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The number of intense wildfires may increase in the upcoming years as a consequence of climate change. Changing aerosol conditions may lead to changes in regional and global cloud and precipitation pattern. One key aspect of research is presently whether or not wildfire smoke particles can initiate ice nucleation. We found strong evidence that aged smoke particles (dominated by organic aerosol particles) originating from wildfires in North America triggered significant ice nucleation at temperatures from−47 to −53°C and caused the formation of extended cirrus layers. Our study is based on lidar observations over Limassol, Cyprus, from 27 October to 3 November 2020 when extended wildfire smoke fields crossed the Mediterranean Basin from Portugal to Cyprus. The observations suggest that the ice crystals were nucleated just below the tropopause in the presence of smoke particles serving as ice-nucleating particles (INPs). The main part of the 2-3 km thick smoke layer was,however, in the lower stratosphere just above the tropopause. With actual radiosonde observations of temperature and relative humidity and lidar-derived smoke particle surface area concentrations as starting values, gravity wave simulations show that lofting by 90-180 m is sufficient to initiate significant ice nucleation on the smoke particles, expressed in ice crystal number concentrations of 1-100 L−1 The authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EXcellence reseacrh Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology. The authors acknowledge support through the European Research Infrastructure for the observation of Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases ACTRIS under grant agreement no. 654109 and 739530 from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The PollyXT-CYP was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) via the PoLiCyTa project (grant no. 1LK1603A).The study is supported by “ACCEPT” project (Prot. No: LOCALDEV-0008) co-financed by the Financial Mechanism of Norway (85%) and the Republic of Cyprus (15%) in the framework of the programming period 2014 - 2021. The lidar analysis on smoke-cirrus interaction was further supported by BMBF funding of the SCiAMO project (MOSAIC-FKZ 03F0915A). DAK acknowledges support by U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program, Office of Biological and Environmental Research (OBER) (grant no. DE-SC0021034).

Fires are a widespread ecological factor since ancient times. It has a negative impact not only on the environment but on the economy, society and people. A forest fire can lead to a change in land surface, the destruction of large areas of vegetation and soil erosion. As a result, the economy is negatively affected, the balance of ecosystems is disturbed, and the flora, fauna and natural beauty are destructed. Also, biomass burning smoke affects air quality due to the large quantities of trace gases and aerosol particles that are emitted, leading to global climate change and playing a significant role in troposphere chemistry. A fundamental tool for forest fire management is the science of remote sensing. Remote sensing is commonly used for mapping burnt areas as well as for studying the effects of fire incidents and this statement is very well supported by the literature at local, regional and global levels. This study is mainly focused on burned area mapping and damage assessment on land surface and atmosphere for the case of the Arakapas fire in Cyprus. For the purposes of this study, the satellite images acquired from Sentinel-2 were used for the burnt area mapping and the fire severity estimation based on the dNBR (difference Normalized Burn Ratio) spectral index, and the Corine land cover was used for the assessment of the vegetation type that was disturbed. This event considered one of the largest in recent years is explored using data from Sentinel-5P, where carbon monoxide product is studied in the region affected by the fires. Furthermore, on the morning of the 5th of July, due to the change of wind direction, the smoke travelled from the centre of the island to the southwest, and it was detected by the multiwavelength Raman lidar, installed in Limassol. Thus, the optical properties of the smoke plume retrieved from the lidar are presented. The PollyXT-CYP lidar system of the ECoE, observed multiple layers between 500m and 2.5km with depolarization ratio of 5-8% and lidar ratio of 75sr for the upper layers.For the purposes of this study, the image processing was performed using custom scripts in the GEE (Google Earth Engine) platform with the JavaScript programming interface. The area affected by the fire was calculated to be ~40Km2. The spatial distribution map of the dNBR was classified according to the USGS fire severity levels, where high dNBR values indicate a more severe fire and values near zero and negative values indicate unburned and/or decreased vegetation after the fire. AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the 'EXCELSIOR': ERATOSTHENES: Excellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The 'EXCELSIOR' project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology.

The Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa (EMMENA) region encompasses three continents (Europe, Asia, and Africa). The region is not only strategically vital for political and military forces, but it is also archaeologically and culturally significant due to the large amount of cultural wealth, due to being an important crossroad in archaic times for various civilizations [1]. However, the cultural assets of the region are often susceptible to risks associated either to nature (like land deformation, earthquakes etc.) or to human activity (looting, war atrocities, etc.).To protect cultural heritage in uncertain crisis scenarios, it is critical to recognize any risk situation early and support the decision-makers and cultural stakeholders with timely, accurate and relevant information, while raising at the same time public awareness on important issues that pertain to the cultural destruction, alteration and/or looting. Towards the end of responding properly in due time to any threats, ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence through its two departments; Big Earth Data Analytics and Cultural Heritage at the current work showcases its efforts in building and exploiting a cultural data cube based and building upon the open-source project called Open Data Cube [2]. Taking advantage of such endeavor, centre’s researchers are able to store, extract and analyse geospatial and satellite data, which due to their cube-shaped transformation can be accessed quickly thus providing a better understanding of any critical risk situations that might affect possible cultural assets. As the scale and pattern of occurrence fluctuate based on the type of disaster, as well as the extent of damage may vary from time to time depending on regional features, the timing of incident(s) and of the response, the proposed work encapsulates various forms of data acquired throughout an entire risk scenario (prior to the event, during the event and post to the event), to ensure the best possible assessment of any ongoing risk(s).It becomes perceivable that damaged cultural assets cannot be restored to their former condition, hence is crucial to preserve them as much as possible and increase the resilience of cultural properties by reducing the harm brought on by disaster scenarios. Fostering on geospatial advances, the particular work aspires to become a common ground and valuable tool for efficient incident management within the EMMENA region starting from the field of Cultural Heritage and extending to others (i.e., marine security, agriculture, water resources management etc.). AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EΧcellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology. References[1] - Longuet, R.: Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Netherlands, Dordrecht (2008)[2] – Open Data Cube, open-source project, https://www.opendatacube.org/about. Last accessed on 8/01/2023.

Climate change can be described as the dominant factor all these decades concerning changes in forest phenology while, at the same time, temperature affects the development time (Barrett & Brown, 2021; X.Zhou et al., 2020; Suepa et al., 2016). Satellite image-time series data have proven their value regarding forest health and forest phenology observation. Monitoring continuous plant phenology is critical for the ecosystem at a regional and global level since the high sensitivity of vegetation life cycle to climate change; the so-called phenophases are essential biological indicators to comprehend how climate change has impacted these ecosystems and how this will change the ensuing years. (Buitenwerf, Rose, and Higgins 2015; Johansson et al. 2015). This study conducts a time-series analysis using the breaks for additive season and trend (BFAST) time-series decomposition algorithm, to detect possible abrupt changes in forest seasonality and the impacts of extreme climatic events on forest health, examining Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data for the period 2017-2021. The backscatter coefficient from Sentinel-1, Normalised Difference Moisture Index (NDMI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), and Green Chlorophyll Index (GCI) were created by Sentinel-2 and assessed to find possible correlations between them. All the satellite time-series data derived through the Google Earth Engine platform.The study area is the Paphos Forest, managed by the Department of Forest which could be described as a representative Mediterranean forest; thus, it is vital to monitor it because Mediterranean forests are expected to experience the first climate change in Europe. More specifically, the study focus on the Nortwest, West and Southwest areas of the Paphos Forest since the SAR images are from Ascending orbit. Moreover, Paphos forest has unspoiled vegetation, and a highly reduced number of forest wildfires have occurred in recent years, favouring the reliability of the research's results. AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the 'EXCELSIOR': ERATOSTHENES: Excellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The 'EXCELSIOR' project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology.

The presence of aerosol and clouds constitutes one of the highest uncertainties regarding the energy budget of the Earth. Therefore, their continuous observation can help reduce these uncertainties, by providing more information about aerosol-cloud interactions and how these atmospheric components contribute to climate change.To study the properties of aerosols and clouds, new infrastructure will soon be set up in Cyprus by the Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence, which was recently established through the ‘EXCELSIOR’ H2020 Widespread Teaming Project. Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence is a digital innovation hub for Earth Observation, Space Technology and Geospatial Information, aiming to become the reference centre in the East Mediterranean, north Africa and the Middle East (EMMENA region). The infrastructure will be installed in Limassol, on the south coast of the island. Apart from the fact that the site is less than 2 km from the island’s coastline, this location is extremely important in terms of the regional atmospheric composition, as the air masses affecting the site originate from the surrounding areas of EMMENA, as well as from south-eastern Europe.Infrastructure to sample aerosol is already represented by a state-of-the-art PollyXT lidar, with measurements being registered continuously since October 2020. By the end of 2023, a similar LACROS multi-instrument platform will be available for the continuous monitoring of clouds and aerosols. This new ground-based remote sensing platform consists of a 35GHz cloud radar, a ceilometer, a microwave radiometer, a Doppler lidar, and a disdrometer. The infrastructure will be integrated into the Cyprus Atmospheric Remote Sensing Observatory (CARO).An example of the value of the observations about cloud formation and the role of aerosol in the process of cloud formation that will be provided from the site in Limassol, can be reflected in the data collected during the CyCARE campaign, executed between October 2016 and March 2018, during which similar ground-based infrastructure was deployed. The authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EΧcellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology.

Solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation is only a very small fraction of the total solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface. Nevertheless, it is of exceptional significance for life on Earth. In the last two decades, significant trends in biologically effective doses have been reported over many mid-latitude sites, due to changes in total ozone, aerosols, and cloudiness. In the present study, reanalysis and satellite information for aerosols, clouds, and total ozone, from Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS), MIDAS (ModIs Dust AeroSol) dataset, Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) aboard Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellite, and Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aboard Aura satellite respectively, for the period 2004 - 2021 are used as inputs to a radiative transfer model and UV spectra are simulated for the island of Cyprus on fine spatial (0.05° x 0.05°) and temporal (15 mins) resolution. Effective doses for the production of vitamin D in the human skin, erythema, and DNA damage are calculated from the produced spectra. There is also an effort to attribute the changes in the UV biological doses to the corresponding changes in total ozone, aerosols, and cloudiness. The significant role of dust in the changes in UV doses over the island is also discussed.Acknowledgments: The authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EΧcellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology. The Department of Meteorology of the Republic of Cyprus is acknowledged for providing the ground-based data for the validation of the modelled quantities.

The visible part of the surface downward solar radiation (400 – 700 nm) known as Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) is a key parameter for many land process models and terrestrial applications. More specifically, it is a critical ecological factor affecting agriculture productivity, ecosystem-atmosphere energy, CO2 fluxes, canopy architecture in forest ecosystems, and the growth of phytoplankton, among others. Despite its high importance, PAR measurements are rather scarce and no relevant worldwide radiometric networks for this quantity, in contrast with other actinometric quantities (e.g., global horizontal irradiance), exist. For these reasons, PAR levels are mostly estimated by satellite observations and modeling techniques. In the current study, we present a 16-year PAR climatology over Cyprus, based on the combined use of radiative transfer (RT) models and satellite imagery. Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) AOD and PWV, aerosol climatology of SSA and AE based on the MACv3 aerosol climatology, Ozone – OMI data for the period 2005 – 2021, are used as input to the RT model LibRadtran to obtain the clear sky PAR levels. Consequently, the CAMS Cloud Modification Factor based on MSG images will be used to derive the PAR under all sky conditions. The derived climatology has a spatial resolution of 0.05x0.05 degrees and a temporal variation of 15 minutes, as constrained by the availability of Seviri/MSG images. Finally, the quality of the retrieved climatology is assessed by comparison with ground-based PAR measurements and PAR retrievals from measurements of GHI through relevant conversion algorithms, from quantum sensors and pyranometers that are installed in selected stations of the Meteorological Service of Cyprus. Acknowledgments: The authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EΧcellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology. The Department of Meteorology of the Republic of Cyprus is acknowledged for providing ground-based data for validating the modelled quantities.

Landslides constitute a significant geohazard causing human losses and significantly affecting the economy worldwide. Earth Observation and the exploitation of the freely available Copernicus datasets, such as the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellite images, can assist in the systematic monitoring of landslides overcoming the restrictions arising from in situ measurements. This study shows how the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform can be utilised for the rapid mapping of landslides and effectively integrate both passive and active satellite data to enhance the results’ reliability. The GEE is a cloud computing platform designed to store and process huge datasets for scientific analysis and visualization of geospatial datasets where open-source images are acquired by several satellites. For this study, Ground Range Detection (GRD) Sentinel-1 and multispectral Sentinel-2 satellite data were utilised for a time period between 2016 and 2021. Multitemporal SAR change detection was conducted to identify potential landslides using GRD Sentinel-1 satellite images. Moreover, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Soil Moisture Index (SMI) and Bare Soil Index (BSI) indices were used for the multispectral data. Multi-temporal image composites were created for the two periods. Furthermore, for all image collections, the calculated spectral indices were added as new bands to all images, and the maximum value for each pixel of the vegetation indices was taken. Following, the difference image for each spectral index was created based on two methods, i.e., the first method was based on subtracting the two time periods, and the second one on subtracting each year from the total average for the time period from 2016 until 2021. The possible events were then masked using the thresholding technique based on the trial-and-error procedure where the analyst adjusts manually the thresholds and evaluates the resulting image until satisfied. Based on the results derived from the abovementioned processing, the use of the second method, i.e., subtracting each year from the average, based on the NDVI spectral index provides better results. The proposed methodology was tested in Paphos city in Cyprus because of the occurrence of numerous landslide events in this area, based on the landslide inventory provided by the Geological Survey Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment. The results of this study were validated using high-resolution images from Google Earth in combination with the data from the Geological Survey department. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the 'EXCELSIOR': ERATOSTHENES: Excellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The 'EXCELSIOR' project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology. The authors would also like to thank the Geological Survey Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment for the provision of the landslide inventory.

