The Open Session on Geosciences Instrumentation is the European forum with an open call for professional conference papers in the field of Geosciences Instrumentation, Methods, Software and Data Systems. The session aims to inform the scientific and engineering geosciences communities about new and/or improved instrumentation and methods, and their related new or existing applications. The session also deals with new ways of utilizing observational data by novel approaches and the required data infrastructure design and organization.

The session is open to all branches of geosciences measurement techniques, including, but not limited to, optical, electromagnetic, seismic, acoustic and gravity. The session is intended as an open forum and discussion between representatives of different fields within geosciences is strongly encouraged. Past experience has shown that such mutual exchange and cross fertilization between fields have been very successful and can open up for a break-through in frontier problems of modern geosciences.

The session is also open for applications related to environmental monitoring and security providing, like archeological surveys, rubbish deposits studies, unexploded ordnance and/or mines detection, water dam inspection, seismic hazards monitoring etc.

The nature of science has changed: it has become more interconnected, collaborative, multidisciplinary, and data intensive. The main aim of this session, now in its third edition, is to create a common space for interdisciplinary scientific discussion where EGU-GA delegates involved in recent and ongoing COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)* Actions can share ideas and present the research activities carried out in their networks. The session represents an invaluable opportunity for different Actions and their members to identify possible synergies and establish new collaborations, find novel links between disciplines, and design innovative research approaches. So far, this session has hosted contributions stemming from 26 Actions, covering different areas of the geosciences (sky, earth and subsurface monitoring, terrestrial life and ecosystems, earth's changing climate and natural hazards, sustainable management of resources and urban development, environmental contaminants, and big data); we are looking forward to receiving new contributions this year.

Same as in past editions, part of this session will be dedicated to presenting and discussing activities carried out in further national and international scientific networks, associations, and collaborative projects.

Moreover, this session is of course open to everyone and abstracts authored by individual scientists or small research teams are most welcome, too. Actually, in 2018 and 2019 we received a very good number of such abstracts, submitted by researchers who wanted to disseminate the results of their studies in front of the multidisciplinary audience that characterizes this session, as an alternative to making a presentation in a thematic session. In fact, contributing to this session can be a productive way to broaden the perspective and find new partners for future interdisciplinary research ventures.

-- Notes --

* COST (www.cost.eu) is funded by the EU and enables researchers to set up their interdisciplinary and international scientific networks (the “Actions”). Academia, industry, public- and private-sector laboratories work together in the Actions, sharing knowledge, leveraging diversity, and pulling resources. Every Action has a main objective, defined goals and deliverables. This session is a follow-up initiative of COST Action TU1208 “Civil engineering applications of Ground Penetrating Radar” (www.gpradar.eu).

This session is a result of a merge between GI1.3 and GM2.3:

Recent advances in image collection and topographic measurements are providing unprecedented insight into landscape and process characterization across the geosciences. In parallel, the increasing availability of digitised historical images, going back to the late 1800s, together with advances in digital photogrammetry software, have provided new opportunities for assessing and reconstructing long-term surface evolution from local to landscape scale. Such data can extend high-resolution time series into the pre-satellite era and offer exciting potential for distinguishing anthropogenic from natural causes of environmental change. For both historic and contemporary scenarios, augmenting classic techniques with digital imagery and ‘structure from motion’ (SfM) processing has democratized data access and offers a new measurement paradigm to geoscientists.

Such data are now available over spatial scales from millimetres to kilometres, and over durations of single events to lasting time series (e.g. from sub-second to century-duration time-lapse), allowing evaluation of event magnitude and frequency interrelationships. Despite a large volume of historical images available for reprocessing with modern methods, their full potential has not yet been widely exploited and uncertainties remain on the optimal types of information that can be extracted. Substantial opportunities are likely to be exposed by exploring such data resources with machine and deep learning approaches.

The session welcomes submissions from a broad range of geoscience disciplines such as geomorphology, cryosphere, volcanology, hydrology, bio-geosciences, and geology. Our goal is to create a diverse and interdisciplinary session to explore the potential of 2D and 3D image and topographic datasets for reconstructing and interpreting environments and processes, past and present. We aim to exchange experiences of modern photogrammetric and topographic measurement and modelling technologies, along with their associated data processing tools, to highlight their potentials, limitations, and challenges in different environments.

Public information:
We will have a video meeting on Friday evening starting from 6 pm CEST (UTC+2), in addition to the chat session on Friday morning, as scheduled. Authors will give talks in this video meeting, and there will be room for discussions, with the following agenda:

18:00 - 18:05 - Meeting setting and introduction to the session
18:05 - 18:17 - Amaury Dehecq, "Multidecadal elevation changes from spy satellite images: application to glaciers and landslides".
18:17 - 18:29 - Robert McNabb, "An open-source toolset for automated processing of historic spy photos: sPyMicMac".
18:29 - 18:41 - Penelope How, "PyTrx: a Python-based monoscopic terrestrial photogrammetry toolset for glaciology".
18.41 - 18:53 - Sebastian Flöry, "Development of a 3D Viewer for georeferencing and monoplotting of historical terrestrial images".
18.53 - 19:05 - Luca Carturan, "Use of WWI photos for quantitative reconstructions of glaciers along the Italian-Austrian front".
19:05 - 19:17 - Martino Terrone, "Coupling historical maps and Lidar data to recognize man-made landforms in urban areas".
19:17 - 19:25 - a little break
19:25 - 19:37 - William D. Harcourt. "Observing the cryosphere with millimetre wave radar: The case study of Rhône Glacier".
19.37 - 19:49 - Denis Feurer, "Time-SIFT: a frugal method for leveraging multi-temporal photogrammetric data without ancillary data"
19.49 - 20:01 - Helge Smebye, "Combined aerial and ground-based Structure-from-Motion modelling for a vertical rock wall face to estimate volume of failure"
20:01 - 20:13 - Sara Cucchiaro, "Terrestrial-Aerial-SfM and TLS data fusion for agricultural terrace surveys in complex topographic and land cover conditions".
20:13 - 20:25 - Andreas Mayr, "Close-range sensing and object based analysis of shallow landslides and erosion in grasslands".
20:25 - 20:37 - Kieran Wood, "UAS radiation hot-spot detection and refinement."
20:37 - break and discussion with an open end.

Join the video meeting using the following link:
https://kuei.zoom.us/j/99949141405

For an optimal audio and video experience, we suggest that you join the meeting using the Zoom application. When following the meeting link, you will be asked to install it. Alternatively, you may join the meeting using the Chrome browser.

