Earlier this year, ESA launched a contest asking the general public to submit ideas on how Earth observation data can help mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today, one of the two winning ideas is being officially released to the public via the ‘Rapid Action on COVID-19 with Earth Observation’ dashboard – a joint initiative from ESA and the European Commission. This citizen-contributed indicator involves an innovative solution for detecting and quantifying the number of trucks using imagery from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.
In April, ESA launched a call for proposals as part of a special edition of the Custom Script Contest, an initiative run in coordination with the European Commission and managed by Euro Data Cube. Building on the power of public engagement, the contest aimed to explore how the resources provided by Euro Data Cube can be used in conjunction with high-quality Copernicus satellite data to monitor coronavirus and its impacts.
The weekly winners of the contest were invited by ESA to upscale their ideas to cover representative areas of the EU that could provide policy-relevant insights. From these upscaled submissions, two overall winners were selected and are now being integrated into the 'Rapid Action on COVID-19 with Earth Observation' dashboard.
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Image via European Space Agency