With amplified climate warming, climate extremes over Europe become more frequent. Since the 2000’s, many years have been characterized by extreme events such as droughts and heat waves. For example, in Central Europe, extreme droughts and heat waves took place in the years 2003 and 2018. In comparison, Cyprus experienced strong droughts during 2003 and 2016-2018. Such extreme climate events can have severe impacts on agricultural yields, the productivity of natural vegetation, and on water resources. In this regard, long-term Earth observation (EO) time series are essential to quantitatively assess and analyse changes on the land surface, including vegetation condition. In this study, a joint analysis of geoscientific time series over the last two decades, including EO-based MODIS vegetation indices and meteorological variables is performed to assess drought events and analyse trends as well as potential drivers of vegetation dynamics in Cyprus. The analysis of drought events and vegetation trends is based on the full archive of MODIS imagery at 250 m spatial resolution covering the period 2000-2022. In detail, climate-related effects on vegetation were analysed by means of the deviations of MODIS 16-day vegetation index composites from their long-term mean. Next, trends of the MODIS vegetation index were calculated to evaluate spatial patterns of vegetation change over the investigated period. These analyses were additionally performed for geographically stratified regions, including diverse vegetation classes such as cropland and grassland. Furthermore, the application of a causal discovery algorithm reveals linkages within a multivariate feature space, in particular between vegetation greenness and climatic drivers. Preliminary analyses showed that drought patterns differ with respect to seasons and the investigated vegetation class. For example, the strong drought year 2008 is clearly reflected in the results, whereas forest areas appear to be least affected by the drought during the spring months. Moreover, considering the significant trends over the last two decades, an increase in vegetation greenness could be observed.

Drought is a multidimensional phenomenon that is imperceptible at its early stages, it evolves slowly and cumulatively and results to adverse consequences, for example depletion of water volumes from rivers and reservoirs, decrease of carbon uptake in vegetation etc. Cyprus is characterized by semi-arid to arid climate conditions, experiencing extensive droughts that have a negative impact on the ecosystem, the economy and the agricultural production.Existing research on drought events in Cyprus is limited to the usage of in-situ data, mainly temperature and precipitation measurements at meteorological stations. Polarimetric weather radars can offer more detailed information regarding precipitation phenomena, especially in areas with sparse network of meteorological stations or remote areas of interest.This study compares reflectivity measurements from the two ground-based X-band dual polarization radars of the Department of Meteorology of the Republic of Cyprus with measurements obtained from NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission.The DPR (Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar) aboard of GPM is employed in order to derive the radar reflectivity factor with a spatial resolution of 5-25 km for 120 km wide swath. The ground-based radars operate since 2017. They scan in PPI mode at eight (8) constant elevation angles, whereas their azimuth angle varies with a spatial resolution of 0.1° and the radius of each scan is 150 km. The radar stations are located in Rizoelia, Larnaca district, and Nata, Paphos district, providing a full coverage of the island.Satellite-based radar reflectivity values are used to adjust the ground-based radar measurements. Consequently, the adjusted values of the ground-based radar reflectivity are used as input to modelling expressions for estimating the ground-based radar precipitation.In order to ensure that the observations are spatially coincident, we have developed a collocated grid, hereafter called universal grid, on which both the ground- and satellite-based radar observations are interpolated at the same locations. The universal grid is a three-dimensional (3D) grid with grid cell size of approximately 2500 m along both horizontal directions, whereas the vertical resolution is set equal to the height resolution of GPM, i.e. 150 m. Regarding temporal resolution, GPM overpasses Cyprus approximately once a week. For the purposes of this study, we selected overflights after the beginning of the ground-based radar operation that coincide with precipitation events.Additionally, statistical analysis of the reflectivity measurements has been conducted to understand the relationship between the ground-based and the satellite-based datasets and identify spatio-temporal patterns of precipitation.Acknowledgements:The authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EΧcellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology.The authors acknowledge also the Department of Meteorology of the Republic of Cyprus for the provision of the X-band radar data.

In the summer of 2021, several wildfires were reported in the south of Turkey, fires that are considered one of the worst in the history of Turkey. Due to atmospheric conditions, the smoke plume travelled south between 27 July to 5 August 2021, and smoke layers arrived above Cyprus. In this work, the capabilities of the newly established ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence (CoE), to study large-scale atmospheric events is presented. The study is based on the synergistic use of different datasets of remote sensing techniques both from ground and space. The EARLINET multiwavelength-Raman-polarization lidar PollyXT-CYP hosted by the ERATOSTHENES CoE is continuously running since October 2020 in Limassol, and during summer 2021, the lidar observed smoke plumes from these extreme wildfires on the south coast of Turkey. The PollyXT-CYP is a key research infrastructure of the Cyprus Atmospheric Remote Sensing Observatory (CARO) of the ERATOSTHENES CoE established through the EXCELSIOR H2020 EU Teaming project coordinated by the Cyprus University of Technology. CARO will consist of two high-tech containers housing the PollyXT-CYP lidar and state-of-the art doppler lidar, cloud radar and radiometric equipment which will be used to measure the air quality, the dust transport, and the cloud properties over Cyprus. The CARO is a planning National Facility of the Republic of Cyprus for Aerosol and Cloud Remote Sensing Observations. Land cover information which shows the type of burned vegetation is used together with satellite products to capture additionally the burned area and to investigate the carbon monoxide of the smoke plume. The study is focusing on the optical characteristics of the plume, as it was detected by the PollyXT-CYP lidar at Limassol. An intense fresh smoke layer was detected on 28-29 July 2021, at an altitude between 2.5 to 4.0 km, having a volume depolarization ratio of ~15% at 355n and ~20% at 532nm, and lidar ratio of 75-80sr at 355nm and 65-70sr at 532nm. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EΧcellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology. The PollyXT-CYP was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) via the PoLiCyTa project (grant no. 01LK1603A). The study is supported by “ACCEPT” project (Prot. No: LOCALDEV-0008) co-financed by the Financial Mechanism of Norway (85%) and the Republic of Cyprus (15%) in the framework of the programming period 2014 - 2021.

