SMURBS, pursuing its imperatives of battling EO fragmentation and supporting the SDG (UN Sustainable Development Goals) framework, and in the spirit of cooperation, fundamental among the four projects of the ERA-PLANET Transnational Call, accepted the invitation to the VLab (Virtual Laboratory) workshop by the GEOEssential project.

VLab is a tool for publishing and running scientific models for knowledge generation. It has been designed and implemented in the context of national, European and international projects and initiatives. From the positive experience in the H2020 ECOPOTENTIAL project, the VLAB has been proposed as one of the major building blocks for the ERA-PLANET Knowledge Platform and as a component of its data and model sharing infrastructure.

The workshop took place in Florence, Italy, between 26 and 28 February 2019 at the CNR Research Area inside the Polo Scientifico Universitario. SMURBS, along with other ERA-PLANET partners, worked on delivering its models (workflows) to the VLab. In particular, these models target SDG indicators 11.3.1 and 11.6.2 and explore their EO based acquisition (atmospheric models and satellite imagery analysis). SMURBS also contributed to the lively discussion concerning the potential enhancements of the VLAB and was introduced to novel data visualization and dissemination technologies (GeoServer, MapStore).