Environmental systems often span spatial and temporal scales covering different orders of magnitude. The session is oriented in collecting studies relevant to understand multiscale aspects of these systems and in proposing adequate multi-platform and inter-disciplinary surveillance networks monitoring tools systems. It is especially aimed to emphasize the interaction between environmental processes occurring at different scales. In particular, a special attention is devoted to the studies focused on the development of new techniques and integrated instrumentation for multiscale monitoring high natural risk areas, such as: volcanic, seismic, energy exploitation, slope instability, floods, coastal instability, climate changes and other environmental context.
We expect contributions derived from several disciplines, such as applied geophysics, geology, seismology, geodesy, geochemistry, remote and proximal sensing, volcanology, geotechnical, soil science, marine geology, oceanography, climatology and meteorology. In this context, the contributions in analytical and numerical modeling of geological and environmental processes are also expected.
Finally, we stress that the inter-disciplinary studies that highlight the multiscale properties of natural processes analyzed and monitored by using several methodologies are welcome.

The MacGyver session focuses on novel sensors made, or data sources unlocked, by scientists. All geoscientists are invited to present
- new sensor systems, using technologies in novel or unintended ways
- new data storage or transmission solutions sending data from the field with LoRa, WIFI, GSM, or any other nifty approach
- started initiatives (e.g., Open-Sensing.org) that facilitate the creation and sharing of novel sensors, data acquisition and transmission systems.

Connected a sensor for iPhone to an Arduino or Raspberri Pi? 3D printed an automated water quality sampler? Or build a Cloud Storage system from Open Source Components? Show it! New methods in hydrology, plant physiology, seismology, remote sensing, ecology, etc. are all welcome. Bring prototypes and demonstrations to make this the most exciting Poster Only (!) session of the General Assembly.

This session is co-sponsered by MOXXI, the working group on novel observational methods of the IAHS.

The aim of this session is to present the latest research and case studies related to various data analysis and improvement methods and modeling techniques, and demonstrate their applications from the various fields of earth sciences like: hydrology, geology and paleogeomorphology, to geophysics, seismology, environmental and climate change.

The interactions between geo-environmental and anthropic processes are increasing due to the ever-growing population and its related side effects (e.g., urban sprawl, land degradation, natural resource and energy consumption, etc.). Natural hazards, land degradation and environmental pollution are three of the possible “interactions” between geosphere and anthroposphere. In this context, spatial and spatiotemporal data are of crucial importance for the identification, analysis and modelling of the processes of interest in Earth and Soil Sciences. The information content of such geo-environmental data requires advanced mathematical, statistical and geomorphometric methodologies in order to be fully exploited.

The session aims to explore the challenges and potentialities of quantitative spatial data analysis and modelling in the context of Earth and Soil Sciences, with a special focus on geo-environmental challenges. Studies implementing intuitive and applied mathematical/numerical approaches and highlighting their key potentialities and limitations are particularly sought after. A special attention is paid to spatial uncertainty evaluation and its possible reduction, and to alternative techniques of representation of spatial data (e.g., visualization, sonification, haptic devices, etc.).

In the session, two main topics will be covered (although the session is not limited to them!):
1) Analysis of sparse (fragmentary) spatial data for mapping purposes with evaluation of spatial uncertainty: geostatistics, machine learning, statistical learning, etc.
2) Analysis and representation of exhaustive spatial data at different scales and resolutions: geomorphometry, image analysis, machine learning, pattern recognition, etc.

Remote sensing, numerical models, and machine learning have been widely used for investigating environmental risks under climate change. It is known that they tend to do an excellent job in mapping, simulating, and projecting the long-term changes in average conditions. However, damages associated with extreme weathers by droughts, floods, forest fires, heat-related mortality, and crop yield loss are often more devastating than those caused by gradual climate changes. How remote sensing, numerical models, and machine learning can be used for assessing the impacts of extreme weathers on the natural and human systems remains uncertain.
This session aims to summarize current progress in assessing the ability of remote sensing, numerical models, and machine learning for quantifying climate risks in multiple sectors, such as water, agriculture, and human health.
We especially welcome investigations focusing on the inter-comparison of methodologies, as well as multi-sectoral, cross-sectoral, and integrated assessments.

Non-destructive testing (NDT) methods have been increasingly employed in a wide range of engineering and geosciences applications and their stand-alone use has been greatly investigated to date. New theoretical developments, technological advances as well as the progress achieved in surveying, data processing and interpretation have in fact led to a tremendous growth of equipment reliability, allowing outstanding data quality and accuracy.

Nevertheless, the requirements of comprehensive site and material investigations may be complex and time-consuming, involving multiple expertise and many pieces of equipment. The challenge is to step forward and provide an effective integration between data outputs with different physical quantities, scale domains and resolutions. In this regard, enormous development opportunities relating to data fusion, integration and correlation between different NDT methods and theories are to be further investigated.

Within this framework, this Session primarily aims at disseminating contributions from state-of-the-art NDT methods and numerical developments, promoting the integration of existing equipment and the development of new algorithms, surveying techniques, methods and prototypes for effective monitoring and diagnostics. NDT techniques of interest are related – but not limited to – the application of acoustic emission (AE) testing, electromagnetic testing (ET), ground penetrating radar (GPR), geoelectric methods (GM), laser testing methods (LM), magnetic flux leakage (MFL), microwave testing, magnetic particle testing (MT), neutron radiographic testing (NR), radiographic testing (RT), thermal/infrared testing (IRT), ultrasonic testing (UT), seismic methods (SM), vibration analysis (VA), visual and optical testing (VT/OT).

The Session will focus on the application of different NDT methods and theories and will be related – but not limited to – the following investigation areas:
- advanced data fusion;
- advanced interpretation methods;
- design and development of new surveying equipment and prototypes;
- assessment and monitoring methods for material and site investigations;
- comprehensive and inclusive information data systems for the investigation of survey sites and materials;
- numerical simulation and modelling of data outputs with different physical quantities, scale domains and resolutions;
- advances in NDT methods, numerical developments and applications (stand-alone use of existing and state-of-the-art NDTs).

The session gathers geoscientific aspects such as dynamics, reactions, and environmental/health consequences of radioactive materials that are massively released accidentally (e.g., Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plant accidents, wide fires, etc.) and by other human activities (e.g., nuclear tests).

