the automated process of the service. Pekka Laurila, co-founder of ICEYE, showed their radar imaging service that can analyze movements of objects and the applications of persistent scatter interferometry (PSI).

According to the survey made by the S34I project in three municipalities with closed or operative mining in Finland, remote sensing has not been yet to be discovered by most. However, according to the users, EO data seems to be of good quality. In figure 2, those of position 1 do not agree with this statement, while those of position 3 agrees with the statement.

EO data is considered objective, reliable, verifiable, and quick. Its use can be focused on specific needs and answer different questions. Public associations have used EO worldwide for assessment of habitats and creation of baselines conditions, and environmental impacts. Industry has used it for monitoring mining activity, to demonstrate compliance, and in support exploration within sensible areas. The authorities have used it for control of illegal mining, monitoring waste, impacts and habitat changes, compliance, as well as safety and stability.

ICEYE and Kuva Space presented services that cover plant species mapping and health monitoring, soil and mineral classification, monitoring of water quality, structural integrity, site activity and change detection.

Tuomas Häme from VTT showed that EO can be used to monitor and forecast different scenarios, at least in forestry.

GoldenEye project developed a multisource EO data platform to improve mine safety, environmental footprint, and overall profitability by developing new remote sensing technologies and data integration as was shown by Marko Savolainen from VTT.

While in exploration phase Bijal Chudasama from GTK showed mineral prospectivity modeling (MPM) integrating indirect geophysical, geochemical and geological data, presenting the tools developed at GTK: ArcSDM, MPM-online, GisSOM, MAP wizard, QGIS Weigths of Evidence plugin, EIS toolkit+QGIS EIS plugin.

Janne Kinnunen, senior geologist from exploration company Mawson, showed that they have used remote sensing and EO data and as a partner of the NEXT project it developed machine learning methods using hyperspectral and habitat data. In his opinion, LIDAR improved efficiency in finding exposed bedrocks and EO data is useful for monitoring changes to the environment during exploration activities.

According to the responses of the survey run by the S34I project, higher concerns are related to monitoring of environmental impact and sustainability during mine life cycle in the Finnish sites (figure 3).

The project S34I aims at developing methodologies that use satellite data to improve exploration, and to monitor stability, waste volume generation and acid mine drainage. It covers the whole mine life cycle. Methodologies use also very higher resolution data for improved spatial definition. Ground validation is done through other means such as performing site sampling and using unmanned vehicles. The methods are pipelined and applied to other sites when possible.

According to the survey the Finnish stakeholders would be interested in knowing that extraction activity is monitored by EO methods, and the trusted source of this information would be an authority.

Finnish extractive activity’s authorities not yet have this kind of service but during the workshop it was clearly shown that they cooperate to provide EO services.

Pekka Hurskainen from Finnish Environment Institute SYKE showed that while producing services they avoided overlapping work and used the best available data from different sources. SYKE developed the Finnish high resolution land cover CORINE product and, through the recent Mammutti project, methods for monitoring land use and its changes with 4 themes: forests, agriculture, wetland, and built areas by using object-oriented image classification with machine learning.

The main outcome of the workshop is the importance of having trustful and accessible EO data and online platform is useful for their utilization. Cooperation between different bodies and projects is essential. S34I project works also with multi-scale and multi-platform data and all the datasets used by the consortium and its produced results will be available in an internal geo-portal. The project also evaluates the use of EO data in terms of sustainability and social acceptance with development of related policy recommendations.

More information

S34I – Secure and Sustainable Supply of Raw Materials for EU Industry project

Nike Luodes, Researcher, Geological Survey of Finland GTK
Tel. +358 29 503 3529
nike.luodes@gtk.fi