Geoinformation Services & Environmental Informatics

Environmental agencies, water managers and climate programmes need reliable, repeatable information from very large volumes of satellite data. Brockmann Consult, a Hamburg-based company founded in 1999 with a team of around 40, turns Earth Observation data into operational services, thematic data products and tailor-made software for marine, inland-water, land and climate applications at local, regional and global scales.

Key capabilities:

• Pre-processing & cloud screening: Atmospheric correction, cloud and cloud-shadow detection and pixel classification (IdePix) for optical sensors including Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3 OLCI, Landsat-8, MODIS and VIIRS; parts of IdePix run in the Sentinel-3 OLCI and SYN ground segment.
• Water quality: Chlorophyll-a, suspended matter, CDOM and cyanobacteria retrieval (C2RCC and MPH algorithms; C2RCC is also used in ESA's Sentinel-3 OLCI Case-2 water processing), delivered through the CyanoAlert service as near-real-time data via a web viewer, a mobile app and email bloom alerts.
• Climate data records: Production for ESA's Climate Change Initiative and the Copernicus Climate Change Service, including global burned area (MODIS-based from 2001, Sentinel-3 Synergy-based from 2020), the global land surface reflectances behind the Land Cover ECV, and total column water vapour.
• Coastal & habitat monitoring: Satellite classification of sediments, mussel beds and seagrass on the intertidal flats for the German Wadden Sea national park and coastal authorities.
• Processing platforms & data cubes: The Calvalus Hadoop-based mass-processing system (run on DIAS clouds and at customer premises) and the open-source xcube data-cube toolkit with its web API and viewer.
• Custom software & consultancy: Bespoke tools and processing chains, validation, training and expert advice.

Brockmann Consult is lead developer of ESA's open-source SNAP (Sentinel Application Platform), which supports the Sentinel-1, -2 and -3 missions and has more than 10,000 users, and prime contractor for its Sentinel-3 Toolbox. The company is a service provider to the Copernicus Land Monitoring, Marine and Climate Change services, and supports customers including ESA, EUMETSAT and the European Commission.

Brockmann's strength is combining scientific EO expertise with operational software engineering to deliver validated, repeatable environmental products and managed services.