Denmark’s autumn sky has three colors: grey, grey, and grey. That is a challenge for those who want to track conditions on the ground using optical satellites—particularly government agencies monitoring the environmental effects of farming.
A new demonstration project, All-Weather COVER (Catch-crop Observation and Verification with Early-warning for Regulation), aims to address the problem of autumn cloud cover when monitoring catch crops using satellite data. The ESA-supported project is led by ClearSKY, an AI-powered provider of cloud-free, analysis-ready satellite imagery, in partnership with the Danish Agency for Green Land Use and Aquatic Environment (SGAV).
Catch crops play an important role in agricultural and environmental policy, including efforts related to nutrient management and water quality. Improved monitoring can help make implementation more timely, transparent, and scalable.
With All-Weather COVER, ClearSKY aims to build on its experience delivering cloud-free, analysis-ready imagery for agriculture and environmental applications by developing a pilot service tailored to catch-crop monitoring. The goal is to enable earlier, more reliable, and more scalable monitoring through parcel-level indicators, including estimates of catch-crop coverage and early-warning signals indicating whether parcels are on track to meet relevant deadlines.
This includes not only improved observation continuity during cloudy periods, but also more usable outputs for downstream decision-making and case handling.
The project is centered on a Danish use case in collaboration with SGAV. It also includes transferability work with the Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket), helping assess how the approach can be adapted to a Swedish operational context. In parallel, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences will support verification-related work.
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