The radioactive materials are known as polluting materials that are hazardous for human society, but are also ideal markers in understanding dynamics and physical/chemical/biological reactions chains in the environment. Thus, the radioactive contamination problem is multi-disciplinary. In fact, this topic involves regional and global transport and local reactions of radioactive materials through atmosphere, soil and water system, ocean, and organic and ecosystem, and its relation with human and non-human biota. The topic also involves hazard prediction and nowcast technology.

By combining 34 years (> halftime of Cesium 137) monitoring data after the Chernobyl Accident in 1986, 9 years dense measurement data by the most advanced instrumentation after the Fukushima Accident in 2011, and other events, we can improve our knowledgebase on the environmental behavior of radioactive materials and its environmental/biological impact. This should lead to improved monitoring systems in the future including emergency response systems, acute sampling/measurement methodology, and remediation schemes for any future nuclear accidents.

The following specific topics have traditionally been discussed:
(a) Atmospheric Science (emissions, transport, deposition, pollution);
(b) Hydrology (transport in surface and ground water system, soil-water interactions);
(c) Oceanology (transport, bio-system interaction);
(d) Soil System (transport, chemical interaction, transfer to organic system);
(e) Forestry;
(f) Natural Hazards (warning systems, health risk assessments, geophysical variability, countermeasure);
(g) Measurement Techniques (instrumentation, multipoint data measurements);
(h) Ecosystems (migration/decay of radionuclides).

The session consists of updated observations, new theoretical developments including simulations, and improved methods or tools which could improve observation and prediction capabilities during eventual future nuclear emergencies. New evaluations of existing tools, past nuclear contamination events and other data sets also welcome.

Public information:
Here is instruction of a live chat,
(1) Convener’s summary at the beginning of Chat 10:45-11:00
(2) We then go each presentation for 5 minutes including discussion.
(3) Each presenter posts their own "a few sentence summary within 80 words" in total, and the discussion. Omit any greeting to save time.
(4) To save time, we even offer to post your summary when we introduce your talk if you send me before hand
Live chat schedule
10:45        Convener summary
— we present one highlight slide from each presentation and give audience to search for presentation to deeply look into.
11:00    10066    Mykola Talerko et al
11:05    15257    Joffrey Dumont Le Brazidec et al
11:10    233    Sheng Fang et al
11:15    5844    Elena Korobova et al
11:20    2252    Misa Yasumiishi et al
11:25    13220    Yuichi Onda et al (solicited/Highlights)
11:30    13965    Fumiaki Makino et al
11:35    12301    Michio Aoyama et al
11:40    22136    Yasuhito Igarashi et al
11:45    12465    Hikaru Iida et al
11:50    19250    Mark Zheleznyak et al
11:55    12477    Yoshifumi Wakiyama et al
12:00    3175    Michio Aoyama et al (solicited)
12:05    11813    Yayoi Inomata and Michio Aoyama
12:10    12627    Daisuke Tsumune et al
12:15    21319    Susumu Yamada (Masahiko Machida) et al
12:20    6987    Hikaru Miura et al
12:25        Closing remark

The session gathers geoscientific aspects such as dynamics, reactions, and environmental/health consequences of radioactive materials that are massively released accidentally (e.g., Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plant accidents, wide fires, etc.) and by other human activities (e.g., nuclear tests).

In addition to hazardous aspect for human society, the radioactive materials are used as ideal markers in understanding dynamics and physical/chemical/biological reactions chains in the environment. This multi-disciplinary session gathers all these aspect.

Data science, analytics and visualization technologies and methods emerge as significant capabilities for extracting insight from the ever growing volume and complexity of scientific data. The rapid advancement of these capabilities no doubt helps address a number of challenges and present new opportunities in improving Earth and Space science data usability. This session will highlight and discuss the novelty and strength of these emerging fields and technologies of these components, and their trends. We invite papers and presentations to examine and share the experience of:
- What benefits they offer to Earth and Space Science
- What science research challenges they address
- How they help transform science data into information and knowledge
- In what ways they can advance scientific research
- What lessons were learned in the development and infusion of these methods and technologies

Smart monitoring and observation systems for natural hazards, including satellites, seismometers, global networks, unmanned vehicles (e.g., UAV), and other linked devices, have become increasingly abundant. With these data, we observe the restless nature of our Earth and work towards improving our understanding of natural hazard processes such as landslides, debris flows, earthquakes, floods, storms, and tsunamis. The abundance of diverse measurements that we have now accumulated presents an opportunity for earth scientists to employ statistically driven approaches that speed up data processing, improve model forecasts, and give insights into the underlying physical processes. Such big-data approaches are supported by the wider scientific, computational, and statistical research communities who are constantly developing data science and machine learning techniques and software. Hence, data science and machine learning methods are rapidly impacting the fields of natural hazards and seismology. In this session, we will see research from natural hazards and seismology for processes over a broad range of time and spatial scales.

Dr. Pui Anantrasirichai of the University of Bristol, UK will give the invited presentation:
Application of Deep Learning to Detect Ground Deformation in InSAR Data

This session aims to inform the geoscientists and engineers regarding new and/or improved instrumentation and methods for space and planetary exploration, as well as about their novel or established applications.
The session is open to all branches of planetary and space measurement tools and techniques, including, but not limited to: optical, electromagnetic, seismic, acoustic, particles, and gravity.
Please, kindly take contact with the conveners if you have a topic that may be suitable for a review talk.
This session is also intended as an open forum, where discussion between representatives of different fields within planetary, space and geosciences will be strongly encouraged, looking for a fruitful mutual exchange and cross fertilization between scientific areas.

This session aims at presenting highlights of relevant recent results regarding the exploration and sustainable utilization of the Moon through observations, modelling, laboratory and theory - although the main focus of the session is on instrumentation and modelling approaches. Key research questions concerning the lunar surface, subsurface, interior and their evolution will be discussed. More in detail, the topics of interest for this session include:
-Recent lunar results: geochemistry, geophysics in the context of open planetary science and exploration
-Synthesis of results from Clementine, Prospector, SMART-1, Kaguya, Chang’e 1, 2 and 3, Chandrayaan-1, LCROSS, LADEE, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Artemis and GRAIL
- First results from Chang'E 4, Chandrayaan2, Chang’E5, Commercial Lunar Payload
- Goals and Status of missions under preparation: orbiters, Luna25-27, SLIM, GLXP legacy, LRP, commercial landers, Future landers, Lunar sample return missions
- Precursor missions, instruments and investigations for landers, rovers, sample return, and human cis-lunar activities and human lunar surface sorties
- Preparation for International Lunar Decade: databases, instruments, missions, terrestrial field campaigns, In-Situ Resources, ISRU, support studies
- ILEWG and Global Exploration roadmaps towards a global robotic/human Moon village

Note that this session is open to all branches of lunar science and exploration, and is intended as an open forum and discussion between diverse experts and Earth geoscientists and explorers at large. The session will include invited and contributed talks as well as a panel discussion and interactive posters with short oral introduction.

