SONATA

Monitoring of nature infrastructure - Skill acquisition for Nature-based solutions

SONATA Partners

CONSORTIUM

VITO

VITO (Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek, Belgium) is a leading European independent research and technology organization in cleantech and sustainable development, elaborating solutions for the large societal challenges of today. Sustainable land use is one of the focus research programmes to manage better, predict and control our scarce natural resources. Two VITO units will participate in this project: the remote sensing unit develops state-of-art technical solutions using the latest Earth observation (EO) data to map and monitor the environment in the past and present, and the environmental modelling (EM) department develops environmental models to search for optimal spatial solutions for current and future spatial challenges. Both units collaborate, providing ecosystem accounting solutions, e.g., INCA toolbox.

FIHAC

FIHAC (Fundacion Instituto de Hidraulica Ambiental de Cantabria, Spain) is a joint research center studying the relationships between human activities, water ecosystems, and the terrestrial environment, including vegetation, land use dynamics, and the natural and human factors (drivers) that control them in space and time. The Remote Sensing and Copernicus and Information Technology teams of FIHAC, in collaboration with the team of NBS, bring developments in Spatial Modelling for the Monitoring and Assessment of the State of Ecosystems, Characterization of Ecosystem Services, and Development of locally tailored Conservation and Management strategies under climate and land use change scenarios.

UNIOVI

UNIOVI (Universidad de Oviedo, Spain) covers the interplay between fundamental and applied ecology and has developed a framework for preparing in-situ vegetation knowledge for habitat type modelling. SONATA will be developed at UNIOVI at the Vegetation and Biodiversity Lab, an international-focused group associated with the Biodiversity Research Institute and the Atlantic Botanic Garden of Gijón.

NINA

NINA (Stiftelsen Norsk Institutt for Naturforskning, Norway) is Norway’s leading institution for applied ecological research, with broad-based expertise on the genetic, population, species, and landscape level, in terrestrial, freshwater, and coastal marine environments. NINA has offices in five locations across Norway and a wide range of expertise in restoration ecology, remote sensing, biological diversity, pollination, carbon storage assessment, and other ecosystem services. A pioneer in NBS research, NINA is a national and international competence center in applied ecology and nature domains.

BIOS

BIOS (BioSense – Institute for research and development of information technology in biosystems) BIOS is recognized as a leader in digital transformation and introducing emerging approaches in agri-food and biosystems in Serbia and Southeastern Europe (SEE). BIOS has developed strong multidisciplinary expertise and wide partnership with quadruple helix stakeholders in SEE. Through SONATA, BIOS aims to build effective partnerships between its research groups and public and private actors in the land use (LU) sector. The goal is to raise awareness of the importance of sustainable use of resources and nature restoration, contributing directly to implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the European Green Deal. To achieve this, BIOS will create an integrated platform to host, share, and allow open access to inform land use and management. Additionally, it will develop a spatial tool to inform, plan, test, evaluate, and upscale NBS.

This project is funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe (Project SONATA GA 101159546)