Soil degradation implies a long-term decline in soil productivity and quality. Therefore, soil health restoration constitutes an urgent priority to achieve sustainable ecosystem services that are vital to life on Earth. That requires the development of targeted agricultural policy maps. To generate them on a national scale, a large number of hydrogeological models should be built for selected representative agricultural fields. However, the parameterization of the effective properties as input in hydrogeological models for simulating water flow and solute transport is a time-consuming and costly process characterized by high uncertainty because of the spatial variability of soil physical and hydraulic properties. In the long-term, the usage of Earth Observation (EO) data in parameterizing effective soil properties, meteorological conditions, and vegetation indexes have a clear advantage over other methods based on ground-only measured data since using EO data allows repeated monitoring of land degradation dynamics over larger spatial scales and multiple climatic/biogeographical regions at lower costs and less time-consuming. In this study, integrating EO models and global pedotransfer functions, a concept is proposed for covering the absence of data and estimating the effective parameters as input in a single porosity model for simulating the water flow dynamics in a selected agricultural field in Cyprus. For the calibration and validation of the models, groundwater level data from two different periods were utilized. The performance statistics of the developed water flow model for the entire simulation were characterized fairly well, setting the suggested concept as a valuable tool for parameterizing the effective hydraulic parameters.Acknowledgement“The authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EΧcellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology.”

The ability to measure sea surface temperature allows us to observe the global system and quantify ongoing weather and climate change. Several industries are particularly affected by increased SST the shipping industry, the offshore oil and gas industry, the fishing industry, etc. Knowledge of ocean wind behaviour will enable ship masters to choose routes that avoid heavy seas or high headwinds that may slow the ship's travel, increase fuel consumption, or possibly cause damage to vessels and loss of life. This paper aims to realise the Cyprus region's sea surface temperature and wind speed data. The comparison of results obtained using Sentinel Application Platform (SNAP) and ArcGIS Pro, shows that both tools can be used to realise Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Wind Speed Data and give satisfactory results.Keywords: Sea surface temperature, Ocean Wind Speed Data, Sentinel-3, SNAP, ArcGIS Pro.

In the last few years, the consequences of the active landslides that occurred in Cyprus have determined the necessity to provide a systematic displacement monitoring system of different areas using satellite-based techniques. Earth Observation and more specifically satellite remote sensing techniques using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery is the way forward exploiting the freely available Copernicus datasets that offer frequent revisit times and large spatial coverage. Moreover, Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) is among the most effective methods to monitor ground displacements, such as landslides, and assess their impact in residential areas. The purpose of this study is to showcase the use of advanced satellite image processing techniques, exploiting SAR satellite images to effectively identify ground displacements in different regions in Cyprus. The enhanced scientific and expertise skills of the ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence (ECoE) personnel on the application of PSI were acquired through a capacity building activity carried out by the National Observatory of Athens within the framework of EXCELSIOR project. The multi-temporal InSAR analysis in Cyprus revealed several deforming sites, which were also confirmed by the national authority responsible, i.e., the Geological Survey Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment. ThCe villages of Pedoulas in Nicosia District and Pyrgos-Parekklisia in Limassol District are indicative deforming areas in Cyprus and were selected as test sites for further investigation. The ongoing implementation of additional InSAR techniques, fusion of remote sensing data and site visits for further validation, build a complete ground deformation monitoring system, aiming to migrate to a national scale project and serve as a valuable tool for natural hazards monitoring and risk reduction in Cyprus. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the 'EXCELSIOR': ERATOSTHENES: Excellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The 'EXCELSIOR' project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology.

Recent studies have shown that climate change is likely to affect the agricultural sector in Cyprus. In the present study, crop water requirements in each of the 1995–2004 and 2010-2019 decades are estimated, by employing the same methodology, and subsequently compared. The aim is to investigate whether there has been any significant change regarding the crop water requirements of the most water-intensive crops in Cyprus. For the estimation of the crop evapotranspiration, the FAO Penman-Monteith methodology is used, as this has been adapted to satellite data. Remote-sensing data from Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI were employed.Five water-intensive crops are in the focus of this research: citrus, bananas, colocasi, potatoes, and avocado. For each of these crops, estimations of the crop evapotranspiration were performed, considering three agricultural areas on the island where these crops are grown: Pafos, Polis, and Famagusta.The results have shown that there is no significant effect of climate variation on crop evapotranspiration, despite the fact that some climatic factors have exhibited a change on the island of Cyprus; the mean values for the most water-intensive trees/crops in Cyprus in the 1994–2004 decade have shown no significant difference from the mean values in the 2010–2019 decade, for all the crops and all agricultural areas. From the statistical analysis performed, it can be concluded that the climate change which has been documented in the past decades has not impacted significantly the crop evapotranspiration.The authors would like to express their thanks to the Agricultural Research Institute for providing the proper resources for applying the specific methodology. Also, the authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EΧcellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology.

