PONTOS

PONTOS aims to enhance transboundary cooperation for large-scale, harmonized environmental monitoring across the countries of the Black Sea region and beyond. The vehicle towards this objective is the exploitation of numerous freely available and incrementally credible Copernicus data and services (e.g. Copernicus Land and Marine Environment Monitoring Services). Intelligent fusion of data and information shall lead to novel services and products for actors operating along the coastal zone.

Latter shall become, through PONTOS operational platform and mounted online services, freely available to and accessible by a multitude of local, national and regional stakeholders. Transboundary spaceborne derived primary (e.g. images) and secondary (e.g. maps) products will be coupled with existing data and knowledge of in situ conditions. Tailored to the regional challenges, solutions will be generated by utilizing this information thesaurus and retrieving methods and results (e.g. online modules and models) from EU and national past and ongoing research and development projects.

Citizens’ current and future well-being will be the focus. As such, marine and lake coastal and inland human activities will be mapped targeting industry, recreation, agriculture, aquaculture, and commerce in Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, and pilot-wise in Greece. Their effluents towards the Black Sea or the lakes around it will be calculated, while at the same time spaceborne and in situ data will monitor fluctuations in marine features’ values, such as surface water temperature, salinity, nutrients, potentially toxic elements, and algae presence.

The impact will be assessed in relation with set benchmark conditions. Local stakeholders and actors will be informed and equipped with the adequate interface to access the information and its regular updates.

Co-development and co-creation actions will respect national and local needs, constraints and vision. Together with capacity building activities PONTOS aims to offer the means to exploit in tandem existing local monitoring networks and Copernicus products and services, to align its online services with a compatible manner to existing hard- and software infrastructures, and to leverage cooperation and exchange of ideas and best practices across the region.

CERTH/ITI Role

CERTH is the responsible partner for GA1: Methodological Framework Development and Implementation in Pilot Sites and having a key technical and coordinating role in activity A.T1.1 (PONTOS platform development). CERTH’s involvement in Activity A1.1 includes following tasks: i) co- design and deployment of the back-end infrastructure, ii) integration of modules (enablers of data update), iii) incorporation of the data, information and knowledge integrator (EODESM) into the platform, iv) co-design and development of visualization functionalities. Further to that, CERTH will participate in design and implementation of other activities and deliverables of this project.

Consortium

American University of Armenia (AUA) Acopian Center for the Environment, Armenia, Coordinator
Centre for Research and Technology Hellas Information Technologies Institute (CERTH), Greece
Democritus University of Thrace, Laboratory of Ecological Engineering & Technology, Greece
Environmental Protection and Mining Inspection Body of the Republic Of Armenia, Armenia
Green Alternative, Georgia
Odessa National I.I. Mechnikov University, Ukraine