Objectives of the service
Denmark is restoring peatland and wetland at a scale few EU member states match. Subsidy control on agricultural land is moving toward season-long satellite observation: a clear case stays at the desk, and a visit follows only where the picture is inconclusive. Restored peat still sits on the older rule, which is to keep the restored conditions. WetGuard prepares for the moment that rule asks for a result.
The Kick-Start tested whether free Copernicus observations can supply that evidence for the advisory file. There is not yet a formal duty to prove condition over the season. The service was studied as a later module beside PEATZ eligibility and application support, not as a stand-alone landowner subscription.
Users and their needs
Agricultural consultancies are the buyers. They enrol client projects, hold the file, and answer the agency when a parcel is queried. Landowners are the users. They meet the service through the firm they already work with.
Interviews and mock-ups with Danish advisors and landowners kept the need practical: the documentation burden, and remote checks that do not close. Paid use of this module follows only when a scheme asks for proof of result.
Denmark is the beachhead. The same consultancy channel can transfer once a local duty exists. A score learned on one peat landscape does not copy onto another.
Service/ system concept
WetGuard reads free Copernicus Sentinel-1 observations as the peat surface rises and falls through the season. Where the radar can see the surface, that reading is season-long condition evidence. Where it cannot, the parcel is marked uncertain, so a missing view is never presented as a failure.
Other wetness methods were tried and set aside. The same reading is not yet a Danish score. A result that holds on one peat landscape still has to be checked against local field observation before it is used on another.
A live demonstration lets an advisor meet the service. The method stays behind it.
Space Added Value
WetGuard is built on free Copernicus Sentinel-1 radar. A radar view can continue through the season where cloud would interrupt an optical check.
Without satellite observation, restored peatland is followed mainly through administrative files and field visits. Those checks are hard to repeat across many parcels.
Current Status
The Kick-Start activity is complete (March to September 2026).
The activity leaves a working reading from Sentinel-1, a live demonstration, and a consultancy channel. Conversations with landowners and with two Danish agricultural consultancies shaped the offer. WetGuard stays a prepared module beside eligibility support.
What remains is local field calibration before the reading is used as a Danish score. No invoice is expected until a scheme asks for proof of result.
Prime Contractor(s)