Space-based measurements of the Earth System, including its atmosphere, oceans, land surface, cryosphere, biosphere, and interior, require extensive prelaunch and post launch calibration and validation activities to ensure scientific accuracy and fitness for purpose throughout the 
lifetime of satellite missions. This requirement stems from the need to demonstrate unambiguously that the space-based measurements, typically based on engineering measurements by the detectors (e.g. photons), are sensitive to and match up with the geophysical and/or biogeochemical quantity of interest at a broad range of measurement locations on Earth. Most geophysical parameters vary in time and space, and the retrieval algorithms used must be accurate under the full range of conditions. Calibration and validation need to be carried out over the lifetime of missions in order to assure that any long-term variation in observation can be definitely be tied to the evolution of the Earth system. Such activities are also critical in ensuring that measurements can be inter-compared and used seamlessly to create long-term multi-instrument//multi-platform data sets, , which enable large-scale international science investigations into topics with high societal or environmental importance such as determining the ice mass balance of Greenland, monitoring the evolution of sea ice and snow cover in the Arctic and improving our knowledge of the terrestrial carbon cycle through multi-sensor forest biomass mapping. . This session seeks presentations on the use of surface-based, airborne, and/or space-based observations to prepare and calibrate/validate space-based satellite missions measuring our Earth system. A particular but not exclusive focus will be on activities carried out jointly by NASA and ESA as part of their Joint Program Planning Group Subgroup on calibration and validation and field activities.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. Originating mostly from military applications, their use is rapidly expanding to commercial, recreational, agricultural, and scientific applications. Unlike manned aircraft, UAVs were initially used for missions too "dull, dirty, or dangerous" for humans. Nowadays however, many modern scientific experiments have begun to use UAVs as a tool to collect different types of data. Their flexibility and relatively simple usability now allow scientist to accomplish tasks that previously required expensive equipment like piloted aircrafts, gas, or hot air balloons. Even the industry has begun to adapt and offer extensive options in UAV characteristics and capabilities. At this session, we would like people to share their experience in using UAVs for scientific research. We are interested to hear about specific scientific tasks accomplished or attempted, types of UAVs used, and instruments deployed.

Cartography and mapping are at this time the only means to conduct basic geoscientific studies (on planetary surfaces). The field of Planetary Cartography and Mapping has been stepping out of its niche existence in the last 15 years due to the availability of an unprecedented amount of new data from various planetary exploration missions from different countries and the advent of internet technology that allows to manage, process, distribute, analyze, and collaborate efficiently. Geospatial information system technology plays a pivotal role in this process and essentially all planetary surface science research in this field benefits from this technology and frequent new developments.
With the availability of data and connection, however, comes the challenge of organizing and structuring available data and research, such as maps and newly derived and refined (base) data that is about to enter its new research life cycle.
This session welcomes presentations covering planetary data and its development into cartographic products and maps. This covers aspects of data archival, dissemination, structuring, analyzing, filtering, visualizing, collaboration, and map compilation but is not limited to these topics.
It should also be emphasized that the exchange of knowledge and experiences from the Earth Sciences would be highly beneficial for the Planetary Data Sciences.

The Open Session on atmosphere, land and ocean monitoring aims at presenting highlights of recent results obtained through observations and modelling as well as relevant reviews in these fields.

The session is intended as an open forum for interdisciplinary discussion between representatives of different fields. Thus, we welcome especially overarching presentations which may be interesting to a wider community.

Observations are one major link to get an overall picture of processes within the Earth environment during measurement campaigns. This includes application to derive atmospheric parameters, surface properties of vegetation, soil and minerals and dissolved or suspended matter in inland water and the ocean. Ground based systems and data sets from ships, aircraft and satellites are key information sources to complement the overall view. All of these systems have their pros and cons, but a comprehensive view of the observed system is generally best obtained by means of a combination of all of them.

The validation of operational satellite systems and applications is a topic that has come increasingly into focus with the European Copernicus program in recent years. The development of smaller state-of-the-art instruments, the combination of more and more complex sets of instruments simultaneously on one platform, with improved accuracy and high data acquisition speed together with high accuracy navigation and inertial measurements enables more complex campaign strategies even on smaller aircraft or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

This session will bring together a multidisciplinary research community to present:

• Atmosphere-land-ocean (or inland water) system modelling and validation
• new instruments (Lidar, etc), platforms (UAV etc.), setups and use in multidisciplinary approaches
• Larger scale in-situ and remote sensing observation networks from various platforms (ground based, airborne, ship-borne, satellite)
• recent field campaigns and their outcomes
• (multi-) aircraft campaigns
• satellite calibration/validation campaigns
• sophisticated instrument setups and observations
• advanced instrument developments
• UAV applications

This session invites contributions on the latest developments and results in lidar remote sensing of the atmosphere, covering
• new lidar techniques as well as applications of lidar data for model verification and assimilation,
• ground-based, airborne, and space-borne lidar systems,
• unique research systems as well as networks of instruments,
• lidar observations of aerosols and clouds, thermodynamic parameters and wind, and trace-gases.
Atmospheric lidar technologies have shown significant progress in recent years. While, some years ago, there were only a few research systems, mostly quite complex and difficult to operate on a longer-term basis because a team of experts was continuously required for their operation, advancements in laser transmitter and receiver technologies have resulted in much more rugged systems nowadays, many of which are already operated routinely in networks and some even being automated and commercially available. Consequently, also more and more data sets with very high resolution in range and time are becoming available for atmospheric science, which makes it attractive to consider lidar data not only for case studies but also for extended model comparison statistics and data assimilation. Here, ceilometers provide not only information on the cloud bottom height but also profiles of aerosol and cloud backscatter signals. Scanning Doppler lidars extend the data to horizontal and vertical wind profiles. Raman lidars and high-spectral resolution lidars provide more details than ceilometers and measure particle extinction and backscatter coefficients at multiple wavelengths. Other Raman lidars measure water vapor mixing ratio and temperature profiles. Differential absorption lidars give profiles of absolute humidity or other trace gases (like ozone, NOx, SO2, CO2, methane etc.). Depolarization lidars provide information on the shapes of aerosol and cloud particles. In addition to instruments on the ground, lidars are operated from airborne platforms in different altitudes. Even the first space-borne missions are now in orbit while more are currently in preparation. All these aspects of lidar remote sensing in the atmosphere will be part of this session.

