MONALISA

In the Alps, economic activities, such as agriculture, are strongly influenced by the particular environmental conditions of a mountainous area. For an effective management of such activities a precise and systematic comprehension of the environmental processes on all scales is essential.
The main goal of MONALISA is therefore the development of multi-scale monitoring approaches for key environmental parameters and processes with the help of innovative monitoring technologies in the application field of agriculture.
From a scientific point of view, MONALISA will focus on the question how to improve the understanding of key environmental processes by innovative monitoring technologies.
From an application point of view, approaches and results will help to improve management activities in agriculture and will also be transferred to other fields of application like forestry, energy or environment.
As key environmental parameters in the field of agriculture we define parameters which are

• determining growing and ripening conditions, such as temperature, precipitation, radiation, soil moisture or carbon content
• describing the status of vegetation like biomass accumulation (yield), Leaf Area Index, Phenological status or the degree of ripeness of fruits

Monitoring of key environmental parameters in MONALISA will follow the whole production chain of agriculture including the

• general environmental conditions and processes relevant for agriculture (Pillar 2)
• concrete conditions and production processes in the pre-harvest environment (including monitoring and optimisation of management) (Pillar 3)
• quality of the final products (in particular apples) as a function of pre- and post-harvest conditions (Pillar 4)

Multi-scale monitoring in the context of MONALISA means to work in scales from several 1000 km² (full Province of Bolzano) down to the scale of mm² (e.g. a surface of a single apple).
Innovative monitoring technologies in the framework or MONALISA means to

• apply non-destructive multi-sensor approaches combining imagine techniques like multispectral, RADAR, and LIDAR with single-point measurement for key environmental parameters. Of particular interest will be a combination of high-precision sensors with low-cost sensors
• develop a data framework for managing complex multi-dimensional and heterogeneous environmental data including a data ontology, a metadata concept, a data base and a data dissemination platform
• provide a high-performance software and hardware framework for image and data processing as well as for environmental simulation and modelling.

The development of innovative monitoring technologies, which is an important backbone of MONALISA and will link many of the MONALISA activities, is performed in Pillar 5. Activities of MONALISA will pave the road for planned activities on Alpine Monitoring within the new Technology Park.
Pillar 6 is dedicated to integrate industry, local companies and manufactures into the activities of MONALISA. The profit of this integration is twofold:

• the project can profit from the technological know-how of companies in the field of sensors, data management or environmental parameters
• the companies can profit from the methodologies which are developed in the framework of MONALISA (knowledge and technology transfer) even beyond the scope of MONALISA (e.g. for monitoring technologies in the wood industry and other branches).

Potential users from public and private institutions will be involved from the beginning for the selection and evaluation of the environmental and quality parameters (Pillar 7).