On January 15, we attended the kick-off meeting of the Horizon Europe project “TERRA” (InTelligEnt platfoRm for IntegRating climAte services), aiming to enhance existing hydrological monitoring and modeling techniques. The project is coordinated by the Department of Computer Science and Telecommunications of the University of Thessaly.

The goal is to develop an innovative platform capable of integrating Copernicus tools for analyzing and forecasting water-related risks — such as pollution, drought, coastal erosion, flooding, and sea-level rise — with advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography), and Intelligent Digital Twins (iDTs).

The platform’s development activities will involve constant and active engagement with users and stakeholders and will be structured in several phases: design, “Agile” development, integration, and validation.

The validation phase will be conducted through three specific use cases:

• Fthiotida, Greece – Coastal water contamination monitoring.
• Port of Gdańsk, Poland – Illegal human activities in port areas detection.
• Scotland – Coastal changes satellite monitoring.

MEEO, as technical partner with deep knowledge on Copernicus data and services, will play a significant role in several key project activities, including:

1. Data and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Management
2. State-of-the-art in smart technologies and Platform Requirements and Architecture
3. Platform Development (system, interfaces, user interactions)
4. Platform configuration, integration, testing and validation

TERRA will significantly enhance the ability to monitor and manage water resources across various sectors, such as agriculture and energy, by providing innovative tools to address climate change challenges, promoting the use of Copernicus data and fostering sustainable water management and greater climate resilience.