Instrumentation and measurement technologies are currently playing a key role in the monitoring, assessment and protection of environmental resources. Climate study related experiments and observational stations are getting bigger and the number of sensors and instruments involved is growing very fast. This session deals with measurement techniques and sensing methods for the observation of environmental systems, focusing on water systems and climate.
We welcome contributions about advancements on field measurement approaches, the development of new sensing techniques, as well as the deployment of sensor networks and measurement methods enabling crowdsourced data collection, including innovative low cost sensors. Remote sensing techniques for the monitoring of water resources and/or the related infrastructures are within the scope of this session and welcome.
Studies about signal and data processing techniques targeted to event detection and the integration between sensor networks and large data systems are also very encouraged. Water quantity and quality measurements alongside water characterization techniques are within the scope of this session. This session is also open for all works about an existing system, planning a completely new network, upgrading an existing system, improving streaming data management, and archiving data.
Contributions dealing with the integration of data from multiple sources are solicited, as well as about establishing, maintaining, and managing a fixed network of sensors for water systems and climate.

The Arctic is changing at a dramatic speed in response to the global warming. Management and planning of human activities in the Arctic, and in regions mostly affected by the Arctic climate change, depends on understanding of Arctic-particular physical, chemical, and biological processes that can only arise from systematic observations of key variables. However, the Arctic is difficult and expensive to access, and consequently in-situ observations are scarce and rarely sustained over long time. The international efforts to monitor components of the Arctic climate- and ecosystem from in-situ and remote sensing platforms are growing, but the observing systems including data management are largely uncoordinated. There are a number of international programmes and projects with focus on observing and documenting climate and environmental change, but in the Arctic, where the largest changes are found, there are huge gaps in the observing systems.

In this session, we invite presentations on the efforts done to catalogue and assess the existing Arctic observations, as well as the initiatives carried out to enhance the Arctic observational capacity and improve FAIR data access and reuse. The aim of the session is to foster the international collaboration among the actors playing a role in the Arctic observing systems (managers of infrastructures, manager of data, data collectors, data users) toward the optimization of the observing system. This effort is in line with the Road Map Task Force recently established by the Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON) and it served the needs of Arctic data users at the local, regional, and global level.

Snow plays an essential role in the climatic and environmental challenges of the 21st century. The snow cover represents a key source of global water supply and climate regulation, and has shown high sensitivity to a warming climate. The amount of collected snow information is also constantly increasing due to novel automated methods for cheaper and easier measurements, especially imagery. During the last decades, instrumentation and measurement techniques, especially remote sensing, have advanced fast, providing significant amount of new information about the extent and properties of snow (e.g. snow water equivalent, (SWE), albedo, reflectance, microstructure, and impurities). In addition, novel technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and webcams provide new opportunities and challenges. Optimization and agreement on sampling strategies are important to get spatially distributed data at different scales, and ensure broad use of the acquired data. Data management has become an important issue after general open data policy, where data sets should be available and usable for other users. A large variety of NWP and hydrological models or operational applications routinely make use of snow data to improve their performance. Forecasting snow related hazards in Europe is mostly performed at the country or regional level, and heavily relies on the concurrent meteorological factors and snowpack properties, which are usually acquired from point measurements or physical models. A big challenge is bridging information from microstructural scales of the snowpack up to the grid resolution in models and then to provide knowledge-based information on potential impacts to society, economy and safety (e.g. hydro-power, water availability, transportation, tourism, flooding and avalanches). In this session we would like discuss recent developments and progresses on (1) Snow data collection, curation, and management including harmonized observation techniques for several snow parameters and remote sensing snow observations by applying novel techniques, (2) Snow models, satellite-derived snow products, and data assimilation including improved snow modelling and prediction at different scales taking into account macro and microscale snow properties and (3) Monitoring snow-related hazards and extreme events including latest reanalysis and satellite data sets and models to predict and forecast extreme events and snow-related natural hazards.

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is a safe, advanced, non-destructive and non-invasive imaging technique that can be effectively used for inspecting the subsurface as well as natural and man-made structures. During GPR surveys, a source is used to send high-frequency electromagnetic waves into the ground or structure under test; at the boundaries where the electromagnetic properties of media change, the electromagnetic waves may undergo transmission, reflection, refraction and diffraction; the radar sensors measure the amplitudes and travel times of signals returning to the surface.

This session aims at bringing together scientists, engineers, industrial delegates and end-users working in all GPR areas, ranging from fundamental electromagnetics to the numerous fields of applications. With this session, we wish to provide a supportive framework for (1) the delivery of critical updates on the ongoing research activities, (2) fruitful discussions and development of new ideas, (3) community-building through the identification of skill sets and collaboration opportunities, (4) vital exposure of early-career scientists to the GPR research community.

We have identified a series of topics of interest for this session, listed below.

1. Ground Penetrating Radar instrumentation
- Innovative GPR systems and antennas
- Equipment testing and calibration procedures

2. Ground Penetrating Radar methodology
- Survey planning and data acquisition strategies
- Methods and tools for data analysis, interpretation and visualization
- Data processing, electromagnetic modelling, imaging and inversion techniques
- Studying the relationship between GPR sensed quantities and physical properties of inspected subsurface/structures useful for application needs

3. Ground Penetrating Radar applications and case studies
- Earth sciences
- Civil and environmental engineering
- Archaeology and cultural heritage
- Management of water resources
- Humanitarian mine clearance
- Vital signs detection of trapped people in natural and manmade disasters
- Planetary exploration

4. Combined use of Ground Penetrating Radar and other geoscience instrumentation, in all applications fields

5. Communication and education initiatives and methods

-- Notes --
This session is organized by Members of TU1208 GPR Association (www.gpradar.eu/tu1208), a follow-up initiative of COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action TU1208 “Civil engineering applications of Ground Penetrating Radar”.

