National-level meeting 5 (Spain) with Environmental Authorities

Between June and September 2025, Cop.RIVER team members attended several meetings with the General Directorate of Forests and Biodiversity and the Cantabrian Hydrographic Confederation to develop a LIFE proposal related to the invasive species Reynoutria japonica. Both institutions expressed their concern regarding the spread of the species in the Cantabrian territory, searching for solutions to control and monitor its distribution.

In this context, the Cop.RIVER team, together with the leading research group (Freshwater Ecosystems Group at IHCantabria), proposed the inclusion of a mapping task involving Copernicus data and products as a cost-effective methodology to identify the presence of the species at the regional scale via model training with spectral indices from satellite image time series.