Team #2 // REBEL MAPS

Executive Summary

Theres is an extensive number of use-cases for the Copernicus satellite data of which only a small fraction is used for daily life applications. Rebel Maps want to change this by giving non-experts easy access to satellite based analytics, which they can integrate directly in their daily work. To begin with we are focusing on the municipalities in the Nordic countries and flooding. We will offer them tools which can quantify flooding through a user-friendly and intuitive website, allowing them to download the analytics in a format that fits perfectly into their workflow.

Problem

The municipalities in the Nordic countries have many varying monitoring problems. Flooding is a general and serious problem for many municipalities in the Nordic countries, causing great damage to commercial and private property. For example, Vejle in Denmark who has three flood related challenges. To prevent heavy rainfall from flooding the city, it intends to capture the water in the uplands before it runs into the city. To do this they need to quantify the amount of the captured water such that the respective landowners can be compensated. The second challenge is assessing if some areas in the municipality are always flooded during heavy rain, so these areas can be put to better use. Thirdly they need a near-real time overview of the current flood situation. Satellite-based analytics offers tangible answers to these challenges based on real observations, but the municipality does not have the technical resources or the time needed to develop these analytics.

Target user / Customer

Initially we focus on Nordic municipalities, and more specifically we are currently in close contact with the municipalities of Copenhagen and Vejle along with the government organ: Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency (SDFE). The end user is employees working with Geographical Information Systems (GIS), responsible for managing outdoor areas in the municipalities, e.g. parks, roads, city-planning and similar. We have a Letter of Intent from Copenhagen to subscribe to our service when the beta website is ready, and are currently putting the finishing touches to our letter of intent with Vejle.

Your solution and how the concept is feasible

The solution is offered through a user-friendly website rebelmaps.com, where customers can get access maps and analytics based on Copernicus satellite images. The website is structured like an ordinary webshop familiar to most people, and requires no expert knowledge. When using the website for the first time the customer registers an account and chooses the region of interest and a type of analysis, e.g. the municipality of Vejle + flooding. The subscription price depends on the choices made by the customer, some analytics takes more processing to carry out and some will be interested in larger areas than others. After selection the customer can download the analytics in convenient data formats that fits their workflow. For municipalities this will be GIS-format which can be integrated straight into GIS-software, along with an auto generated excel-file, for further work, and a pdf document with summary statistics which can be forwarded and to inform co-workers.
The analytics are computed automatically in a cloud-computer on demand. As an example, when a customer requests two maps of flooding from two different dates the cloud computer will process 4 Sentinel-1 images (approx. 32 GB in size) and run a flood detection algorithm. The result: maps, analytics, excel and pdf will amount to approx 20 MB which the customer can download. The algorithms used for computing analytics and maps are off the shelf algorithms, so the technological readiness level of the solution is very high.