The new scenario related to the global urbanization process and its impact on environmental sustainability and resilience to natural disasters, especially the ones related to the Climate Change, strongly challenges holistic multidisciplinary and multi-sectorial approaches for the management of urban areas and Cultural heritages. These approach aim at providing solutions based on the integration of technologies, methodologies and best practices (remote and local monitoring, simulating and forecasting, characterizing, maintaining, restoring, etc.), with the purpose to increase the resilience of the assets, also thanks to the exploitation of dedicated ICT architectures and
innovative eco-solutions and also by accounting the social and economic value of the investigated areas, especially in CH frame. In this framework, progressively stricter requirements in geophysical
prospecting, in urban and inter-urban monitoring make it important to look continuously for new solutions to new and old complex problems. In particular, investigation and monitoring of pollution, hydrological resources, energy efficiency, cultural heritage, cities and transport infrastructures, nowadays require technological and methodological innovations of geophysical and sensing techniques in order to properly understand the limits of the current state of art and identify where
possible the most convenient strategies to overcome the limits of the current approaches. This goal can be achieved either with more advanced solutions in a general sense or with dedicated solutions, particularly suitable for the specific problem at hand. The session “Innovative instrumentations, techniques, geophysical and remote sensing methods and models and ICT tools for the smart and resilient cities of the future” aims to propose a moment for this, where multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary competences can interact with each other, possibly finding possible new ways to cooperate and exchange ideas and experiences reciprocally.

In the field of geosciences, digital 3D reconstruction of the real environment has rapidly increased driven by advancements in ever higher-resolution equipment, by the several applications of those types of data (modelling, analysis and representation) and by the need to explore, map and study the complexity of the Earth’s surface. The intensive use of advanced instruments and techniques such as Radar, LiDAR, Terrestrial Laser Scanner, photogrammetry (conventional and Structure-from-Motion) and Multibeam Echosounder Systems provide new scientific opportunities to create high-resolution 3D point clouds and 3D models (elevation and bathymetry) across multiple scales (nanoscale to landscape-scale). In particular, with the development of both manned and unmanned vehicles (ever smaller and portable), performed on terrestrial and subaqueous environments, it has been made possible to collect data in problematic areas (related to extreme conditions, accessibility, danger to standard equipment, etc.). Compared to traditional monitoring techniques in the field, these new technologies capture topological and spatial distribution information in 3D, providing unprecedented insight into Earth surface processes and ecosystem functioning over time.

This session will focus on studies, approaches and technologies for high-resolution 3D environment reconstructions, data analysis and scientific visualization. Particular attention will be paid to contributions on new techniques for 3D data collection and visualization such as: i) cutting-edge methods and tools for 3D environment reconstruction; ii) innovative techniques for data collection and analysis of dense cloud, mesh, terrain/bathymetric dataset; iii) modern approaches for 3D scientific visualization (e.g. immersive virtual reality) for reconstructed offshore and onshore environment; and iv) other innovative methods related to 3D environmental studies. The session also greatly welcomes studies focused on integration between different instruments and data gathering techniques, datasets and time-windows within the same studied area.

We expect contributions from several disciplines and across scale in Earth Science, where 3D reconstruction is a key issue for research activity, including terrestrial and marine geology, geomorphology, environmental engineering, structural geology, volcanology, geobiology and ecology, applied geology, glaciology, remote sensing, computer sciences and others.

The functionality of underground laboratories (ULs) is widening from a single scientific field to multidisciplinary research infrastructures and research instruments themselves. The transition has not only been limited to science, but also businesses are more and more aware of the possibilities of ULs.
Underground laboratories can be found almost from every continent, providing a wide variety of geological and tectonic settings. They come in many shapes and sizes ranging from a few cubic meters to extensive underground tunnel networks.
In this thematic session, we concentrate on the underground laboratories themselves, what makes them tick, including characterisation of the facilities, administration and operations, services, risk analysis and management, and economic feasibility. Even though every underground laboratory has a unique infrastructure and set of activities, common operators, challenges and possibilities can also be identified, e.g. the lack of awareness of the underground laboratories within the scientific and business communities.
We invite all the underground laboratory networks, operators, managers, researchers and stakeholders, to contribute and introduce their research, infrastructures, characterisations, management and business models as well as future visions and exemplary user cases.

Public information:
Underground laboratories and test-sites come in many shapes and sizes. In this thematic session, some of the world´s underground laboratories and test-sites are presented by their representatives. Displays will also cover some of background information of the sites including characterisation practices, business models and service portfolios to better serve the current and future users of underground laboratories and test-sites.

Characterizing and monitoring Earth surface processes often requires the development of challenging scientific approaches leading to the rise of innovative techniques. From the highest mountains to the deepest oceans, passive to active monitoring techniques are in constant progress and push further terra incognita boundaries. In particular, seismic techniques are becoming widely used to detect and quantitatively characterise a wide variety of natural processes occurring at the Earth’s surface. These processes include mass movements such as landslides, rock falls, debris flows and lahars; glacial phenomena such as icequakes, glacier calving/serac falls, glacier melt and supra- to sub-glacial hydrology; snow avalanches; water storage and water dynamics phenomena such as water table changes, river flow turbulence and fluvial sediment transport. Where other methods often provide limited spatial and temporal coverage, seismic observations allow recovering sequences of events with high temporal resolution and over large areas. In addition to seismic techniques, recent advances in other in-situ geophysical instrumentation (e.g. Doppler radar, sub bottom profilers, etc.) or remote sensing techniques (e.g. inSAR, unmanned aerial systems, unmanned maritime systems, etc.) have made remote monitoring and data acquisition a reality. These novel techniques represent more affordable, practical solutions for the collection of spatial and temporal data sets in challenging environments.
These observational capabilities allow establishing connections with meteorological drivers, and give unprecedented insights on the underlying physics of the various Earth’s surface processes as well as on their interactions (chains of events). These capabilities are also of first interest for real time hazards monitoring and early warning purposes.
This session aims to bring together research on seismic methods as well as holistic, novel and/or in-development monitoring solutions to study Earth surface dynamics, particularly in challenging and hostile areas. We welcome contributions from a broad range of disciplines (including geomorphology, cryospheric sciences, seismology, natural hazards, volcanology, soil system sciences and hydrology) and applications (from landslides, snow avalanches, glaciers, cave systems, marine/lake and submarine systems, to volcano and permafrost monitoring).

Solicited presenter: Zack Spica - University of Michigan (USA)

Natural radioactivity is ubiquitous in the environment as a result of i) cosmic radiation from space and secondary radiation from the interaction of cosmic rays with atoms and molecules in the atmosphere, ii) terrestrial sources from mineral grains in soils and rocks, particularly Potassium (K-40), Uranium (U-238) and Thorium (Th-232), and their decay products, and iii) Radon gas (Rn-222). Moreover, fallout of artificial radionuclides (e.g. 137Cs, 134Cs) from nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents contributes to additional environmental radioactivity. The use of nuclear techniques enables the measurement of radioactivity in air, soils and water even at trace levels, making it a particularly appealing tool for characterizing time-varying environmental phenomena. This session welcomes contributions addressing the measurement and exploitation of environmental radioactivity in all areas of geosciences, including, but not limited to:

- volcanic monitoring and surveillance;
- identification of faults and tectonic structures;
- mineral exploration;
- earthquakes;
- groundwater contamination;
- coastal and marine monitoring;
- soil erosion processes;
- Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORMs);
- geostatistical methods for radioactivity mapping;
- atmospheric tracing, including of greenhouse gases and pollutants
- atmospheric mixing and transport processes;
- air ionisation and atmospheric electricity;
- cosmic rays;
- public health including the EU BSS directive.

