Development of a Support System for Improved Resilience and Sustainable Urban areas to cope with Climate Change and Extreme Events based on GEOSS and Advanced Modelling Tools (HARMONIA)

HARMONIA will leverage existing tools, services and novel technologies to deliver an integrated resilience assessment platform working on top of GEOSS, seeing the current lack of a dedicated process of understanding and quantifying Climate Change (CC) effects on urban areas using Satellite and auxiliary data available on GEOSS, DIAS, urban TEP, GEP etc. platforms.

HARMONIA focuses on two pillars: a) Natural and manmade hazards intensified by CC: urban flooding, soil degradation and geo-hazards (landslides, earthquake, ground deformation) and b) Manmade hazards: heat islands, urban heat fluxes, Air Quality, Gas emissions.

HARMONIA will test 1) modern Remote Sensing tools and 3D-4D monitoring, 2) Machine Learning/Deep Learning techniques and 3) develop a modular scalable data-driven multi-layer urban areas observation information knowledge base.

HARMONIA will focus on a solution for climate applications supporting adaptation and mitigation measures of the Paris Agreement.

Sustainable reconstruction of urban areas and the health of humans and ecosystems are top priorities. HARMONIA will take into account the local ecosystems of European urban areas, following an integrated and sustainable approach by incorporating the active communities’ participation initiative, which will involve the use of a social platform.

Paying extra attention to Sustainable Urban Development, one of the Societal Benefit Areas posits that use of Earth Observation is a crucial tool towards resilient cities and the assessment of urban footprints, to promote equity, welfare and shared prosperity for all, and to feed new indicators for the monitoring of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals in an EU context.