Concept & Methodology

  • Home
  • Concept & Methodology

The overall methodology of the TOPIO will become a road map for assessing Landscape quality in different areas across Europe. Our vision is to support the emergence of a movement of citizens generating, sharing and using Earth Observation (EO), open GIS data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and crowdsourcing resources in landscape studies, coming along with the vision of Copernicus initiative (https://www.copernicus.eu/en) and European Landscape Convention (ELC) (https://www.coe.int/en/web/landscape). The project's outcomes will reinforce both European research and policy in landscape monitoring and national actions regarding the implementation of the ELC.

topio (in Greek τοπίο, meaning 'landscape'):

from Greek topos, literally meaning 'place, region, space'

Through TOPIO's approach citizens will gain a voice on local issues and tailored advice on critical landscape monitoring and management issues. Citizen Science and Geoinformatics, Artificial Intelligence and Crowdsourcing technologies will be applied by blending expert and citizen knowledge, landscape studies and planning to support the reconnection agenda between people and the environment, promoting the development of proactive environmental behaviors and responsible stewardship. TOPIO will contribute to the need for democratizing decision-making for landscape.

TOPIO will develop a GIS platform/digital data inventory where people's knowledge or attitudes will be collected not only directly, which has the disadvantage of being “reported” and therefore often biased, but by using crowdsourced data (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) that will lead to inferring people's knowledge from their behavior through digital traces. Finally, EO products of various spatial, spectral and time scales will be incorporated in the overall study to develop multi-temporal Land Use / Land Cover (LULC) maps, vegetation indices and implement landscape change analysis (e.g. LULC fragmentation analysis). The EO data to be used will be either from Copernicus program (e.g. Sentinel 2) using cloud based information platforms such as DIAS. In this sense, through EO data large-scale of related environmental information, will be gathered and disseminated to the involved citizens.

The scientific originality and innovative nature of the project in this fast moving field are guaranteed by the strategic outlook which characterizes the research team by virtue of their expertise, and which will allow them not only to direct the research into filling existing gaps, such as democratic participation of citizens in Landscape Quality Objectives (LQOs) decision making, but also to adopt and respond to new attractive developments such as actively engagement of EO, GIS and AI in Landscape Ecology. The research methodology will be based on four (4) main original pillars:

  • Development of a Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) methodology for assessing landscape values.
  • Utilization of EO products in different spatial and time scales for multi-temporal monitoring of landscapes.
  • Implementation of the Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) methodology in different study sites across Europe.
  • Application of AI and Digital Twins methodologies in Landscape Ecology.