EO4SURE and APA Review Progress on SDG 6 Product Development

On 3 July 2026, the EO4SURE project held a technical follow-up meeting with the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), bringing together representatives from the AIR Centre, DHI and APA to review the project’s first results and discuss the next steps in the development of Earth Observation solutions for water-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The meeting built on the collaboration established during the previous Living Lab session and focused on the EO4SURE use case for Portugal. Discussions addressed the development of Earth Observation products to support the monitoring of SDG 6.4.2 (Level of Water Stress) and SDG 6.6.1 (Change in the Extent of Water-related Ecosystems), with particular attention to methodological approaches, validation strategies and the operational requirements of national stakeholders.

During the meeting, the EO4SURE team presented the latest developments on two key product lines. The first focused on estimating evapotranspiration and irrigation patterns using Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3 and meteorological data to support water stress assessments. The second showcased methodologies for mapping surface water dynamics and wetlands using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 imagery, providing information relevant for monitoring changes in water-related ecosystems.

APA experts provided valuable feedback on the proposed methodologies and discussed opportunities to strengthen product validation using national reference datasets. The meeting also identified several datasets that could support the validation process, including agricultural parcel information, crop water requirement tables, river flow records and ecosystem reference data.

This continued collaboration will help ensure that EO4SURE products are scientifically robust and tailored to the operational needs of national authorities responsible for water resources management and SDG reporting.