The GreenEO Project: Satellite-Based Services to Support Sustainable Land Use Practices Under the European Green Deal

We present a new Horizon Europe project titled GreenEO (2025-2029) as well as findings based on advances in modelling within the Nordic Nature & Nitrogen (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2021-2024) and the SEEDS (Horizon 2020, 2021-2023) projects. The ambition of GreenEO is to support governance approaches for the implementation of EU’s Green Deal. The implementation of which will rely on accessible, actionable environmental data for policymaking and monitoring. Success will be dependent on the usage of the latest observational data as well as on the level of uptake of these data by end-users. GreenEO addresses this by using observations from the Sentinel and newest meteorological (MTG and Metop-SG) satellites, and through co-creation with users of high-resolution services and novel indicators to directly meet user needs.

GreenEO will specifically address the environmental impacts of nitrogen deposition and advance the state of knowledge on this topic within the context of supporting the EU’s Green Deal and its ambition for protecting biodiversity.

Current data on nitrogen emissions, deposition, and biodiversity impacts are inconsistent and lack sufficient spatial resolution. GreenEO will therefore try to advance the state of knowledge in three areas:

• Using advanced satellite data, data assimilation, modeling, and ancillary data, GreenEO will estimate high-resolution nitrogen emissions (NH3, NOx). These high-resolution emissions will then be used in turn as a basis for modelling downstream impacts.
• GreenEO will advance the state of the art for nitrogen deposition modelling using findings from previous projects (Nordic Nature & Nitrogen and SEEDS projects). A bi-directional flux parameterization (Wichink-Kruit et al., 2012) was added to three regional scale air quality models (DEHM, MATCH, and EMEP) within the Nordic Nature and Nitrogen project. The findings were that this approach did not lead to consistent improvements in ambient concentration and flux modelling without commensurate improvements in land cover and vegetation data. For instance, bi-directional fluxes were shown to be highly sensitive to leaf area index (LAI) due to the dominating pathway being through external leaf water. Work within the SEEDS project to derive improved estimates of LAI by combining satellite observations of LAI in a land surface model using data assimilation, will serve as a basis for improving estimates of the bi-directional depositional fluxes of reactive nitrogen.

• GreenEO will combine these methods and data with regional scale air quality models (DEHM and EMEP) in order to model the distribution of nitrogen deposition with high accuracy. Specific attention will be paid to deposition within vulnerable habitats. Via this approach, GreenEO will improve the estimation of nitrogen deposition and critical load exceedances in vulnerable ecosystems. Collaborating with stakeholders, we will link these outputs to biodiversity indicators, like plant species richness and butterfly indices, to create a nitrogen sensitivity index. This will identify high-recovery areas and support sustainable agricultural practices.

Wichink Kruit, R. J., Schaap, M., Sauter, F. J., van Zanten, M. C., and van Pul, W. A. J.: Modeling the distribution of ammonia across Europe including bi-directional surface-atmosphere exchange, Biogeosciences, 9, 5261–5277, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-9-5261-2012, 2012.