The EU Forest strategy for 2030 aims in adapting Europe’s forests to the new climatic conditions and weather extremes due to the ongoing Climate Change. Enlarging EU’s forests through afforestation is one of the key objectives of this strategy. However, the success of afforestation in semi-arid regions depends on the capacity of trees to adapt to the drought conditions, which are expected to intensify in the near future. Thus, further research on the long-term forest growth dynamics in these environments is needed. Two different sites, located in Athalassa Forest Park (Nicosia, Cyprus), were selected for monitoring of the NDVI (Landsat, 30 m resolution) between 2000 and 2022. The park has an average annual rainfall of 315 mm (1980-2010), a mean daily minimum temperature of 5° C (January) and a mean daily maximum temperature of 37° C (July and August). The first site (hereafter referred to as NFO) was converted in 2011 from rainfed agriculture to a mixed species forest by planting seedlings of different, indigenous, drought-tolerant tree and shrub species. The second site (hereafter referred to as EFO) is an established forest. The seasonal understory vegetation (weeds, grass), due to the open character of the forests, had a clear effect on the results as shown by the monthly range of NDVI (0.1 – 0.9). Thus, the minimum value of the annual NDVI was used to examine the forest growth patterns, assuming that this value represents the forest without the effect of understory vegetation. Preliminary results show an average minimum NDVI of 0.32 on EFO with annual changes ranging from 0.23 to 0.42. NFO shows an increasing trend in annual NDVI (r2 = 0.901). More specifically, in 2022 the NDVI of NFO and EFO were similar (0.32). The results indicate that the indigenous trees and bushes in Athalassa manage to survive and grow in this water scarce environment.The authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EΧcellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology.

Recent studies have shown that the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East are regions strongly affected by climate change, with a rate of warming two times faster than the global average. While climate change comes with major implications, including the fact that severe storms will become more virulent and more often, studies showed that the annual number of cyclones in the Mediterranean region tends to remain constant in the near future, with no visible trend. In this paper, we are studying the trends for convective indices in the region of Cyprus, with modelled, and also observational data. For the modelled data, we are using the CORDEX dataset for convective potential energy and convective inhibition with 3h temporal resolution, for the historical period (1971 - 2000), and for the near future (2021 - 2050), from which we extracted the daily maximum and mean values. Observational data is used from the ESWD database, reports on tornadoes, hail and heavy rain, together with radiosonde data from Athalassa station (radiosonde available in high-resolution mode from 2016, with two launches per day, at 05:00 and 11:00 UTC). Using the Python packages SHARPpy and MetPy we computed the convective indices from radiosounding data. It is estimated that two tornadoes and three waterspouts occur each year in Cyprus, and in a study from 2006 describing two tornadoes outbreaks from January 2003 and January 2004, these events had CAPE index 411 J/kg and 210 J/kg, and respectively lifted index of -2 and 0. The authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EΧcellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology.

The implementation of Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) in each European country aims to bring together different public authorities and stakeholders to sustainably organize and map marine and coastal resources. The first step for the development of MSP was achieved successfully for Cyprus, through the implementation of the first cross-border project, "THAL-CHOR." Following the "THAL-CHOR" project, its successor project entitled "THAL-CHOR 2", is expected to evaluate the increased needs for the management and monitoring of the maritime space, the design and implementation of relevant policies focusing on the European MSPs’ good practices and to set up the draft maritime spatial plan for the marine waters of Cyprus. The implementation was achieved by combining the principles of maritime spatial planning with issues of wider maritime governance, politics and economics while taking into account good practices by international organizations and individual states. For the study of MSP, all data from THAL-CHOR project were combined with the updated data resulting from the implementation of "THAL-CHOR 2". The project is based on the institutional framework to analyze and organize human activities at sea and coastal space to achieve the synthesis of social, economic, environmental, and cultural objectives of the Republic. The aim is to submit different MSP scenarios to be a policy proposal that will promote sustainable development in the marine area and the coastal zones, pursuing the harmonious coexistence of activities and uses, applying an approach based on principles of sustainability.

Cyprus has an excellent location for studying meteorology, climatology of atmospheric aerosols and aerosol-cloud-precipitation interaction. Aerosol-cloud-precipitation dynamics in the region of Cyprus are responsible for the country’s precipitation budget. This study uses observations from the NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission and from the two ground-based radars of the Department of Meteorology (DoM) to measure the distribution of precipitation over Cyprus. The DPR (Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar) aboard of GPM is used in order to derive precipitation rate at the ground with a spatial resolution of 5-25km for 120km wide swath. The ground-based radar stations provide raw information with a spatial resolution of 0.1° and a radius of 150km. The two datasets are interpolated on a universal grid in order to enable the calibration of the raw data and their validation with the GPM data. The results will contribute to the development of an automated method for the estimation of the precipitation budget over the area of Cyprus and thus, drought monitoring in the region of the eastern Mediterranean. The presented work is under the EXCELSIOR project that received funding from the European Union [H2020-WIDESPREAD-04-2017: Teaming Phase2] project under grant agreement no. 857510, and from the Republic of Cyprus.

