Collaboration key to climate action

Key to the study’s success has been openness and strong collaboration between the Madrid City Council and the Las Dehesas landfill operators on the Valmendigómez Technology Park – and research partners including ESA, GHGSat, the University of Leicester in the UK, the Space Research Organisation Netherlands (SRON), the International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO), and the Danish Technical University (DTU).

María José Delgado, Director General of the Valdemingómez Technology Park, expresses the Madrid City Council’s willingness to collaborate on this innovative project, which enables the comparison of different technologies for detecting fugitive emissions of biogas from landfill, thereby improving environmental control in landfill management and contributing to the fight against climate change.

Sharing details of site activity and timing routine on-the-ground monitoring with airborne-based observations provided the science team with crucial context. In turn, researchers’ rapid analysis and mapping helped to identify leak locations and persistence, to guide the landfill operator’s remediation activity.

By focusing on the waste sector, the case study aims to inform satellite-guided pathways to reduce or avoid emissions, mirroring successes targeting oil and gas facilities. Unlike industrial facilities however, emissions from landfills are harder to mitigate, but this exercise indicates that the potential is there.

Dr Sembhi, from the University of Leicester, said, “In many cases, the operator was able to check leak locations as we were disseminating data reports and prioritise action.