Dr Evangelos Gerasopoulos, coordinator of the SMURBS/ERA-PLANET project, advocates for earth observation as an integral part of a smart city and outlines the progress made on the project’s portfolio of solutions for urban environmental stressors (SciTech Europa, Issue 33, p. 42-43, December 2019)scitech1

In the two years since the project’s commencement, partners have worked diligently to build a portfolio of smart city solutions in support of urban planners, citizens and other stakeholders. The portfolio currently contains 32 solutions (16 focusing on AQ, eight on urban growth, and eight on disasters) that are being implemented in a network of more than 25 cities. More than half of the solutions are already implemented or maintain a high level of maturity and bringing the remainder of the solutions to fruition will be a primary focus of the last year of the project. Some highlights that exemplify the diverse nature and applicability of solutions are discussed below. More information can be found online.