Also based in Austria, GeoVille is an internationally operating company that provides consultancy, services and products related to Earth observation (EO), geo-information and geographic information systems (GIS). Enabling the geographic inventorying of human and natural dynamics through the eye of satellite sensors, while adding the spatial dimension to information-gathering, analysis and monitoring for policy support and informed decision-making, constitutes GeoVille's core mission, together with providing turnkey geospatial intelligence solutions for efficient data access, client operations and management.
In terms of related expertise, since its foundation (in 1998) GeoVille has fed the continuous demand for the delivery of satellite-based flood mapping and monitoring services. Hence, very early on, GeoVille invested in research and development activities in order to build up the know-how and capacities to delineate floods from normal water extent, in both optical and microwave (radar) satellite data. This started in the 1990s with manual mapping procedures, and over the years has evolved from semi-manual processing procedures to fully automatic identification and mapping services. Integral to this evolution were the build-up of associated satellite data access and processing facilities, the product quality assurance procedures and extension of the various product delivery mechanisms.
GeoVille was the first European service provider with RADARSAT (2000) and TerraSAR-X (2008) distribution agreements for the sole purpose to be able provide to provide flood monitoring services. Later in 2014, GeoVille invested in a strategic private-public-partnership to found the EODC, which was a blueprint for the Copernicus DIAS, to be able to store and process Sentinel-1 data on a global level, partly to enable fully automatic flood monitoring services and related data access mechanisms.
Today, GeoVille operates the first fully automatic Sentinel1- and Sentinel2-based land monitoring system within its LandMonitoring.earth platform, which provides RESTful Web service based 24/7 access to its customers around the globe. GeoVille has further significant expertise in operations, quality assurance and data access via cloud-based service solutions within the Copernicus Data and Information Access Services (DIAS) and the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS). GeoVille currently operates the CLMS processing systems for the “Imperviousnes” and “Water and wetness” products of the Copernicus High Resolution Layers (HRL), and the CLC+ Sentinel-1 and -2 -derived products.
Regarding related experience, some R&D milestones include the Austrian Space Application programme projects NeosQuick (2003), Aid4Floods(2004), NatHaz (2005) and SAR-X(2007), which all contributed to the service application development of SAR-based flood mapping capacities.
The FP-7 project FLOODIS (2010) and InCreo (2011) were a game-changer for the data access as they provided for the first system development with multiple mechanisms to automatic flood monitoring capacities via web pull / push and mobile app technologies, which were further improved in the H2020 projects I-REACT (2015). The latter achieved true fully integrated data approaches providing a fully automatic risk assessment capacity to the end-users at global level.
Regarding product accuracy assessment, GeoVille has developed the open-source, on-line based validation platform LACOVAL / LACO-Wiki for standardizing the validation of land cover and land cover changes by map users and producers alike. GeoVille has ample hands-on validation experience and commits itself to respect best-practice (ISO certified) along established standards (e.g. CEOS Cal/Val, LPV, EARSC, JRC) of the EO sector.
GeoVille has wide-ranging, hands-on validation experience, and commits itself to respect best-practice (ISO certified) along established standards (e.g. CEOS Cal/Val, LPV, EARSC, JRC) of the EO sector. GeoVille is currently the product and service quality assurance service provider of the JRC S2 Global Mosaic Service.
Regarding flood monitoring applications, GeoVille was first to provide operational TerraSAR-X flood monitoring services to water and disaster risk centres in Europe. On a global level, GeoVille provided its flood mapping expertise as service provider to the JRC EMS Risk & Recovery Mapping (2015-2017), the ESA projects (TIGER-NET, GlobWetland, EO4SD Climate Resilience and ESA WorldWater) and the development sector via many International Financial Institutions, such WB, with focal regions in Africa, Central and South Americas and South-East Asia.
Within TIGER-NET GeoVille processed the first documented S1-flood delineation (in Namibia), which triggered related monitoring services in many other African countries (e.g., Nile Basin, Zambezi Basin, etc.). Since then, hybrid optical (HR and VHR) and SAR based flood mitigation, assessment and monitoring services are provided through an operational system. Today, GeoVille operates with its expert IT department a state-of-the-art multi-cloud based operation, monitoring and data access system with application programme interfaces (APIs) to feed the entire range of internet based access mechanisms for its customers worldwide. Please refer to the administrative section of the Cover Letter, for a full company description with related evidences of expertise and experience documentation.
More information is provided on the GeoVille official web-site
