Ordino, Andorra
The Secretary of State for Economic Diversification and Innovation, Marc Galabert, the director of Actua Innovació, Marc Pons, and the co-founder of Aistech Space, Carles Franquesa, signed this Thursday at the Casa de la Muntanya in Ordino a collaboration agreement between the two entities to explore the development in Andorra of new geospatial and satellite imagery techniques related to the mountain.
Aistech Space is a private entity in the space sector that has the support of the European Space Agency. It specializes in the monitoring of the Earth through its own constellation of satellites and the generation of geospatial intelligence from the analysis of terrestrial data captured from space. Galabert emphasized the importance of the agreement and said that “the main efforts will be focused on the prediction and analysis of avalanches in Andorra. At the same time, work will be carried out on the development of snow cover and thaw monitoring models, which will make it possible to assess thaw rates and contributions to river water levels. With this data, predictive models can be developed to determine the volumes and flows of water in the country’s rivers. ”
For his part, the director of Actua Innovació, Marc Pons, commented on the various lines of work that have been ongoing in recent months, such as “the development of systems and models that will facilitate the measurement and monitoring of forest density or to determine possible reductions in the densities of the trees,” and added that, “systems of detection of natural risks via satellite image will also be worked. ” In fact, this week has already begun with the installation of some sensors in Sorteny that will be connected via Aistech satellites, and that will allow the continuous and recurrent monitoring of critical variables.
The co-founder of Aistech Space, Carles Franques, pointed out that “we consider that Andorra and the initiatives that Actua Innovació has launched represent a favorable and suitable environment where we can work together with the different agents of Andorra with the ‘goal of sharing knowledge, experiences, and technology to generate a real impact in the mountain area’. Carles Franquesa recalled that “our goal is to provide a new vision on the impact of human and economic activities on the planet and contribute to improving the standard and quality of life through more sustainable development.”
The agreement between Actua Innovació and Aistech Space has an initial duration of 6 months, extendable for periods of six months. The epicenter of most studies will be the Mountain House.