Contributions on novel methods and instrumentation for environmental radioactivity monitoring are particularly encouraged, including payloads for airborne measurements and small satellites.

At present, constructional geomaterials make the largest (by volume) group of extracted mineral raw materials. Despite their low unit price, they significantly contribute to the economy in many senses. Ongoing worldwide development of infrastructure, rapid urbanisation and the need for maintenance of the existing structures exert enormous pressure on the environment due to the extraction of new materials from natural resources, along with their processing and transportation.
The resources, processing, testing, and proper use of construction geomaterials thus deserve attention from the scientific community due to their long-term use, importance for the society, and sensitivity to the environment. As our knowledge of many aspects of these materials is still rather limited, the session aims to focus on the following topics:
• characterisation of traditional raw materials and their products, such as natural and dimension stone, aggregates (crushed stone, sands and gravels), inorganic binders (lime, natural cements and hydraulic limes), bricks, clay, earth and adobe;
• use of geomaterials in concrete and service life of such materials;
• recovery of historic knowledge of constructional geomaterials processing and use;
• assessment of durability;
• comparison of natural and anthropogenic decay of constructional geomaterials, the role of human impact on their service life;
• study of interactions and material compatibility between traditional construction materials and modern restoration products;
• conservation of geomaterials in heritage structures;
• availability of traditional materials in modern society, including comparative studies between small-scale production of materials (e.g. natural cement) and large-scale industrial processing;
• use of local materials as a part of cultural and/or industrial and technical heritage;
• technological properties and their testing;
• on site and laboratory standardized (ASTM, EN, etc.) and non-standardized testing techniques and their limitations for constructional geomaterials’ characterization;
• geological evaluation of geomaterials’ deposits;
• compositional and genetic aspects influencing extraction, processing, and utilization of constructional geomaterials;
• use of quarry waste, utilization of stone extraction and processing by-products;
• environmental issues.

This session covers an overview of the progress and new scientific approaches for investigating landslides using state-of-the-art techniques such as: Earth Observation (EO), close-range Remote Sensing techniques (RS) and Geophysical Surveying (GS).

A series of remarkable technological progresses are driven new scientific opportunities to better understand landslide dynamics worldwide, including integrated information about rheological properties, water content, rate of deformation and time-varying changes of these parameters through seasonal changes and/or progressive slope damage.

This session welcomes innovative contributions and lessons learned from significant case studies and/or original methods aiming to increase our capability to detect, model and predict landslide processes at different scales, from site specific to regional studies, and over multiple dimensions (e.g. 2D, 3D and 4D).

A special emphasis is expected not only on the particularities of data collection from different platforms (e.g. satellite, aerial, UAV, Ground Based...) and locations (e.g. surface- and borehole-based geophysics) but also on new solutions for digesting and interpreting datasets of high spatiotemporal resolution, landslide characterization, monitoring, modelling, as well as their integration on real-time EWS, rapid mapping and other prevention and protection initiatives. Examples of previous submissions include using one or more of the following techniques: optical and radar sensors, new satellite constellations (including the emergence of the Sentinel-1A and 1B), Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) / Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) / drones, high spatial resolution airborne LiDAR missions, terrestrial LIDAR, Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry, time-lapse cameras, multi-temporal DInSAR, GPS surveying, Seismic Reflection, Surface Waves Analysis, Geophysical Tomography (seismic and electrical), Seismic Ambient Vibrations, Acoustic Emissions, Electro-Magnetic surveys, low-cost sensors, commercial use of small satellites, Multi-Spectral images, etc. Other pioneering applications using big data treatment techniques, data-driven approaches and/or open code initiatives for investigating mass movements using the above-described techniques will also be very welcomed.

GUEST SPEAKER: this year, we invited professor Jonathan Chambers, team leader of the geophysical tomography cluster at the British Geological Survey (BGS).

This session explores the potentials and limitations of various remote sensing applications in forestry, with the focus on the identification and integration of different methodologies and techniques from different sensors and in-situ data for providing qualitative and quantities forest information.
In general, remote sensing allows examining and gathering information about an object or a place from a distance, using a wide range of sensors and platforms. A key development in remote sensing has been the increased availability of data with very high temporal, spatial and spectral resolution. In the last decades, several types of remote sensing data, including optical, multispectral, radar, LiDAR from terrestrial, UAV, aerial and satellite platforms, have been used to detect, classify, evaluate and measure the earth surface, including different vegetation cover and forest structure. For the forest sector, such information allows efficient quantification of the state and monitoring of changes over time and space, in support of sustainable forest management, forest and carbon inventory or for monitoring forest health and their disturbances. Remote sensing data can provide both qualitative and quantitative information about forest ecosystems. In a qualitative analysis, forest cover types and species composition can be classified, whereas the quantitative analysis can measure and estimate different forest structure parameters related to single trees (e.g. DBH, height, basal area, timber volume, etc.) and to the whole stand (e.g. number of trees per unite area, spatial distribution, etc.). However, to meet the various information requirements, different data sources should be adopted according to the application, the level of detail required and the extension of the area under study. The integration of in-situ measurements with satellite/airborne/UAV imagery, Structure from Motion, LiDAR and geo-information systems offers new possibilities, especially for interpretation, mapping and measuring of forest parameters and will be a challenge for future research and application.

