ESA GDA AID Marine Environment and Blue Economy

ESA GDA Marine and Blue Economy

GDA is an ESA program in collaboration with international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, providing Earth Observation data, tools and analytics to support development plans in developing countries.

The Global Development Assistance Programme is a program of the European Space Agency implemented in collaboration with international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, to provide information based on Earth Observation (EO) to support development plans action of IFIs in developing countries.

To achieve these objectives, the GDA program will develop an Agile EO Information Development (GDA AID) applied to 8 priority thematic areas: urban sustainability, disaster resilience, climate resilience, conflict fragility and security, marine environment and blue economy, agriculture, resources water and clean energy.

The GDA AID Marine Environment & Blue Economy thematic activity has been awarded to an international consortium, led by Planetek Italia, which includes partners with different and complementary skills, namely AirCentre (Portugal), Climate Impact (Italy), EOMAP (Germany), Geoville ( Austria), Terrasigna (Romania) and University of Palermo (Italy).

This line of activity aims to address the main challenges identified together with the institutional partners of the GDA in ensuring, both the economic development and the health of coastal and marine ecosystems, through the development of relevant products and services based on Earth observation. The main themes addressed are improving fisheries governance, management of marine litter and pollution, integrated management of the seascape and the "blue ocean sector" through investments, policy reforms and coordination strategies based on the protection of coastal resources and marine.

Information products and services derived from Earth observation data will support the following use cases:

  • Ecosystem protection and management;
  • Assessment and monitoring of water quality and pollution;
  • Assessment and traceability of environmental damage from maritime disasters;
  • Ability to detect and evaluate fishery resources;
  • Mapping of coastal and riverbank erosion;
  • Assessment of marine environmental impacts resulting from port infrastructure and operations.

Download the report of the Asian Development Bank "Earth Observation Services and Tools for Development: Examples from Indonesia" (PDF). The report features rich details and satellite images of Indonesian areas explaining how precise Earth Observation tools can help planners shaping infrastructure, agriculture, and coastal management, as well as climate adaptation and disaster resilience.

Find out more about the GDA AID Marine Environment & Blue Economy.