Ecv ice Sheets Technical Proposal

5Data Requirements and Procurement

5.1Preliminary data requirements

Concerning GPS data availability, Italy is hosting a growing number of GPS networks and currently over 600 permanent GPS stations are established and provide continuous observations over the whole country. The first nation-wide continuous GPS network was set up by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in the late 1990’s. In 2001, the Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS) started installing a local GPS network in Northeast Italy and in 2004, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) established the national GPS network (RING). More recently an increasing number of permanent GPS sites have been installed by regional administrations and private companies. All these data have been proven to be of great significance in geodynamic studies ruling out the tectonic deformations in Italy and in the Mediterranean area (Serpelloni et al. 2005; Avallone et al. 2010; Devoti et al. 2011), and shall be available for the project.
Concerning SAR data, a preliminary survey of the data collected by ESA sensors on the experimental area of interest (Central and Southern Appennines) was carried out. In Table the number of independent (and partially overlapping) radar tracks is listed together with the number of image strips, each composed of 2 to 3 standard frames on average.

Sensor	Pass	Number of tracks	Number of image strips
ERS1	Ascending	29	126
ERS1	Descending	38	426
ERS2	Ascending	7	551
ERS2	Descending	8	200
ENVISAT	Ascending	10	386
ENVISAT	Descending	15	574
Total		107	2263

Table Data from ESA sensors available on the area of interest of the experimental dataset.

ESA datasets shall be complemented by about 600 COSMO-SkyMed frames and 70 ALOS PALSAR frames on the area of interest, currently in the INGV archives.

5.2Data procurement plan

The GPS data of all permanent GPS stations in Italy are currently archived at INGV. The raw data (RINEX data sampled at 30s) are freely available to the scientific community for non-profit studies. The whole dataset is processed routinely at INGV to produce daily station positions and station velocity vectors. The whole GPS network spans the entire Italian territory with a mean station inter-distance of 20-30 km. The GPS time series are updated once every year on average.

The SAR data used for this study is mainly ERS-1/2 and ENVISAT ASAR data, which is available free of charge for research purposes. Concerning the development and validation dataset, this shall be procured within WP 1300. We plan to use ERS-1/2 and ENVISAT data already in the INGV and IREA archives. Concerning the larger experimental dataset, the data requirements shall be established already within WP 1300 and discussed with the Technical Officer at PM1 (KO + 3 months). A Category-1 proposal shall be submitted following PM1.

Additional SAR data sources include ALOS PALSAR and COSMO-SkyMed data. A large archive of these data have been acquired by INGV during previous ESA and ASI projects on the areas of interest, so that no additional budget allocation is required to procure this data.

Auxiliary data required for the SAR processing, consists in precision state-vectors and SAR auxiliary files, and external Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). The former are all already available to INGV and IREA for the entire length of the ERS and ENVISAT missions. Concerning the DEMs, freely available global SRTM DEMs shall be used. In 2014, the WorldDEM generated from TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X data should also become available. Its distribution policy is not yet available however. This product shall be used within the project only if made freely available to the scientific community for research purposes.

Finally, analysis and reanalysis data from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) shall be collected for atmospheric stratification corrections. This data is available free of charge to INGV.

6Traceability and Compliance Matrix

Type of requirement:	Proposal Section:	Compliant
Feasibility study requirements
Synergies	1.1.3, 3.1	Yes
Focus on existing Earth Explorers or ESA archives	3.1.3	Yes
Address novel products and innovative retrieval methods	1.2	Yes
Address new earth science results	1.2	Yes
Statement of Work (SoW) requirements
Task 1 : Scientific Requirement Consolidation	3.1	Yes
Task 2: Dataset collection	3.1.3	Yes
Task 3: Development and Validation	3.2	Yes
Task 4: Prototype Demonstration and Impact Assessment	3.3	Yes
Task 5: Scientific Roadmap	3.4	Yes
Technical Proposal Requirements
SCT 4.1: Demonstrate understanding of the technical requirements	1.1	Yes
SCT 4.2: Describe the sequence of steps proposed to fulfill all of the requirements in the SoW	2	Yes
SCT 4.3: Include a first iteration of the implementation strategies for each Task of the SoW	3	Yes
SCT 4.4a: Explanation of the innovative aspects of the proposed study and the expected impact	1.2	Yes
SCT 4.4b: Expected outcome of the feasibility study and added value	4	Yes
SCT 4.4c: Preliminary data requirements and data procurement plan	5.1, 5.2	Yes
SCT 4.4d: Preliminary list of test sites	3.1.3	Yes
SCT 4.4e: Preliminary validation strategy of the developed prototype	3.2.4	Yes
SCT 4.4f: Detailed description of the proposed scientific, technical and methodological approach	3	Yes
SCT 4.4g: Outline of the communication material produced within the project	4	Yes
SCT 4.5: First iteration of the Risk Register	7	Yes
SCT 4.6: Include a Traceability and Compliance matrix	6	Yes
SCT 4.7: Describe understanding of past and on-going activities which have possible implications on the project	1.1.2	Yes

Table Technical proposal traceability and complicance matrix. SCT indicates the Special Conditions of Tender [DA 4].