The Geohazards Exploitation Platform will support the setup of an operational validation environment for the European Ground Motion Service validation activities.
This work is carried out in the context of the European Environment Agency’s EGMS validation framework, led by NHAZCA, with Terradue contributing to the validation system environment and cloud-native processing setup.
The objective is to provide a reproducible, traceable, and scalable environment where validation workflows, datasets, outputs, metadata, and reports can be managed consistently throughout the project lifecycle.
This work builds on GEP’s previous support to the European Ground Motion Service, including the publication of EGMS Ortho Vertical datasets on the platform and their use through GEP visualisation, filtering, time-series exploration and download capabilities. That earlier activity provided the geohazards community with an additional access point to selected EGMS products and demonstrated how EGMS data can be used together with complementary EO processing services and analytical tools on GEP.
The new validation activity extends this role from data access and visualisation toward reproducible, traceable and scalable validation workflows, where datasets, processing parameters, workflow versions, outputs, metadata and reports can be managed consistently throughout the project lifecycle.
Why EGMS validation matters
The European Ground Motion Service provides continental-scale information on ground motion across Europe.
EGMS products support the monitoring of land subsidence, landslides, infrastructure stability, natural hazards, and other deformation processes affecting European territories.
Validation is essential to ensure that these products remain reliable, comparable, scientifically robust, and suitable for institutional, scientific, and operational use.
The EGMS validation activities are designed to assess the quality, accuracy, consistency, and robustness of ground deformation information derived from satellite InSAR processing.
GEP as an operational validation environment
GEP provides a cloud-based processing environment already focused on geohazard applications, terrain motion analysis, and critical infrastructure monitoring.
For the EGMS validation project, GEP will provide a dedicated operational area where validation workflows and supporting services can be deployed, executed, monitored, and documented.
The environment is designed to support:
- reproducible and traceable validation workflows;
- FAIR management of datasets, metadata, and outputs;
- scalable cloud-native processing;
- collaborative validation activities;
- portable and maintainable workflow architecture;
- open standards and interoperable interfaces.
This does not prescribe a single user interface for the validation activities. Depending on the needs of the validation team, interaction may take place through notebooks, scripting, APIs, catalogues, dashboards, or other GEP-supported tools.
The role of GEP is to provide the operational processing and collaboration environment during the project, while keeping the validation logic portable toward future infrastructures.
From EGMS inputs to validation outputs
The EGMS validation processing flow follows a traceable lifecycle:
Access data → Prepare workflows → Run on GEP → Analyse results → Publish outputs
Input datasets, validation workflows, processing parameters, workflow versions, generated outputs, and validation reports will be managed in a way that supports reproducibility and auditability.
Validation workflows will be packaged and executed using portable EO Application Packages, with workflow orchestration managed through Kubernetes-native services and Argo Workflows.
The processing environment will support both systematic and on-demand execution of validation workflows, enabling reproducible processing across different execution environments.
STAC-compliant catalogues and metadata services will support the discovery, access, and publication of validation inputs and outputs.
Cloud-native validation workflows
The validation system is based on a cloud-native architecture aligned with EOEPCA and FAIR principles.
The main components include:
- EGMS and reference data access;
- CWL validation workflows;
- Argo workflow orchestration;
- Kubernetes cloud-native execution;
- STAC metadata and provenance catalogues;
- APIs, dashboards, and reporting services.
This architecture supports a complete processing flow from data ingestion to validation, provenance tracking, and publication of results.
By relying on EO Application Packages, validation workflows can be deployed and executed consistently across different infrastructures and platforms.
FAIR data and provenance management
A key objective of the validation environment is to ensure that every validation result can be traced back to the exact datasets, workflows, parameters, and software versions used for its generation.
The system will support FAIR-by-design principles:
- datasets and workflows should be findable;
- metadata and validation outputs should be accessible;
- catalogues and APIs should be interoperable;
- scripts, workflow definitions, and processing chains should be reusable.
Core technologies supporting this approach include STAC metadata, CWL workflow descriptions, Git repositories, persistent identifiers, and provenance records.
This will help ensure that validation outputs are not only generated, but also documented, traceable, reproducible, and suitable for review.
Collaborative validation workspaces
The validation environment will also support interactive user workspaces.
These may include JupyterLab for data analysis and workflow development, VS Code Server for collaborative software development, QGIS for geospatial analysis, metadata browsers for catalogue exploration, and dedicated repositories for workflows and configurations.
This allows validation experts to move from workflow development to execution, review, reporting, and publication within a coherent environment.
The environment will also support API-based interaction, including STAC APIs for metadata discovery and dataset access, OGC API Processes endpoints for workflow execution, and programmatic access for automation and integration.
The exact combination of tools used during the validation activities will depend on the operational needs of the project team.
Portability and future transferability
Although GEP will provide the operational validation environment during the project, the validation workflows are designed to remain independent from a single hosting platform.
By relying on open standards, containerised workflows, portable CWL definitions, STAC metadata, EOEPCA-aligned interfaces, and Kubernetes-native deployment patterns, the validation system will remain migration-ready toward future EEA-operated infrastructures.
This ensures that the project can benefit from the operational maturity of GEP today while preserving long-term transferability.
Project ramp-up
The setup of the validation environment follows a phased approach.
The first phase focuses on environment setup, including validation infrastructure deployment, workflow onboarding, and metadata and CI/CD services.
The second phase focuses on progressive validation execution, including integration of validation datasets, initial workflow runs, validation metrics, and reporting.
The third phase supports the Validation Readiness Review, including end-to-end validation execution, reporting, dataset delivery, and review preparation.
This ramp-up prepares the environment for the validation of the EGMS updates covering the periods 2020–2024, 2021–2025, 2022–2026, and 2023–2027.
Supporting reliable European ground motion information
The EGMS validation project strengthens the quality assurance framework around one of Europe’s key land monitoring services.
Together with the earlier publication of EGMS Ortho Vertical datasets on GEP, this validation activity reinforces GEP’s role as a working environment for European ground motion data access, analysis and quality-assurance workflows.
By contributing a reproducible, traceable, and cloud-native validation environment, GEP will help support the scientific and operational reliability of EGMS products and the wider community of users relying on ground motion information across Europe.
This topic introduces Terradue’s contribution to the EGMS validation system setup through the Geohazards Exploitation Platform. The described environment and capabilities are part of the project setup and will be progressively deployed, tested, and used for validation readiness activities.