The canopy of trees plays a very important role in forest ecosystems and acts as a regulator, affecting the microclimate and the soil conditions. The density of the forest canopy is associated to the forest development and it can be used as an indicator of forest degradation. Additionally, forest density is one of the most important parameters, used in the design and implementation of programs for forest restoration, especially in cases of areas affected by fires. The main objective of this study is to determine the disturbance that occurred in the canopy density of the Akamas National Forest Park in Cyprus after the fire that occurred on November 13rd, 2019. For the purposes of this study, the Forest Canopy Density model (FCD model) was estimated using the Landsat-8 satellite data. Moreover, this study aimed to evaluate the FCD using Sentinel-2 data. The results from the two satellite sensors were validated and compared with each other. The results obtained from Sentinel-2 seem to be very promising and the calculation of the canopy density through this study is achieved in a better resolution, in contrast to the analysis available by the Landsat-8 satellite.

This abstract explores the importance of integrating digital twins and earth observation for supporting natural disasters management in Cyprus. Indeed, this study shows how a digital twin will be developed based on existing sources of data like satellite imagery, maps, in situ data and other auxiliary data such as meteorological, hydrological data etc. This digital twin will be used to predict future conditions of a certain area of interest in Pafos District in Cyprus. The main aim is to update the proposed digital twin using satellite images such as Copernicus data for efficient decision making from the key stakeholders such as government and public authorities.Several natural disasters have been identified in the national risk assessment of Cyprus as the main priorities such as floods, earthquakes, fires, landslides etc. In the proposed digital twin these four hazards will be considered. However, this abstract shows the prelimary results retrieved by examining the impact of floods in an area of interest in Pafos District area in Cyprus by integrating several data and techniques such as earth observation and hydrological modeling.

The canopy of trees plays a very important role in forest ecosystems and acts as a regulator, as it is a factor that affects the microclimate and the soil conditions. The density of the forest canopy is associated with forest development, and it is a factor that can indicate the degree of forest degradation. Additionally, forest density is one of the most important parameters, used in the design and implementation of programs for forest restoration, especially in cases of areas affected by fires. The main objective of this study is to determine the disturbance that occurred in the canopy density after the fire events that occurred in Argaka and Solea villages in June 2016 at Paphos forest and Adelfoi forest respectively, in Cyprus. For the purposes of this study, the Forest Canopy Density model (FCD model) was estimated using the Landsat-8 satellite data. Moreover, this study aimed to evaluate the FCD using Sentinel-2 data. The results obtained from Sentinel-2 seem to be very promising and the calculation of the canopy density through this study is achieved in a better resolution, in contrast to the analysis available by the Landsat-8 satellite. This work has been supported by the project ‘ERATOSTHENES: Excellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment-EXCELSIOR’ (https://excelsior2020.eu/) that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 857510 (Call: WIDESPREAD-01-2018-2019 Teaming) and from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate-General for the European Programmes, Coordination, and Development.

The objective of this paper is to introduce CyCLOPS, a novel strategic research infrastructure unit, and present its current progress of implementation, and integration in the National geodetic, geophysical and geotechnical infrastructure of the government-controlled areas of the Republic of Cyprus. CyCLOPS is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Republic of Cyprus through the Research and Innovation Foundation under the grant agreement RIF/INFRASTRUCTURES/1216/0050. CyCLOPS is developed via the collaboration of the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and supported by the Cyprus Geological Survey Department and the Department of Lands and Surveys. The main objective of CyCLOPS is to establish an integrated infrastructure for space-based monitoring of geohazards using the most prominent earth observation technologies (EO), such as GNSS and InSAR. Furthermore, the infrastructure will densify and form the backbone for the definition of the next generation national datum of the Republic of Cyprus. Eleven Tier-1/2 state-of-the-art GNSS CORS, precise weather stations, tiltmeters and specifically designed InSAR triangular trihedral corner reflectors will be deployed, in a collocated fashion, at selected locations throughout the government-controlled areas of Cyprus. The collocated configuration will be established and installed to be compliant with the most stringent CORS monumentation specifications, support all current GNSS constellations and SAR missions. Finally, one of CyCLOPS’ fundamental aims is to actively contribute to the on-going efforts and growing demand for more precise positioning services and high-quality modern reference frames, in conformity with the recommendations of the UN-GGIM (and its Subcommittee of Geodesy) to establish and enhance national geodetic infrastructures to support the sustainable management of geospatial information on the changing Earth.

