Isabel Donner has completed a master's degree in the master's programme in Geoinformatics (GIS) at Aalto University. Her master’s thesis was written in connection with Arctic PASSION in collaboration with Spatineo Inc. The thesis aims to determine the most suitable tools for the assessment of socioeconomic benefits of earth observation data and services in the Arctic area.

The most essential benefit assessment tools are reviewed in a literature study. By comparing methods, it was concluded that Value Tree Analysis combined with cost-benefit analysis is the best approach for assessing the socioeconomic impact of earth observing data in the Arctic, as this approach supports the representation of various benefits originating from several earth observing systems. In addition, Spatineo Impact proved to be a useful tool for revealing the realized benefits from the usage of a service by analyzing service web traffic. The information obtained in a Spatineo Impact assessment work is especially valuable to providers of open spatial data.

The selected valuation tools were applied in a case study which assessed the benefits from the Lake Ice Extentfor the Northern Europe product, a spatial dataset which Arctic PASSION is further developing. The results of the thesis are used as input when planning Arctic PASSION's impact assessment tool, which will evaluate the regional and global societal benefits of Pilot Services developed in the project. Click here to read Isabel's thesis.