The project GEOINT4ENV -Geospatial Intelligence for Environment Protection Against Illegal Activities is part of the Framework Partnership Agreement on Copernicus User Uptake (FPCUP) - an EU programme to promote the potential of data and services from the COPERNICUS satellite programme. The overall objective of GEOINT4ENV is the initiation and development of methods for the spatial investigation of environmental crime with satellite remote sensing on various thematic topics:

• Air quality such as illegal air pollution from waste incineration and industrial operations.
• Forest crime such as illegal deforestation and other damage to forests
• Waste crime such as the illegal shipment of waste
• Water such as illegal discharge of sewage into natural waters
• Illegal construction of settlements and buildings
• Estimation of illegal manure spreading

The project objectives in detail include:

• Identify potential users and their needs in the target groups of public authorities at national and EU level and private organisations.
• Identification of the required IT infrastructure and tools
• Development of demo applications in pilot areas
• Development of a Knowledge Sharing Platform (KSP)
• Recommendations for operationalising the developed methods (e.g. process design, training needs, investments)

The project is supported by research institutions from different EU countries:

• Germany: German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), Potsdam, sections 1.4 Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics and 5.2 eScience Centre
• Italy: Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA)
• Poland: Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CBK PAN).
• Romania: Romanian Space Agency (ROSA) & National Meteorological Administration (Meteo Romania)
• Cyprus: Cyprus University of Technology (CUT)

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is responsible for coordinating the overarching FPCUP Programme.

• Coordination of the waste crime work package including the implementation of workshops to identify potential users.
• Development of remote sensing methods for the detection of illegal waste sites
• Implementation of demo applications
• Contribution of the methods developed within the ESA project TRACE for the identification of plastic waste floating on the ocean surface using SENTINEL-1 and PlanetScope data including the prediction of movements and accumulations based on oceanographic models.