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(November 2010) Meeting the environmental needs of an ever-expanding Europe requires consistent and regularly updated information on its land cover and use. As part of ESA’s GlobCorine project, a pan-European land cover and use map for 2009 is now available online.

The map, based on ESA’s Envisat MERIS data from 1 January to 31 December 2009, is the first of its kind to be produced in such a short time – nine months as opposed to years. GlobCorine shows how an automated service can generate and regularly update such maps, which are essential for environmental agencies.

The map, providing a resolution of 300 m, was delivered to the European Environmental Agency (EEA), the project’s main user, in October.

“The novelty of this map is that we can finally have relevant, timely global land cover information compatible with the time series of European Corine land cover data for decision-making,” EEA’s Chris Steenmans, Head of Programme, Shared Environmental Information System, said at the final GlobCorine meeting held at ESA’s Earth observation centre (ESRIN) in Frascati, Italy, last week.

“If you want to bring the environment into the context of economic and social development, then the speed of environmental information delivery needs to keep pace with economists and decision-makers for sustainable development.

“This means we can’t continue what we have done in the past, which was to report on land use changes using three or sometimes five-year-old data. Instead, we have to provide up-to-date figures that will help us to monitor sustainability of our ecosystem services.”

Jean-Louis Weber, Special Adviser on Economic Environmental Accounting at EEA, said the idea of GlobCorine is based on two needs: “EEA has been asked by the European Commission to organise an information and reporting system on the state of the environment for the whole pan-European and Mediterranean region, and land cover is basic information needed to understand more complex processes.

EEA is also involved in ‘green accounting’ in the UN context where we cooperate with the World Bank for ecosystem evaluation methodologies. Recently, a Global Partnership for Ecosystem Valuation has been organised by the World Bank.

“Before monetary evaluation can begin, one must describe the ecosystems and how they change. The GlobCorine map is a precursor that can be used to organise this type of information and accounting.”

Sophie Bontemps of the Universite catholique de Louvain in Belgium, which carried out GlobCorine with ESA, said she was pleased to work in close collaboration with EEA because it allowed her to obtain a clear view of the usefulness of the project.

“GlobCorine is much more than a project aiming to deliver a European land cover map. It is the scientific and technical demonstration that a description of the state of land surface on a continental scale can be provided within a year.”

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(November 2010) Four leading insurance climate change initiatives, whose combined membership includes more than a hundred of the world’s leading insurers across Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, and Oceania, have combined their members’ expertise to present a Statement on Risk Management and Climate Change in the Developing World.

ClimateWise, The Geneva Association, the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (MCII) and leading insurance companies within the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) are collaborating to highlight the huge potential benefits of using government action to enable the knowledge and expertise from the insurance industry to play its fullest role in risk management in developing countries, particularly those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This government action includes implementing national risk management processes and using limited government investment to measure and reduce those risks.

Read the Statement…

Source GMES.Info

(Nov 2010) As part of the procedure to realise ESA’s series of Earth Explorers, two new mission proposals have been selected for further development. The missions, called FLEX and CarbonSat, now vying to be the eighth Earth Explorer, both address key climate and environmental change issues.

The selection follows ESA’s Call for Earth Explorer Proposals that was released in October last year and ended in the Agency receiving 31 high-quality mission concepts. Subsequently, the proposals were carefully evaluated by leading Earth scientists in four peer review panels.

This evaluation process, which included a comprehensive programmatic and technical assessment, resulted in ESA’s Earth Science Advisory Committee selecting the two most scientifically relevant and programmatically feasible concepts – recommending that the Fluorescence Explorer (FLEX) and CarbonSat be presented to ESA’s Programme Board for Earth Observation.

At the Earth Observation Programme Board Member States meeting, held on 24 November, it was decided to go ahead with the recommendation for FLEX and CarbonSat to move forward to
‘Phase-A/B1’. This phase includes feasibility study and further consolidation of the various components that make up a satellite mission.

As with all Earth Explorer missions, FLEX and CarbonSat respond to issues raised by the scientific community to further our understanding of how Earth works as a system and how human activity is affecting natural Earth processes. In this case, both FLEX and CarbonSat aim to provide key information on different aspects of the carbon cycle.

The CarbonSat mission would quantify and monitor the distribution of two of the most important greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, also released through human activity: carbon dioxide and methane. Data from the mission would lead to a better understanding of the sources and sinks of these two gases and how they are linked to climate change.

