Winning project from the 2nd Open Call funded by the AI4Copernicus Project


Country: Italy

An interview with the winners – Valentina Manganozzi, representing the ARTEMIS project

Q: What led to the creation of your idea? What was your motive?

A: Although it is well known that Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) have a negative impact on human health, their quantification, especially when they are produced by landfills, is often overlooked. Being a doctor, I see every day the effects on people’s health due to not-optimal air quality. For this reason I believe that it is very important to develop new tools able to monitor the GHGs emitted by landfills so that they can be correlated to health problems of citizens living in the surrounding areas. Monitoring tools such as ARTEMIS provide more accurate control of landfills supporting the reduction of GHG emissions with a consequent improvement of public health.

Q: In case your idea is implemented, which do you think would be its societal impact?

A: The social impact would be very high, because landfills, and more generally waste management, are a global problem. Developing new tools that can help improve their management can generate benefits not only for the environment but also for people’s health reducing respiratory diseases.

Q: Following the recent award, how do you plan to further develop your idea?

A:I am not an expert in the Earth Observation and Artificial Intelligence sector, so I am not able, directly, to develop this idea. In any case, I would appreciate to be involved in the development of the project in case other companies want to implement it. Given my competencies and skills in the health sector, I could support in the design and validation of the solution.

Abstract of the project: Landfills are a major contributor to the world’s anthropogenic GHG emissions. The reduction of GHG emitted from landfills, and from waste management industry in general, is one of the most relevant challenge to achieve a zero-impact economy in the next decades. It would bring several environmental benefits and, most of all, would allow to reduce the impact on public health: improvement of quality of life and reduction of health related costs. The project ARTEMIS aims to exploit Artificial Intelligence to analyse complex data sets that include SENTINEL-5, SENTINEL-2 images and data collected from air quality monitoring stations deployed on ground with the scope to provide a daily monitoring of GHG concentrations in the areas surrounding the landfills with a spatial resolution less than 1km2 (target value 100m). ARTEMIS is a solution that brings both economic advantages (i.e: cost reduction for the implementation/control/verification of more environmental sustainable waste management process and for accomplishment of normative duties ) and social benefits (e.g.: reduction of diseases, improvement of quality of life and environmental parameters) to the Community and Landfill Managers. ARTEMIS contributes, through the innovation of an industrial sector (SD-9), to the development of more sustainable cities (SDG-11) with a worldwide applicability.