Open Forecast

The overall goal of the Open Forecast project was to deliver a novel Generic Service of high quality and efficiency for the Public Open Data Digital Service Infrastructure. This Generic Service combines public open data sources and high performance computing to establish a new generation of services. The novel data products are available for European citizens, public authorities, economic actors, and decision makers.

The function of the Generic Service was exemplified through the implementation of two use cases: Particulate Matter Forecast Service (PMFS) and Satellite Data Service for Agriculture (AgriCOpen).

The goal of the PMFS use case was the provision of a detailed forecast for the concentration of particulate matter in the Stuttgart metropolitan area. Particulate matter is an increasingly important issue in particular as it may have an impact on health, especially on the respiratory system. Particulate matter is fiercely discussed by European citizens and politicians: driving bans, moss to clean the air, promotion of electric cars, and a new mobility culture are measures recently discussed to lower the emission, just to name a few.

The goal of the AgriCOpen use case is the provision of products and services for agricultural smart farming practices based on open satellite imagery data of Sentinel-2. Digital agricultural practices need spatial information about the variability and current situation on agricultural fields to optimize management and production. Data analyses derive vegetation indices from satellite imagery, which are related to crop and soil parameters. These products can then be used to derive management zones for precision farming techniques or to estimate variations in yield potential or levels of  fertilisation. The availability of specialized, ready-to-use satellite imagery products is a prerequisite for the integration into Farm Management Information Systems (FMIS). Such products foster the adoption of digital management practices and enable better decision making, as well as allow site-specific technology to be introduced on a larger scale.

Data visualization was also implemented within the Open Forecast project to allow researchers and experts to perform visual analyses. Moreover, a digital urban twin of the city of Stuttgart was create for the PMFS use case and visualized using Virtual Reality to support communication towards citizens and decision makers.