RETROCHANGE

RETROCHANGE delivers a compact, reusable, EOSC-ready demonstration of how declassified high-resolution historical satellite imagery (CORONA/HEXAGON era, roughly 1960 to 1985) can be transformed into analysis-ready geospatial products and reproducible workflows for forest and landscape change research. The project will produce a historical imagery package for Slovakia, published through interoperable, EOSC-aligned access mechanisms with clear provenance, licensing, and quality notes.

The value of these products will be demonstrated in pilot areas across cross-border Carpathian landscapes, where long-term monitoring is essential for conservation planning, climate adaptation, and sustainable management. The workflow is designed from the outset for reuse and extension to additional areas of interest.

Three tightly scoped outputs:

1. Historical Imagery Access Package. Georeferenced, analysis-ready imagery products (GeoTIFF where applicable) for selected pilot areas, exposed through standard geospatial interfaces (OGC WMS) for immediate use in common GIS clients. A public landing page will document coverage, resolution, processing lineage, recommended citation, licensing, and clearly stated limitations.

2. Reproducible Notebook Workflows. Executable, versioned Jupyter notebooks implementing the full use case workflow, with pinned dependencies and a defined run sequence. Workflows are parameterised for new areas and time slices, and piloted on EOSC Node Slovakia (JupyterHub or REANA with AAI) as the primary environment, with EOSC EU Node Interactive Notebooks as a secondary option.

3. Showcase and Training Assets. A live end-to-end demonstration delivered with EOSC Node Slovakia (CVTI SR) support, complemented by openly available tutorial materials designed for EOSC Academy reuse and peer-to-peer exchange.

Two scientific use cases serve as repeatable templates, both focused on cross-border Carpathian landscapes: the High Tatras region (TANAP, Slovakia / TPN, Poland) for long-term forest and landscape change analysis, and the Poloniny-Bieszczady region for conservation-relevant indicators of forest continuity, edge dynamics, and connectivity.

RETROCHANGE demonstrates EOSC Federation value by combining interoperable data access with remote, reproducible execution, directly serving researchers seeking retrospective analyses, protected-area managers needing interpretable indicators, and EOSC Node operators needing clear packaging and documentation. In collaboration with EOSC Node Slovakia, the project will also produce onboarding-ready descriptions and metadata to support future EOSC integration pathways.

RETROCHANGE supports EU priorities on Open Science, FAIR data stewardship, and interoperable research infrastructures by transforming high-resolution historical satellite imagery into EOSC-ready, reusable resources for environmental monitoring and land-use change research. The project delivers a concrete end-user benefit: researchers can discover and access harmonised historical imagery through standard interfaces and execute transparent, reproducible notebook workflows, removing common barriers such as heterogeneous formats, incomplete provenance, and non-repeatable processing.

The project directly benefits communities in forestry, landscape ecology, geoinformatics, and conservation management, particularly those working in cross-border protected areas, by enabling consistent historical comparisons of forest cover, landscape structure, and selected pressure indicators such as infrastructure expansion. For participating organisations, RETROCHANGE provides a replicable publication pattern for historical remote-sensing products within the EOSC ecosystem, covering stable access endpoints, documented processing lineage with limitations reporting, clear licensing and recommended citation, and notebook-based workflows adaptable to new areas across Europe.

FAIRness is embedded throughout. Datasets will be findable via a structured landing page with rich metadata covering AOI coverage, acquisition period, spatial resolution, CRS, processing lineage, versioning, and citation. They will be accessible via stable service endpoints and documented download methods, interoperable through widely adopted geospatial standards (OGC services, GeoTIFF/COG), and reusable through explicit licensing, transparent provenance statements, and parameterised notebooks with pinned environments for repeatable execution.

RETROCHANGE is designed to scale from its initial pilot areas to broader regional and multi-country coverage through a repeatable processing pipeline and analysis-ready data packaging. Scalability rests on three pillars: cloud-optimised raster delivery that supports efficient viewing and subsetting without transferring full mosaics; parameterised notebooks that accept user-defined areas and multiple time slices, allowing the same workflow to be applied to new regions with minimal adjustment; and a modular processing chain that can be extended with additional indicators (fragmentation metrics, land-use transition matrices, disturbance hotspot screening) as new historical scenes become available.

Sustainability beyond the project lifetime is secured through four mechanisms. Operational continuity is maintained by TUZVO, which will keep published endpoints and landing pages live after project end, supported by availability monitoring and a named technical contact. Scientific workflows will run on EOSC-aligned infrastructure, with EOSC Node Slovakia providing the target environment for future services based on the project notebooks. Open assets and versioning are ensured through a public, versioned repository with tagged releases and persistent citations, keeping methods traceable and reproducible over time. A replication kit, delivered as a concise “publication and reuse handbook” covering processing assumptions, metadata templates, QA checklists, and deployment steps, will allow other organisations to replicate the approach with their own imagery and infrastructure. An onboarding-ready package including service descriptions, metadata, documentation, and lessons learned will facilitate future integration within additional EOSC Nodes as national and thematic services mature.