ESA signature
logos
9-12 February 2027 ESA-ESRIN

INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON HIGH-RESOLUTION THERMAL EO

Background

High-resolution thermal Earth Observation (EO) has been identified as a major observational gap in our rapidly warming climate. Land-surface temperature is a key variable needed for understanding and adapting to climate variability, managing water resources sustainably for agricultural production, mitigating health stress during heatwaves, predicting droughts, monitoring coastal and inland waters and addressing natural hazards such as fires and volcanoes.

For actionable information, Land Surface Temperature has to be measured with both high-resolution, to monitor management units such as single fields, and at sufficient temporal frequency. These requirements have been recognized by policy makers and international space agencies resulting in the preparation of a range of high-resolution thermal missions including TRISHNA (CNES/ISRO), LSTM (ESA/EC) and EAGLE-TIR (NASA) to be launched in coming years. The ECOSTRESS mission (NASA) is providing excellent precursor data for these upcoming missions. Further there is an increasing interest of New Space initiatives already launching smallsat missions and constellations for thermal observations with similar resolution.

Building on the ongoing cooperation between the space agencies, the main objective of this Workshop is to prepare for the availability of high-resolution thermal observations, strengthen synergies among the upcoming missions and to establish priority areas for future projects (e.g., the ESA Sentinel User Preparation initiative).

Objectives

  • Assess the status of current and planned international high-resolution thermal missions for terrestrial and coastal applications
  • Review the main related activities and projects in the relevant science and operational application areas
  • Prepare the community for the use of the upcoming high-resolution thermal missions
  • Strengthen international cooperation and coordination in the space and ground segment operation, calibration and validation, products definition & harmonization, data access and data exploitation
  • Identify high-priorities topics for future R&D activities supporting the preparation of thermal EO applications

Main Topics

  • Science and applications in different domains with single and multi-mission approach:
    • Agriculture – irrigation, evapotranspiration
    • Ecosystem & water cycle
    • Urban heat islands & impact of heatwaves
    • Hot temperature events – vulcanology/fires
    • Monitoring of industrial activities
    • Coastal and in-land waters
    • Cryosphere
    • Soil composition
  • Algorithm development for atmospheric, anisotropic and topographic correction schemes/procedures
  • Harmonisation of products and data formats as well as their possible standardization
  • Harmonisation of pre-flight characterisation and in-flight cross-calibration of international missions
  • Mission calibration and data validation plans, data quality assurance and uncertainty quantification
  • International joint airborne and field campaigns for a range of surface types
  • Coordination of data acquisition plans, including orbital phasing of international missions for improved revisit/coverage and establishment of longer time series
  • Exploring synergies with other current and future space-based systems (e.g. US Landsat, Copernicus Sentinels, New Space)
  • Coordination of research and training activities

Participation

The workshop participation is open, following a call for abstracts which will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee.
The workshop sessions will include oral presentations and discussion rounds.
Abstracts of 200 – 400 words for presentations are to be submitted by 2 November.
The official language of the workshop is English. No participation fee will be charged, however, participants will be required to purchase lunch vouchers upon registration for the duration of the workshop.
Participants are also expected to finance their own travel and accommodation expenses.

The intended audience includes international representatives from Space Agencies, scientists and applications experts active in the field of high-resolution thermal EO for terrestrial and coastal applications.

Abstracts

The Abstract submission interface is now open, and we invite you to submit your abstract HERE along with your
selection of the topic and type of presentation (oral or poster) proposed
Note: Abstract length should be at least 200 words and maximum 400 words (one A4 page, single space normally contains 400-500 words).
Information about the co-authors (name, last name, affiliation, contact email) is required.

Schedule and Deadlines

Abstract submission openingSeptember 2026
Abstract submission closure2 November 2026
Notification of acceptance15 December 2026
Issue of Preliminary Programme15 December 2026
Registration Opening15 December 2026
Registration Closure29 January 2027
Issue of Final Programme9 February 2027
Workshop9-12 February 2027

Organising Committee

Ana Bolea Alamanac

ESA

Itziar Barat

ESA

Bimal Bhattacharya

SAC/ISRO

Diego Fernandez

ESA

Philippe Gamet

CNES

Ferran Gascon

ESA

Simon Hook

NASA/JPL

Steven Hosford

European Commission, DEFIS

Benjamin Koetz

ESA

Sabrina Lodadio

Serco c/o ESA

Michel Massart

European Commission, JRC

Giuseppe Ottavianelli

ESA

Simon Proud

ESA

Irene Renis

Serco c/o ESA

Sara Venafra

ASI

Lorenza Versace

Olly Services for ESA

Simona Zoffoli

ASI

Scientific Committee

Emmanuelle Autret

IFREMER

Björn Baschek

Federal Institute of Hydrology

Wim Bastiaanssen

HydroSat & TU Delft

Francois Bernard

ESA

Joris Blommaert

VITO

Patrizia Buongiorno

INGV

Kerry Cawse-Nicholson

NASA/JPL

Roberto Colombo

Uni Milano

Steffen Dransfeld

ESA

Ignacio Fernandez

ESA

Adrian Garcia

ESA

Darren Ghent

University of Leicester

Javier Gorroño

University of Valencia

Radoslaw Guzinski

DHI GRAS

Gregory Halverson

NASA/JPL

Jippe Hoogeveen

FAO, Land and Water Divison

Glynn Hulley

NASA/JPL

Mark Irvine

INRAE

Adrian Kreiner

ESA

Gianluigi Liberti

ISMAR/CNR

Philippe Maisongrande

CNES

Kanishka Mallick

CESBIO/CNES

Ilias Manolis

ESA

Sébastien Marcq

CNES

Christopher Merchant

University of Leicester

Claudia Notarnicola

EURAC

Albert Olioso

INRAE

Madeleine Pascolini Campbell

NASA/JPL

Livia Peiser

FAO, Land and Water Divison

Stefano Pignatti

IMAA/CNR

Jean-Louis Roujean

CNRS/CESBIO

Laure Roupioz

ONERA

Dirk Schuettemeyer

ESA

José Sobrino

University of Valencia

Miguel Such Taboada

ESA

Zoltan Szantoi

ESA

Thomas Udelhoven

University of Trier

Espen Volden

ESA

Venue

ESA/ESRIN

Largo Galileo Galilei, 1
00044 Frascati,
Italy

Contact Info

For information regarding the submissions, author instructions, scientific committee related inquiries please contact:
eo4society.conf@esa.int

For information regarding the logistics, please contact:
events.organisation@esa.int