The Cyprus Audit Office

The Cyprus Audit Office is an independent State Authority of the Republic of Cyprus. It is responsible for auditing the accounts of the central government, ministries, local administrations, and national public organisations. The mission of the Office is to conduct quality financial, performance and compliance audits in the wider public sector for the purpose of public reporting, thus enhancing transparency and accountability. The Office contributes to the efficient and effective management of public resources, reducing the mismanagement of public funds and corruption.

The challenge

Cypriot coastline and beaches are the habitats of many animal and vegetal species, some of which are considered as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Every year, beaches bring millions of tourists to Cyprus. Indeed, tourism represents a vital source for the country’s economy, but its substantial increase, with the creation of new touristic infrastructures, could also pose threats to the island’s biodiversity.

In 2016, to ensure effective coastal management, the Office conducted an audit to evaluate the measures implemented by the competent authorities to protect the coastline and contain the effects of the potential threats related to mass tourism and illegal activities. The audit’s goal was to understand how coastal protection measures are implemented, to identify illegal structures in the national Coastal Protected Zone, and to detect activities that do not comply with the National Beach Usage Plan. To do this, the Audit Office needed reliable data that could help them in picturing the evolution of the coastline and assess the effects of tourism and man-made activities on the island.

The satellite solution

To realise the Audit, the Office submitted questionnaires to local authorities, realised visits to collect in-situ data, and interviewed public officers and non-governmental organisations. Moreover, the Cyprus Audit Office relied on GIS technology to obtain information on land ownership and protected coastal zones. This information was needed to assess the potential effects of illegal buildings and mass tourism on coastal erosion.

Satellite imagery from multiple sources, including Sentinel-2 images, Google Earth and orthophotos from the Department of Lands and Surveys, was used to map the entire island and to draw a temporal perspective of the evolution of the coastline. The satellite images used by the Audit Office were retrieved by the digitised cadastral maps developed by the Cyprus Department of Lands and Surveys and made freely available online through a dedicated portal.

The results

Thanks to the GIS technology, the Audit Office was able to assess the evolution of coastal erosion and of illegal building sprawl during         the  last years, and to estimate the potential economic impacts on the long run.

The use of satellite data provided the Audit Office with a broad vision of the geographic area surrounding the island, allowing it to perform a broad inspection of the coastline, while drastically reducing the time and costs dedicated to the audit. Indeed, in-situ observations were only necessary to validate contrasting data and information.

The post Cyprus Audit Office: EO to support beach inspections, improve coastal management, and prevent environmental damage appeared first on Eurisy.

Vake

Vake is a Norwegian company specialised in maritime safety and vessel traffic. The company was founded in 2019. It supports governmental agencies to monitor and survey national waters, offshore asset owners to detect dark vessels and reduce potential infrastructure threats and ship insurers to validate and verify the true chain of events.

The challenge

Back in 2008, the European Commission defined maritime domain awareness as the understanding of the activities associated with the maritime area that could impact the safety, security, economy and environment of the European Union and Member States. Acquiring a complete understanding of what happens at sea is relevant today due to the increased maritime traffic and activities in our oceans that are generating multiple threats to core sectors of the economy and to the breaching national security of coastal countries.

Illegal fishing, smuggling, and environmental crimes are the main challenges to be overcome. Detecting and identifying potential criminal vessels is key to filling information gaps and preventing illegal behaviours at sea. Technology already supports governmental authorities and businesses in spotting illicit activities, via drones, airborne sensors, and cameras, but satellite data can help in monitoring wide areas validating the in-situ measurements.

The satellite solution

To support governmental authorities and maritime economic actors, VAKE developed a dashboard that combines two core features: area monitoring and vessel tracking. The platform allows users to detect ships by using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites and machine learning, cross-referenced with other vessel monitoring solutions, such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS) signal, that relies on GNSS technology.

The dashboard allows users to select their area of interest and a temporal frame to obtain data on the ships there located, such as their size and direction. Users can access the images and information in the form of an interactive web report or download the data as a report file. In addition, the dashboard allows for the detection of dark and potentially illegal ships. Users can monitor their area of interest to verify if suspicious vessels are sailing with their AIS signal off, which can be an indicator for potentially illegal activities. By highlighting when this happens, it is possible to prevent these actions or retrace the route of criminals to determine if an action just happened or is it going to happen.

The results

VAKE’s dashboard is helping national authorities to improve sea monitoring, especially for the implementation of fishing analysis, and to prevent and prosecute environmental crimes. The algorithms that power the VAKE platform can also find additional applications to detect human trafficking, smuggling and seawater emissions.

Currently, VAKE is working with the Netherlands Coast Guard to complement and improve their maritime situational awareness. The collaboration with Vake allows the Coast Guard to extract insights on maritime activities from satellite data covering a wider portion of sea than the area they currently monitor. In the next future, VAKE and the Netherlands Coast Guard will combine automating alerts and collection of insights across multiple types of sensors, that will be key assets for maritime authorities.

VAKE is also working on expanding their geographical reach, including North and South America, and Australia. Furthermore, to provide users with night images, VAKE is currently developing products that include SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite imagery.

The post VAKE: Improving Maritime Situational Awareness using satellite data and machine learning appeared first on Eurisy.