This session is linked to the Pan-Eurasian EXperiment (PEEX; www.atm.helsinki.fi/peex), a multi-disciplinary, -scale and -component climate change, air quality, environment and research infrastructure and capacity building programme. It is aimed at resolving major uncertainties in Earth system science and global sustainability issues concerning the Arctic, Northern Eurasia and China regions. This session aims to bring together researchers interested in (i) understanding environmental changes effecting in pristine and industrialized Pan-Eurasian environments (system understanding); (ii) determining relevant environmental, climatic, and other processes in Arctic-boreal regions (process understanding); (iii) the further development of the long-term, continuous and comprehensive ground-based, air/seaborne research infrastructures together with satellite data (observation component); (iv) to develop new datasets and archives of the continuous, comprehensive data flows in a joint manner (data component); (v) to implement validated and harmonized data products in models of appropriate spatio-temporal scales and topical focus (modeling component); (vi) to evaluate impact on society though assessment, scenarios, services, innovations and new technologies (society component).
List of topics:
• Ground-based and satellite observations and datasets for atmospheric composition in Northern Eurasia and China
• Impacts on environment, ecosystems, human health due to atmospheric transport, dispersion, deposition and chemical transformations of air pollutants in Arctic-boreal regions
• New approaches and methods on measurements and modelling in Arctic conditions;
• Improvements in natural and anthropogenic emission inventories for Arctic-boreal regions
• Physical, chemical and biological processes in a northern context
• Aerosol formation-growth, aerosol-cloud-climate interactions, radiative forcing, feedbacks in Arctic, Siberia, China;
• Short lived pollutants and climate forcers, permafrost, forest fires effects
• Carbon dioxide and methane, ecosystem carbon cycle
• Socio-economical changes in Northern Eurasia and China regions.
PEEX session is co-organized with the Digital Belt and Road Program (DBAR), abstracts welcome on topics:
• Big Earth Data approaches on facilitating synergy between DBAR activities & PEEX multi-disciplinary regime
• Understanding and remote connection of last decades changes of environment over High Asia and Arctic regions, both land and ocean.

The Open Session on Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus as terrestrial planets systems aims at presenting highlights of relevant recent results through observations, modelling, laboratory and theory. Key research questions concerning the surface, subsurface, interior and their evolution will be discussed, as well as instruments and techniques from Earth and space.

This session is seeking papers that address new mission concepts, instruments and enabling technologies for future planetary science and exploration. In particular, papers describing mission concepts proposed for ESA and international space agency programs are encouraged.

Plastic pollution in freshwater systems is a widely recognized global problem with severe environmental risks. Besides the direct negative effects on freshwater ecosystems, freshwater plastic pollution is also considered the dominant source of plastic input into the oceans. However, research on plastic pollution has only recently expanded from the marine environment to freshwater systems, and therefore data and knowledge from field studies are still limited in regard to freshwater. This knowledge gap must be addressed to understand the dispersal and distribution of plastics and their fate in the oceans, as well as forming effective mitigation measures.

In this session, we explore the current state of knowledge and activities on (macro to micro) plastic in freshwater systems, including aspects such as:

• Plastic monitoring techniques;
• Case studies;
• Source to sink investigations;
• Transport processes of plastics in watersheds;
• Novel measurement approaches, such as citizen science or remote sensing;
• Modelling approaches for local and/or global river output estimations;
• Legislative/regulatory efforts, such as monitoring programs and measures against plastic pollution in freshwater systems.

Smart Farming is driving a revolution in agriculture, aiming at more productive and sustainable production through precise and resource-efficient decision making, with additional applications in forest and rangeland management. Remotely sensed Big Data from satellite, small unmanned aerial, airborne, in situ and proximal systems, brings both challenges and opportunities which requires high spatial resolution and near real-time mapping capabilities. Success in crop health monitoring, stress identification, soil mapping, fertilizer and irrigation advisories, yield prediction, ecosystem services, and more have been achieved. This session seeks contributions across government, university, private, and nonprofit organizations. It focuses on research methodologies and applications for the use of high spatial resolution or high temporal frequency remotely sensed Big Data for Smart Farming and land management applications. We invite your findings throughout the chain of data collection, storage, transfer, transformation, analytics and discuss how to achieve the goal of more productive and sustainable agriculture production

Geostatistics is commonly applied in the Water, Earth and Environmental sciences to quantify spatial variation, produce interpolated maps with quantified uncertainty and optimize spatial sampling designs. Extensions to the space-time domain are also a topic of current interest. Due to technological advances and abundance of new data sources from remote and proximal sensing and a multitude of environmental sensor networks, big data analysis and data fusion techniques have become a major topic of research. Furthermore, methodological advances, such as hierarchical Bayesian modeling and machine learning, have enriched the modelling approaches typically used in geostatistics.

Earth-science data have spatial and temporal features that contain important information about the underlying processes. The development and application of innovative space-time geostatistical methods helps to better understand and quantify the relationship between the magnitude and the probability of occurrence of these events.

This session aims to provide a platform for geostatisticians, soil scientists, hydrologists, earth and environmental scientists to present and discuss innovative geostatistical methods to study and solve major problems in the Water, Earth and Environmental sciences. In addition to methodological innovations, we also encourage contributions on real-world applications of state-of-the-art geostatistical methods.

Given the broad scope of this session, the topics of interest include the following non-exclusive list of subjects:
1. Advanced parametric and non-parametric spatial estimation and prediction techniques
2. Big spatial data: analysis and visualization
3. Optimisation of spatial sampling frameworks and space-time monitoring designs
4. Algorithms and applications on Earth Observation Systems
5. Data Fusion, mining and information analysis
6. Integration of geostatistics with optimization and machine learning approaches
7. Application of covariance functions and copulas in the identification of spatio-temporal relationships
8. Geostatistical characterization of uncertainties and error propagation
9. Bayesian geostatistical analysis and hierarchical modelling
10. Functional data analysis approaches to geostatistics
11. Geostatistical analysis of spatial compositional data
12. Multiple point geostatistics
13. Upscaling and downscaling techniques
14. Ontological framework for characterizing environmental processes

For research to have the broadest possible impact and be of high community-supported caliber, it should be open and FAIR – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Methods to support open-access research output and tools are growing in popularity and are becoming increasingly easy to use. There is no time like the present to join the movement and this short course aims to introduce researchers to open and FAIR principles and methods, such as open access publishing, sharing data, code, and models, publishing negative/unexpected results, and efforts to increase reproducibility. FAIR science allows scientists, decision-makers, and the broader public to better access science and engineering research output and better understand its broader impacts. In this Short Course, invited experts will introduce and demonstrate the general concepts of open and FAIR methods and technologies and their benefits for the researcher. The general introduction will be followed by an interactive discussion on FAIRness in geoscience, the exchange of experiences, and an outlook to the future of research. Finally, we will give several examples of how you can make your science open and FAIR.

This short course is part of an on-going series to connect scientists with more resources to promote openness in geoscience, including a session and an open science special issue entitled "Open Hydrology: Advances towards fully reproducible, re-usable and collaborative research methods in Hydrology" convened by Nijzink et al. and other resource focused sessions (e.g., EarthArXiv) at EGU2020!