The FLEX mission aims to provide global maps of vegetation fluorescence, which can be converted into an indicator of photosynthetic activity. These data would improve our understanding of how much carbon is stored in plants and their role in the carbon and water cycles.

The mission would work in combination with the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument and the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer on Sentinel-3 to improve models of future atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

The next step in the development of these two mission concepts is to begin the definition studies in the second quarter of 2011.

There are three Earth Explorers in orbit: GOCE, SMOS and CryoSat; a further three being constructed: Swarm, ADM-Aeolus and EarthCARE; and three undergoing feasibility studies competing for selection as Earth Explorer-7: BIOMASS, PREMIER and CoReH2O

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ESA PR 2010-26 Ministers in charge of space activities representing the Member States of the European Space Agency and the European Union met in Brussels ending November for the Seventh Space Council.

Today’s Council was jointly chaired by Sabine Laruelle, the Belgian Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises, the Self-employed, Agriculture and Science Policy, on behalf of the EU Competitive-ness Council, and Giuseppe Pizza, Italian State Secretary in the Ministry of Education, University and Research, on behalf of the ESA Council at Ministerial Level.

Antonio Tajani, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Enterprise & Industry, and Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General, also took part.

The Space Council unanimously endorsed a resolution that called for the necessary actions to deliver a space strategy that would enable economic growth, respond to public policy objectives and develop the vocations of science and technology in Europe.

Ministers emphasised that the flagship programmes Galileo and GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) remain the priorities for the EU in space and identified the key decisions to be taken in these areas over the coming months.

In the areas of Global Climate Change and Security, the ministers asked the European Commission and the Director General of ESA to collaborate with the Member States and other relevant actors in Europe to identify how to fill gaps in existing space capabilities.

Ministers also recognised the need to move towards establishing a Space Situational Awareness capability for the protection of Europe’s space assets. They stressed the need for Europe to voice a single European position in international discussions on space exploration.

Following on from the 16 September conference ‘Space for the African Citizen’ and taking account of the expected inclusion of space in the communication for the EU-Africa Summit, to be held in Libya on 29 and 30 November, the Space Council called for expanded partnerships with the African Union, the Regional Economic Groupings and African nations to build capacities for acquiring and exploiting space systems.

Aware that the EU-ESA Framework Agreement, under which the Space Council was established, has been extended until May 2012, ministers of the EU and ESA invited the European Commission and the Director General of ESA respectively to conduct an evaluation by May 2011 of the experience gained under that agreement.

ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain emphasised the progress that had been achieved in space missions since the previous Space Council meeting in May 2009, adding:

“The entry into force of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, with a specific space competence, is good news for space, good news for Europe and good news for ESA. It allows us not to do the same thing differently but to do more, together.”

The full Resolution text can be found at: http://consilium.europa.eu/

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Spacepolicy

On 25 November 2010, Ministers in charge of space activities representing the Member States of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union participated in the 7th Space Council meeting, under the co-presidency of Belgium (EU) and Italy (ESA). Items on the agenda included climate monitoring, governance of space activities in Europe and Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES).
Ministers emphasised that the flagship programmes Galileo and GMES remain the priorities for the EU in space and identified the key decisions to be taken in these areas over the coming months. In this regard, it was reaffirmed that the priority for the EU is now to:

  • Finalise in 2011 the decisions on GMES governance including a sustained scheme for the operations of the GMES space, in-situ and services components;
  • Devise a scheme that addresses the ownership and liability of the Sentinel infrastructure;
  • Ensure an active programme of engagement with potential users of GMES services, including through swift implementation of the GMES user forum.
    In addition, the Space Council asked the European Commission and the Director General of ESA to collaborate with the Member States and other relevant actors in Europe to identify how to fill gaps in existing space capabilities.
    More detailed information on this document will be available in the next SWIFT Newsletter.

The full version of the 7th Space Council resolution is available at

PARIS — The most successful Earth observation satellite builder on the global market, Astrium of Europe, is willing to accept that 20 percent of its contracts’ value goes to transferring technology to customer nations and ultimately may undermine future Astrium business, a senior Astrium official said Nov. 24.

Jean Dauphin, head of the Earth observation and science division at Astrium France, said Astrium makes a conscious effort to limit the amount of technology it inadvertently gives to customers. But some contracts, most recently one with the government of Kazakhstan, stipulate that the winning bidder must train local engineers in satellite production and satellite imagery analysis.

