EWALD Project: EU Soil Degradation Early Warning System

On March 21st, the Mid-term meeting of the EWALD project took place in Brussels – a project funded by the European Executive Research Agency of the European Commission, and coordinated by Professor Svitlana Lyubchyk from Universidade Lusófona.

The main objective of the project is to develop an innovative framework to provide an Early Warning System and responses to land degradation threatening the EU from its external border, using Earth Observation data from multiple sources and multi-scales . Soil degradation is the world's biggest environmental challenge affecting the environment, agriculture and human well-being. Intensified by natural disasters and desertification, land degradation can pose potential risks and socioeconomic tensions on the European Union's borders. 

At the interim meeting, all Consortium teams presented the main advances of the project related to the “Work Packages” under their responsibility, including: Technologies; Training; Strategies and Management. 

All teams from COFAC (PT), Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms - Universitat Bonn (DE), Earth Scientific Center for Aerospace Research at the Institute of Geological Science (UA), Zilinska Univerzita V Ziline (SK), Limited Liability Company Ecomm Co (UA), Resource Engineering Company (Ma), Université Cadi Ayyad (MA) of the Consortium were represented at the meeting, in person or online.