Project Details

Name: DIONE
Launch Year: 2020

Research Areas:

ICCS Role:

    Coordinator

An integrated eo-based Toolbox for modernising cap area-based compliance checks and assessing respective environmental impact 

DIONE, an integrated EO-based toolbox for modernising CAP area-based compliance checks and assessing respective environmental impact, is an H2020 project running from January 2020. The project will last for 30 months and proposes a close-to-market area-based direct payments monitoring toolbox that will address the forthcoming Modernised CAP regulation of using automated technologies to ensure more frequent, accurate and inexpensive compliance checks.

DIONE aims to:

  • Capitalise on recent results of ESA’s SEN4CAP project that showcased the capability of Sentinel data to monitor the crop diversification rules. DIONE shall further integrate generated crop-type maps in a way directly exploitable by the paying agencies;
  • Include in the analysis the so far neglected EFA types (fallow land of all sizes, buffer strips, hedges, trees), by making use of super-resolution technology that improves the 10-20m Sentinel resolution to an improved resolution range (5-10m). This is enabled through Machine-Learning (ML) based post-processing and data fusion of Copernicus DIAS-sourced data with targeted drone-obtained data. This aims to motivate the use of such EFAs over the –of ambiguous environmental impact- use of productive areas (nitrogen-fixing crops and catch crops).
  • Complement the use of EO data with a system of reliable, ground-based geo-tagged photos, captured by the farmers that exploits (a) advances that allow for improved positional accuracy, (ii) low-footprint encryption techniques for improved data security and reliability and (iii) image detecting manipulation techniques (image forensics). The system will allow for an improved LC/LU annotation and ensure the process is untampered.
  • Implement a Green Compliance toolbox, integrated with the paying agencies’ aforementioned tools. This will benefit from (a) low-cost spectral sensors measuring soil quality and assessing the status of land-degradation in the land parcels and (b) an ML-based inferencing system deployed on a larger scale (regional, national) to quantify the levels of some of the monitored parameters and consequently extract tangible environmental performance metrics for an entire region

ICCS is the DIONE project coordinator, responsible for all operational and administrative coordination tasks and the project quality and risk manager, ensuring that all project procedures are compliant with the quality objectives. Furthermore, ICCS will participate in the Legal and Ethical Committee of the project. ICCS will also work closely with the whole project consortium for the best planning of the DIONE dissemination activities towards the wide promotion of the project final results to all interested stakeholders.