For these nations, buying a satellite is a way of jump-starting their space industrial base. This in effect means hiring Astrium to help them reach a point where they no longer will need Astrium.

“This is an issue we do look at closely,” Dauphin said during a Nov. 24 space policy conference here organized by Euroconsult of Paris and the French aerospace industries association, GIFAS. “Up to now, technology transfer has only included a few elements, and we think it’s OK if about 20 percent of the contract is tied to this. We think 20 percent is an acceptable level for Europe.”

Both on its own and through its Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) division, based in Britain, Astrium has sold more Earth observation satellites around the world than anyone else in the past 20 years. The recent order from Kazakhstan is for an AstroSat 500 Mark 2 platform, similar to the one Astrium is selling to the Spanish government for Spain’s Ingenio optical Earth observation program. The platform is also used for Astrium’s Spot 6 and Spot 7 satellites, which are being built for Spot Image, which is owned by Astrium Satellites’ sister company, Astrium Services.

In the past, Astrium, with its occasional partner, imaging sensor builder Thales Alenia Space, and SSTL have faced little U.S. competition as they visited the capitals of Asia, Africa and Latin America displaying their product portfolio.

But Dauphin and Cedric Balty, marketing manager for Thales Alenia Space, said during the conference that this may be changing. Both said they feel the presence of U.S. competitors in more places now than before, speculating that the reason is that the coming drop in U.S. Defense Department spending is forcing big U.S aerospace players to look for new markets.

Astrium and Thales Alenia Space are in the hunt for an Earth observation satellite contract from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which for more than a decade has run an on-again, off-again competition, sometimes in partnership with other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

U.S. industry officials said other competitors for the UAE satellite include a Ball-Raytheon team and Lockheed Martin on its own as a satellite builder.

One alternative to purchasing a satellite for the UAE would be to purchase high-resolution optical imagery from a U.S. or European company. If that is the option selected, Astrium Services could be competing against Telespazio of Rome, GeoEye of Dulles, Va., and DigitalGlobe of Longmont, Colo.

Dauphin and other European officials have said the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s recent 10-year, $7.3 billion contract divided between DigitalGlobe and GeoEye will permit the companies to amortize their capital investment, allowing them to sell high-resolution data to other customers at a marginal cost.

Dauphin urged European governments to get more active in integrating Earth observation satellite sales into top-level political discussions with nations seeking their own satellite capacity.

By Peter B. de Selding
Source

November 2010

On 24 November 2010, the European Space Agency’s Earth Observation Programme Board approved the extension of the GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) mission until the end of 2012.

GOCE has been successfully delivering high quality data sets with unprecedented accuracy since March 2009. The extension of its mission enables an additional 18.5 months of mission operations.

The products based on GOCE satellite data are distinguished into five different themes:

  • Oceanography
  • Solid-Earth
  • Geodesy
  • Glaciology
  • Sea level change studies

GOCE data are available online through ESA’s Earth observation user services tools.

More information is available at:
http://earth.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=5706

Express map delivery from space (2010-11-23)

Meeting the environmental needs of an ever-expanding Europe requires consistent and regularly updated information on its land cover and use

As part of ESA’s GlobCorine project, a pan-European land cover and use map for 2009 is now available online.

more info

Satellites tracking Mt Merapi volcanic ash clouds (2010-11-22)

Since its latest series of deadly eruptions, Java’s Mt Merapi has been spewing volcanic ash clouds into the air. Satellite data are crucial for assessing the eruption’s danger to air traffic and public safety.

Mt Merapi began erupting on 26 October and has killed more than 200 people. Numerous international flights in and out of the Indonesia area have been cancelled due to ash clouds.
Flying through such clouds is a threat to safety because the damaging particles can lead to engine failure. For instance, on 28 October a Thomas Cook Scandinavia Airbus flew through the Merapi cloud en route from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia, with a stop in Batam. Once in Batam, it was discovered that the engines were damaged and had to be replaced. Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres (VAACs) are responsible for gathering ash cloud information and assessing the risks to aviation. Australia’s Darwin VAAC is using satellite data of the plume to issue its forecasts.

Click here for more info

GlobSnow Newsletters (2010-11-15)

The European Space Agency (ESA) Data User Element (DUE) funded GlobSnow project aims at creating a global database of snow parameters for climate research purposes. The main objective is to create a long term dataset on two essential snow parameters.

