The Interbalkan Environment Centre (i-BEC) as an international cluster of new technologies and innovation linking together the public and private sectors for sustainable management of natural resources and protection of the environment. i-BEC acts through a global network in cooperation with governmental organisations, research institutes, and the private sector. Within this network, i-BEC provides integrated, relia-ble solutions and services and is actively involved in transnational ex-change and application of knowledge and best management practices overseas, in Europe and the Balkans. i-BEC turns EO and space data into services, thanks to ground-based instruments, satellite imagery, teleme-try, in-situ measurements, lab analyses, UAVs, URVs, and remote sens-ing. i-BEC’s undertakes the integration and management of environ-mental data in a shared infrastructure, scaling applications both geo-graphically and thematically, and meeting the requirements of locally focused needs of the public and private sectors (formation of clusters) that adhere to international standards (GEO). i-BEC provides EO data and services in areas such as management of raw data concerning pol-lution control from human activities and environmental protection of coastal and rural areas, early warning systems for critical incidents and dangerous phenomena, and early warning and decision support sys-tems for water supply and irrigation management practices, as well as site-specific farm management for precision agriculture. i-BEC provides high accuracy maps of soil properties, AI algorithms for soil properties estimation, and integrated sensing.
Technical means: Airborne Multispectral and Thermal Camera for crop/soil monitoring. Ground-based Hyperspectral Camera. UAVs (Hex-acopter, Helicopter) for environmental monitoring. High Fidelity Mobile Spectral Scanner.
Main customers: Decentralized Administrations, Regions, Municipali-ties, AUTH, major Agricultural Corporations in Greece and the Balkans, EO SMEs, environmental agencies, etc.
Major projects: i-BEC01 – Horizon 2020 – GEOCRADLE, i-BEC02 – IN-TERREG – AquaNEX, i-BEC03 – EC – Digital Convergence, i-BEC04 – ETCP -AGRO_LESS, i-BEC05 – Copernicus – Copernicus Relays.