New federal Earth Observation strategy prioritizes open data

Canada’s new strategy for satellite Earth Observation (satellite EO) aims to ensure government, researchers and industry have the data they need to monitor the health of the planet and respond to climate change and security threats.

The strategy is a collaboration between the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), in consultation with academia and the private sector. It was unveiled last week at a virtual event held by Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry of Canada François-Philippe Champagne, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and of Environment and Climate Change Julie Dabrusin and CSA President Lisa Campbell.

“The information collected by our satellites represents an enormous asset to tackle concrete issues in our daily lives and open new economic opportunities,” said Champagne.

He also announced $8 million in investments through the CSA’s smartEarth initiative to help Canadian SMEs take advantage of satellite data to solve real-world problems and the release of 647,000 images from RADARSAT-1 satellite into the public domain. (Until now, approximately 36,000 images were publicly available.)

There was no new funding attached to the strategy, but it supports Canada’s vision for space, which prioritizes harnessing space science and technology to solve important challenges on Earth.

The strategy also comes on the heels of a $20-million investment in GHGSat, a company that collects high-resolution satellite data about Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions that can be used to gauge Canada's progress toward meeting its emissions reduction targets. To understand and manage climate change, the World Health Organization has identified 50 essential climate variables, of which 26 can only be observed from space.

In Budget 2021, the federal government also committed $80.2 million over 11 years to replace and expand Canada's aging ground-based infrastructure for receiving satellite data and $9.9 million over 2 years to plan the next generation of satellites for EO.

Open data as a driver of innovation

The satellite EO strategy has four objectives, which are:

• Ensure satellite EO data is free, open and accessible to drive innovation;
• Harness satellite EO to address climate change and other global challenges;
• Strengthen delivery of essential services for Canadians that rely on satellite data; and
• Enhance skills and build capacity to realize the full benefits of satellite EO data.

Champagne stressed the importance of free, open and accessible satellite data, such as the trove of newly released RADARSAT-1 images, calling them “a gamechanger” that could spur innovation, especially in EO data analytics.

“We have decided as a government to renew our commitment to openness and make sure we empower others to make data-driven decisions,” he said in response to a question from Research Money. “This is data that existed and today we’re going to be empowering people to make use of it to bring about changes on Earth.”

Campbell emphasized that open data and open-source tools help reduce costs for business and facilitate collaboration. “As much as possible, our goal is to support open data, furthering science and allowing innovation businesses to flourish in Canada and around the world,” she said.

In mid-November 2021, the CSA published its first Open Science Action Plan, in compliance with the Roadmap for Open Science developed by the Office of the Chief Science Advisor in 2020. The plan prioritizes open data, open access publications and engagement.

For open data, the plan commits to “advancing the role of Open Data in internal and external engagements aligned with partners' priorities in Europe and the United States, which have benefited from free and open data policies for several years.”

New applications harnessing satellite EO data

The CSA launched smartEarth in January 2021 to promote the development of EO applications. The $8 million announced last week will provide grants ranging from $150,000 to $500,000 to 21 companies.

The grantees include Quebec-based Lux Aerobot, which is developing a wildfire management system using data captured by high-altitude balloons; the Nunavut-based Arctic Eider Society, which will enhance its sea-ice monitoring platform that uses an Indigenous-trained machine learning algorithm; and Manitoba-based AIRM, which is developing a remote monitoring and management tool for crops.

“Using space to support climate issues is a priority for the CSA and many other space agencies. What’s exciting about this for us is that our companies are building the space tech of the future,” said Campbell.

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