Earth Observation 101 Virtual Course

Register now for the new virtual course: Earth Observation 101. Join Dr Cristian Rossi, who will guide you through this four-part lecture series exploring remote sensing for conservation.

Starting 10 October, WILDLABS and the Satellite Applications Catapult are proud to announce our new virtual course: Earth Observation 101. This four-part lecture series from Dr Cristian Rossi explores the technologies and the algorithms behind remote sensing and gives an overview of several applications using RS data, including practicalities about data access and processing.

Are you new to Remote Sensing, or want to know more about the applications of the technology? Then this series is for you! This series will give you the practical knowledge base you need to understand the current state of Earth Observation for Conservation and where the field is headed.

This lecture series is free and allows you to move at your own pace with videos available to all on the WILDLABS YouTube channel. Course content will also be posted in the Earth Observation 101 Community WILDLABS group, where you can navigate through all the content, engage with other participants, and reach out to the course instructor directly.

The Series Schedule

Part 1: The Physical Framework (10 October)
The first part of the lecture series is focused on exploring the physical fundamentals of the main two earth observation technologies: optical and radar. We will cover the remote sensing process, from data acquisition to result presentation; the main theoretical concept behind remote sensing imaging, i.e. the electromagnetic spectrum; and we finally will explore the basic properties of optical and radar imagery.

Part 2: Applications Examples (17 October)
The second part of the lecture series is dedicated to present an overview of many applications where remote sensing data has been used. After a general overview, we will enter more in detail into applications using optical data, with an introduction to vegetation mapping, and finally into radar applications, where we describe the complementarity of these two technologies.

Part 3: Two Case Studies (24 October)
The third part of the lecture series covers two specific case studies: an environmental one, i.e. the search for lithium in Cornwall, and a conservation one, i.e. the monitoring of wildlife corridors. The case studies are covered in depth, with a description of the remote sensing process behind them.

Part 4: Data access and processing (31 October)
The last part of the lecture series is the practical one. We will discover how to access earth observation data from both public and commercial providers; we will describe in detail the main public satellite missions; we will discover existing products generated with earth observation data and finally we will briefly describe available tools and platform for data processing.