Introduction
The Earth Observation (EO) downstream market has been in existence for decades but remains far from reaching its full potential. Despite the vast availability of space-acquired raw data, a crucial gap still exists: the lack of actionable information services that can be seamlessly integrated into the everyday workflows of critical sectors such as environmental governance, agricultural production, agricultural insurance, and food security assurance.
For decades, optical imagery and vegetation indexes like NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and LAI (Leaf Area Index) have been available, with commercial offerings dating back to the 1980s. However, in many regions, such as Central and Northern Europe, Canada, and the northern United States, the effectiveness of optical biomass monitoring is significantly impacted by persistent cloud cover. For situations that require frequent and reliable updates in all weather conditions, optical data alone is insufficient.
The sNDVI service is a cutting-edge, cloud-independent solution designed to meet the needs of agricultural experts. By utilizing Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)-based biomass monitoring, sNDVI provides consistent and accurate data unaffected by cloud cover. This enables agricultural experts to navigate changing conditions with greater confidence and agility, regardless of weather patterns.
The project is funded by the European Space Agency.
Project goals
| 1 Allow users to subscribe to the sNDVI API services and start to use them without human interaction from KappaZeta’s side. | 2 Make the service automatically scalable based on demand. | 3 Keep storage and processing costs as low as possible. | 4 Create a sandbox environment where customers can try out our services. |
Project timeline
The project is expected to run from April 2024 to April 2025.
For more information, contact
teet.liiv@kappazeta.ee or catherine.odera@kappazeta.ee