Heterogeneous ice formation in mixed-phase precipitating clouds plays an important role in current weather and climate research. The complex interaction between aerosols, clouds and dynamics taking place within these clouds is still not understood. One major reason for that gap in knowledge is the fact that most of the relevant processes take place inside the complex turbulent environment inside of the cloud, making observations difficult. Also, the unknown impact of ice formation on cloud lifetime and precipitation evolution introduces large uncertainties into numeric weather prediction and climate projections. In the present study, we analyze datasets gathered at four different Cloudnet (Illingworth et al., 2007) sites in order to quantify and disentangle the impact of temperature and vertical air motions on precipitation formation. Basis for the investigation are combined measurements of lidar, cloud radar and ground-based disdrometer/rain sensor measurements processes with the Cloudnet algorithm. Fallstreak tracking methods are applied in order to connect rain events on the ground with their generating level/temperature at cloud top. We have evaluated combined remote sensing data gathered at different Cloudnet sites in order to contrast the relationship between cloud top temperature (CTT) and rain formation processes. The datasets at Leipzig (Germany), Limassol (Cyprus) and Punta Arenas (Chile) were collected with the Leipzig Aerosol and Cloud Remote Observations System (LACROS). The Barbados dataset was acquired with the Barbados Cloud Observatory (BCO) of Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology Hamburg.

During the last years, various methods and techniques have been used to estimate the seafloor topography with high accuracy. The topography is considered an important component for marine applications since several activities and infrastructures are being carried out at the bottom, column and surface of the sea. In this, study, freely and open distributed optical satellite images were used to obtain bathymetric data for shallow waters, (until 30 m below sea level) based on timeseries analysis of multispectral Sentinel-2 datasets. The ratio transform algorithm was implemented for twelve (12) monthly images covering thus a whole year. The different generated Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) were compared with high resolution LIDAR measurements. The results showed that bathymetry can be obtained from satellite data within a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) ranging from 1.39 up to 2.56 m while more accurate results were generated during the summer period.

Ten, widely-used vegetation indices (VIs), were evaluated for their ability to identify military underground structures. During this study, several ground spectroradiometric campaigns took place, in a fenced military area in Cyprus, cultivated with barley crops, during a complete phenological cycle (2016-2017). A SVC HR-1024 field spectroradiometer was used and in-band reflectances were determined for medium and high resolution satellite sensors, including Landsat 8. The measurements were taken at the following test areas: (a) vegetation area covered with the vegetation (barley), in the presence of an underground military structure (b) vegetation area covered with the vegetation (barley), in the absence of an underground military structure. The test areas were identified, analyzed and modelled under different scenarios. All vegetation indices were evaluated for their separability performance, and the results were presented through image maps.

International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences - ISPRS Archives, Volume 42, Issue 2W2, 5 October 2016, Pages 45-49 The documentation of architectural cultural heritage sites has traditionally been expensive and labor-intensive. New innovative technologies, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), provide an affordable, reliable and straightforward method of capturing cultural heritage sites, thereby providing a more efficient and sustainable approach to documentation of cultural heritage structures. In this study, hundreds of images of the Panagia Chryseleousa church in Foinikaria, Cyprus were taken using a UAV with an attached high resolution camera. The images were processed to generate an accurate digital 3D model by using Structure in Motion techniques. Building Information Model (BIM) was then used to generate drawings of the church. The methodology described in the paper provides an accurate, simple and cost-effective method of documenting cultural heritage sites and generating digital 3D models using novel techniques and innovative methods.

Natural and physical hazards accelerate the deterioration of asphalted surfaces. Climatic factors are unavoidable and can affect the properties of asphalt mixtures, making them weaker and less durable. Thus, continuous monitoring of bituminous surfaces is something that can reduce the risks of public health. Remote sensing techniques have become an effective, noninvasive method for early detection of damaged asphalt pavements. This paper outlines a range of different remote sensing methodologies that can be used to monitor asphalt road pavements. This is complemented by the use of field spectroscopy for the examination of asphalt pavements of varying age and conditions. The results of the study found spectral differences regarding asphalt defects, such as physical cracking, patched cracking and polishing. These spectral changes were examined through “in-band” simulation analysis of the Landsat 7 ETM+ sensor, using appropriate relative spectral response filters, concluding that the ratio band 5/band 1 can be used to distinguish asphalt pavements of different date of construction and condition.

Satellite remote sensing is considered as an increasingly important technology for military intelligence. It can be applied to a wide range of military applications, as shown from various researchers. However, there is a great need to integrate information from a variety of sources, rendered available at different times and of different qualities using remote sensing tools. This paper provides a solid methodology to support Sentinel remote sensing detection of deep man made infrastructures in Cyprus using field spectroscopy. A number of vegetation indices such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Simple Ratio (SR), Difference Vegetation Index (DVI) and Optimized Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (OSAVI), combined with other in-band algorithms were utilized for the development of a vegetation index-based procedure aiming at the detection of underground military structures. The measurements were taken at the following test areas: (a) vegetation area covered with the vegetation (barley), in the presence of an underground military structure (b) vegetation area covered with the vegetation (barley), in the absence of an underground military structure. The test areas were identified, analyzed and modelled under different scenarios. Sentinel-2A is a promising tool for detecting underground structures.