Training Sessions

Four training sessions were organised; three prior to the conference and one on Monday. Please view the training recordings here.

The following trainings were provided prior to the conference, 6 June 2021:

• Accounting for Ecosystem Services: Theoretical basis and practical applications in Europe
• Applications of Remote Sensing for Ecosystem Services assessments
• Early-Career pre-conference get together

The ARIES masterclass were provided on Monday, 7 June 2021.

• ARIES (ARtificial Intelligence for Environment & Sustainability) Masterclass

More information per training is provided below.

1. Accounting for Ecosystem Services: Theoretical basis and practical applications in Europe

Organised by: JRC team

Duration: 4 hours from 10:00-14:00 (EEST Time)

Number of participants: max. 50

What are "integrated accounting systems"? Do they differ from "the reporting of indicators" over time?

To answer these questions is important for ecosystem services practitioners when they have to choose tools and techniques, and analyse results for different ranges of policy uses.

The purpose of this training is to set the basics of accounting frameworks integrating ecosystem services, and to explain their applications through a series of practical examples.

Specifically, the United Nations System of integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) is the starting point reference in terms of accounting system, and the Integrated system for Natural Capital Accounts (INCA) in Europe is the reference in terms of applications to show how to build Supply and Use table for ecosystem services in physical and monetary terms.

Finally, some examples are provided to see how to bridge ecosystem services accounts to already existing economic modelling for, e.g., the assessment of economic impacts generated by changes in ecosystems and their services.

2. Applications of Remote Sensing for Ecosystem Services assessments

Organised by: ESP TWG 4 – Mapping ES

Duration: 6 hrs (3 blocks) from 11:00-17:00 (EEST Time)

Number of participants: max. 60 each block

Remote Sensing has experienced an innovation boom in recent years, including a wide array of sensors, platforms (Satellites and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and processing algorithms. How can the field of Ecosystem Services benefit from these new advances in analysis, visualization and communication?

In this hands-on workshop we will explore different tools and applications, including:

• Satellite based estimates of Net Primary Production (NPP) as a proxy for carbon assimilation by forests. Participants will learn the use of long-term trends and anomalies analysis of NPP using R software and MODIS data (Hosted by Bruno Montibeller and Iuliia Burdun, University of Tartu).
• The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to compute 3D point clouds in forests. Participants will learn the basic concepts of Structure-from-Motion algorithms and their practical applications. In addition, participants will learn how to work with 3D point clouds, including workflows such as generation of height models and segmentation for estimation of forest structural parameters (Hosted by Raul Sampaio, Estonian University of Life Sciences).
• The use of multispectral UAV images for the assessment of ecological integrity and habitat quality in High Nature Value farmland (Hosted by Miguel Villoslada, Estonian University of Life Sciences).

3. Early-Career pre-conference get together

Organised by: YESS - The Young Ecosystem Services Specialists

Duration: 1,5 hours

We offer an opportunity for early career researchers and those interested in YESS and our activities to network.  We will start with a group welcome and depending on the size of the group, we will then exchange in smaller groups. The smaller groups can be thematic or regionally oriented. In principle, this get-together event will take place online, via the wonder.me platform, however we also welcome personal exchange on site. We will close the get-together with announcements on YESS sessions and YESS talks and posters during the conference.

4. ARIES (ARtificial Intelligence for Environment & Sustainability) Masterclass

Organised by: ARIES

Duration: 2h from 18:00-20:00 (EEST Time)

Number of participants: 50-100

The masterclass of ARIES (Artificial Intelligence for Environment & Sustainability) will illustrate how the ARIES modelling framework implements integration and interoperability approaches through semantic web modelling and how this approach can overcome some of the common challenges of data and model integration, providing a broad range of collaborative models from simple to complex, while efficiently reusing scientific and stakeholder knowledge and sharing it with the larger ecosystem services community. A live demo will show how its web interface k.Explorer works as well as show live how some of the existing models work and can be visualized.

The session will be virtually facilitated by experts from the ARIES team in an interactive format. No laptops will be required for this training. However, should the participants like to install k.Explorer and use it, they will be able to do so prior to the masterclass.

After attending this 2h online masterclass participants would have acquired the necessary skills to access the ARIES network of models and data models with k.Explorer and test them on their context of analysis.

Software installation details as well as some suggested reading material will be sent to those registered prior to the session.