VTG at the 7th General Assembly of the TERRA Project — Ferrara, Italy

On 29th and 30th June 2026, the historic city of Ferrara, Italy played host to the 7th General Assembly (GA) of the TERRA project, bringing together the full consortium for two days of intensive technical discussions, progress reviews, and forward planning. VTG was delighted to participate in the meeting, where Dr. Krishna Chandramouli presented the status and roadmap of Work Package 3 (WP3) – Intelligent Platform Development, one of the central technical pillars of the project.

About TERRA

TERRA — An Intelligent Platform for Integrating Climate Services — is a research and innovation project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme. The project develops services and product chains that fuse Copernicus data and services with state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Twin technologies to address some of the most pressing water-related challenges facing Europe and the world, including:

  • Coastline detection and coastal erosion prediction
  • Flood risk assessment and mitigation
  • Water pollution assessment
  • Coastline modelling and hydrological monitoring

By promoting its outcomes through the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), TERRA contributes to strengthening Europe’s leadership in Earth Observation and climate services.

WP3: Building the Intelligent Platform

As part of the assembly’s technical sessions, VTG presented the collective progress of WP3, which brings together consortium partners to deliver the core technological components of the TERRA platform. The work package spans the full data value chain — from the acquisition of Earth Observation data through to intelligent analytics and visualisation — and is organised around six complementary areas of activity:

  • Data collection protocols and interfaces, enabling the seamless retrieval of data from Copernicus services through a dedicated data ingestion module;
  • Interoperable Big Data management, providing a scalable cloud infrastructure with standards-based cataloguing of Earth Observation products;
  • AI models for data analysis and data fusion, powering the project’s predictive and analytical capabilities across its demonstrator use cases;
  • Satellite image processing, led by VTG, delivering advanced Earth Observation analytics;
  • Digital Twins and data augmentation, creating virtual representations of coastal and hydrological environments to support simulation and forecasting;
  • Advanced visual analytics, offering intuitive interfaces for end users to explore and interpret the platform’s outputs.

The assembly provided an opportunity to review the maturity of these components, several of which have now progressed from design into development, testing, and integration, with the first TERRA product chains taking shape on the platform.

VTG’s Contribution: AI-Powered Satellite Image Processing

Within TERRA, VTG leads the satellite image processing activities, applying its expertise in artificial intelligence and multimedia analytics to the Earth Observation domain. At the GA, VTG presented its ongoing work on AI-based processing of satellite imagery, including:

  • Super-resolution enhancement of Earth Observation imagery, improving the level of detail available for downstream analysis;
  • Maritime vessel detection from satellite imagery, supporting the monitoring of coastal and maritime activity;
  • A forward-looking research agenda exploring multi-sensor data fusion — combining optical satellite imagery with complementary data sources — to improve the robustness, reliability, and all-weather capability of maritime monitoring;
  • Rigorous benchmarking and validation methodologies to ensure that the developed AI models meet the quality standards expected of operational climate services;
  • Integration of these capabilities into the platform’s automated processing workflows, paving the way towards a sustainable, continuously evaluated MLOps pipeline.

These capabilities feed directly into TERRA’s Digital Twin framework, where aggregated analytics will support monitoring and forecasting of coastal environments across the project’s use cases.

Collaboration at the Heart of the Assembly

Beyond the technical presentations, the two days in Ferrara were marked by rich cross-work-package discussions on data models and interoperability, platform integration, and the alignment of the technical developments with the needs of the project’s demonstrator use cases. The consortium also reviewed the project’s key performance indicators, upcoming deliverables, and risk monitoring activities, reaffirming a shared commitment to delivering a robust and impactful platform.

The assembly concluded with a clear and ambitious plan for the months ahead, as the consortium moves towards the deployment of TERRA’s product chains and the demonstration of its services in real-world settings.

Looking Ahead

VTG would like to thank the local hosts for their warm hospitality in Ferrara and all consortium partners for two days of productive and inspiring collaboration. We look forward to the next phase of the project, as the TERRA platform continues to mature and its intelligent climate services move closer to the hands of end users.

The TERRA project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. For more information about the project, visit terra-horizon.eu.

Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.