The 12th International Conference of the Italian Remote Sensing Association (AIT), held recently (November 12-13-14, 2025) at the headquarters of AdRMi1 (Milan 1 Territorial Research Area) CNR in Milan, hosted by IREA-CNR, is the biennial event that the Italian community holds to discuss the state of the art of Earth Observation. Although Italian-led, the conference is designed to be international and, therefore, the official language is English. This year’s three-day conference (254 participants), entitled “Smart Earth Observation for a Sustainable Future,” featured 156 contributions distributed across 7 thematic sessions, 6 special sessions, 2 poster sessions, and one workshop organized by Planetek. The event, sponsored by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), ASITA (Confederation of Scientific Associations for Territorial and Environmental Information), and ENEA, was also supported by commercial sponsorships from companies involved in the supply of products, services, and software related to Earth Observation. Specifically: NV5, Planetek Italia, ESRI Italia, MDPI, Schneider Digital.
The conference also provided an opportunity to present the AIT awards for the best master’s theses about Earth observation: (i) the Eugenio Zilioli Award– 20th Edition 2025 for the thesis providing the greatest scientific value (winner: Dr. RAFFAELLA MARINA FRANK) and (ii) the NV5 Award for the thesis with the greatest potential for technology transfer (winner: Dr. MARCO VENTURA).
Among the topics related to the use of Earth observation data and sensors investigated at the conference: Agriculture and Forestry, Cryosphere, Water and Water Resources, Climate Change and Natural Hazards, Urban Monitoring, GeoAI, Air Quality and Human Health, New Space Programs and Earth Observation Missions.
The number and scientific soundness of the contributions, and the attention paid to data quality and transferability in operational contexts, demonstrate civil society’s growing interest in the use of these tools and solutions and their technical and economic impact on various national and supranational realities. Institutions have long recognized this potential and launched programs aimed at supporting and implementing it. Italy is no exception to this logic, having launched well-known EO space programs: the Cosmo-SkyMed mission (about to launch new-generation SAR satellites), PRISMA (HyperSpectral Precursor of the Application Mission), and the IRIDE multi-constellation/multi-sensor program.
At the European level, the Copernicus Program and its Sentinel satellite constellations are now a benchmark for the implementation of services for land planning, management, and control based on Earth observation data.
In this favorable context, the 12th AIT International Conference, held over three days in Milan, was the place where the academic and research community, industry and commerce, and the institutional players involved in land and environmental planning and monitoring proficiently shared their knowledge, tools and needs.