ESA WorldPeatland User Engagement and Requirements Workshop

Building upon the heritage and space-science excellence of the University of Leicester, Space Park is a collaborative community of industry, academics and students working together to drive growth in space and space-enabled sectors.We undertake world-leading research, impactful innovation and offer a wide-range of skills and educational development opportunities.

Space Park Leicester (University of Leicester)

A workshop organised as part of the ESA funded WorldPeatland project.

Space Park Leicester

WorldPeatland – user engagement and requirements workshop. Date: Day 1 12:00 – 16:30 GMT + Day 2 10:00 – 14:30 GMT Location: <a href="https://www.space-park.co.uk/contact-us/" title="https://www.space-park.co.uk/contact-us/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Space Park Leicester</a> (Space Park Leicester, 92 Corporation Road, Space City, Leicester, LE4 5SP) Successful mapping and monitoring of peatlands requires robust, consistent, efficient, and accessible methodologies to map peatlands, and to identify and better understand the changes and impacts of natural and anthropogenic changes, including restoration measures. Peatland mapping and monitoring methods should enable users to:  <ol><li>locate peat deposits to assess their extent  </li><li>obtain information on peatland condition -&gt; identify peatlands at risk of degradation and in need of protection and/or restoration  </li><li>monitor potentially conflicting land use activities  </li><li>monitor the success of management interventions -&gt; allow the identification of corrective actions if targets are not being met  </li><li>support national and international reporting requirements </li></ol>In response to these needs, the ESA WorldPeatland project will:  <ul><li>work closely with stakeholders in the peatlands community to define, validate and promote the products and tools  </li><li>facilitate mapping and monitoring of peatlands in different states and in different biomes, developing innovative EO-based tools and indicators  </li><li>demonstrate and validate the tools, products and indicators that have been developed in a globally representative sample of peatland environments </li></ul>The WorldPeatland team wants to work with all types of stakeholders, including the FAO and GPI teams and the whole peatland community, to consolidate key requirements relevant to mapping and monitoring peatlands and associated EO-based tools. The 1st WorldPeatland workshop will address the user requirements which will be collated and processed to form the core substance of the Requirements Baseline; this document will be shared with the peatland community. The workshop will be held as a hybrid meeting at the University of Leicester. A hybrid meeting allows us to bring together stakeholders from all climate zones. At the same time the consortium will meet in person to ensure in-depth discussion of the science and user requirements. During the first workshop, we will also discuss the outcomes of an online questionnaire on science and user requirements that has been conducted in December 2023 and collected &gt;50 responses from a broad range of stakeholders. During the workshop we will use Miro, an online whiteboard tool to facilitate discussions and interactions. If you are not familiar with it, you could follow this tutorial:  <a href="https://miro.com/miroverse/miro-basics-guide-for-new-participants/" title="https://miro.com/miroverse/miro-basics-guide-for-new-participants/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://miro.com/miroverse/miro-basics-guide-for-new-participants/</a>  The workshop will be held over two days: Monday 29th January 2024 (afternoon, UK time), allowing participants from countries in time zones that are behind GMT to participate, and Tuesday 30th January 2024 (morning, UK time) allowing participants from countries in time zones that are ahead of GMT to participate.  The agenda will be the same for both meetings. Participants should join whichever session is best suited to their availability. Links to both sessions will be sent to registered delegates on 26/1/2024. All times below are GMT (UK, London).