The latest release of the GlobSnow Newsletter is published on the GlobSnow internal website.

Click here to access it

According to the agenda of the Hungarian Presidency, the EU has to maintain its leading role in the global fight against climate change.

Thus, the Presidency finds necessary to give a response at Union level to changing climate conditions and extreme water-related events.

Following the conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol held in December 2010, the Hungarian Presidency is committed to ensuring the implementation of the Cancún decisions within the EU and to discussing further steps needed. It will also start EU preparations for the South Africa climate summit in November/ December 2011, the objective of which is to set up a new global, comprehensive and legally binding framework on climate change, following the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

The Presidency will also advance tasks derived from the implementation of the EU’s Climate and Energy Package adopted in 2008 and in the Europe 2020 Strategy.

More information is available at

Source GMES.Info

On 12 January 2011, European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani (Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship) published an article dedicated to the GMES programme on the Europa portal.

The Commissioner points out at recent examples of GMES in action including an earthquake in Haiti, forest fires in the Mediterranean and devastating flooding in Central Europe. He highlights the fact that the GMES initiative was activated for each of these situations in order to assist relief efforts on the ground.

Furthermore, while emphasizing its various advantages, Mr Tajani explains that GMES does not replace existing European capacities, but rather complements them with a view to fulfilling user needs and guaranteeing sustainability and European autonomy in the long term.

The whole article is available at

Source GMES.Info

The University of Leicester in the UK is leading a team of experts who will launch a research centre that will train a new breed of hi-tech environmental researchers to use the latest satellite technologies and tackle pressing issues arising from climate change.

This Centre of Excellence is supported by the GIONET (‘Initial operations network for Earth observation research training’) project, which is backed with EUR 3.5 million under the Marie Curie Action – Networks for Initial Training of the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

Reliable, thorough and up-to-date environmental information is essential for understanding climate change, the impact it has on people’s lives and ways to handle it. GIONET’s European Centre of Excellence in Earth Observation Research Training will develop better methods for monitoring climate change, environmental disasters and land cover change. It will also lead to the development of new methods for research and for addressing disaster relief following landslides and floods as well as for climate change monitoring, protection of tropical rainforests, lake water quality measuring and coastal erosion.

GIONET is expected to satisfy the demand for more researchers and provide skilled personnel for the EU-supported observation programme Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) land monitoring and emergency services.

Heiko Balzter, head of the university’s Department of Geography and coordinator of the project, said: ‘GIONET is training 14 young researchers in satellite remote sensing over the next 4 years. These young scientists will become the research leaders of tomorrow. They will be placed in industry and universities and experience working abroad, as well as getting the best technical training and scientific education.’

Every student is expected to work on a research project and ‘make a practical impact on our ability to monitor the planet from satellite’, according to Professor Balzter, who added that ‘each full GIONET partner organisation is looking to recruit the brightest research students out there, who can really make a big impact on our future satellite monitoring capability’.

A research topic under the GIONET spotlight is the monitoring of the Congo rainforest. The GIONET partners say this vast region of rainforest has experienced less rainfall in the last 10 years, making shipping in large rivers such as the Ubangi difficult. GIONET will look at whether this drying trend is a long-term effect of climate change. The forest is also under threat from logging, according to them.

Researchers have seen fires burning in the Congo when looking at satellite images of heat emissions. However, the tree canopy appears still to be intact after the fire and researchers are investigating the reason for this. They have already learnt from talking to people on the ground that locals are moving into the rainforest to produce charcoal. They cut down a small number of trees, turn them into charcoal and sell it back in their villages. Charcoal is still the main source of heat for cooking, lighting and keeping warm at night across Africa.

The scientists will now study radar images from a Japanese satellite to get the full picture of what is happening in the Congo. Radar can see through clouds, making it ideal to study the Congo, which is very cloudy. They hope to discover exactly how much of the Congo rainforest is still intact and how it can be preserved.

Experts from Germany, Hungary, Poland, Switzerland and the UK are making solid contributions to this study.

For more information, please visit:

University of Leicester

Global Monitoring for Environment and Security

GIONET project factsheet on CORDIS, click

Category: Projects
Data Source Provider: University of Leicester; GIONET
Document Reference: Based on information from the University of Leicester and GIONET
Subject Index: Sustainable development ; Coordination, Cooperation; Scientific Research; Environmental Protection; Space & satellite research; Climate change & Carbon cycle research
RCN: 32956

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