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Project ready to Kick Off!!! Updates will follow in future editions.


eoVox2 will be organising a consultations that you might be interested to look at and participate. For more information please do not hesitate to contact secretariat-at-earsc.org

EARSC has been in discussions with ESA over the last several months to gain ESA’s support for a number of new EARSC activities in this direction, and we are close to agreeing a set of activities.

These will include:

*Producing position papers on various topics of relevance to our industry, engaging experts from different market sectors to tell us what the geo-information needs are in that sector, and what we need to do in order to better promote our capabilities and services towards those sectors.

*Related to the above, producing promotional materials publicising EO services and the capabilities of European EO service providers, targeted at and customised for specific new market sectors.

*Producing a trade directory for our industry – to provide details of companies active in EO value-adding services across Europe, with details on the services each company is able to provide, organised by thematic domain, geographical coverage, and location so as to be easily searchable by potential customers.

*Organising trade missions open to all EARSC members to participate in. These will provide a significant opportunity for EARSC members to present their capabilities to new customers, and also to network and establish contact with key individuals and stakeholders in those sectors. One of these trade missions is likely to be to the World Bank in Washington, with a second still to be decided.

In support of these activities, we warmly encourage all EARSC members to come up with fresh ideas and input for EARSC to take forward. The EARSC secretariat will keep you informed of ways to get engaged in the process. Your active participation will add value to the association and bring greater benefit to all of our members and the industry as a whole

Following a Membership Campaign, the EARSC Board is glad to welcome 2 new Companies in our Association: Aratos Technologies S.A. and DMC International Imaging

On EARSC behalf, we are certain that new Members will contribute actively to the aims of EARSC enthusiastically involved in coordinating and strengthening the Earth-observation chain and promoting the European Earth observation industry in programmes such as GMES and GEOSS.

Up to now, EARSC has grown 50% in 2005, which encourage us in the Board of Directors to continue to do our best to fulfill the tasks that you as members could expect of the association. On EARSC behalf, Welcome!

More information about new members at:

Aratos Technologies S.A.

Aratos Technologies S.A. was founded in 1995 and is one of the first European downstream value-added services company in the space sector. We carry out value added services in the areas of Environmental Protection, Land Use and Urban Planning, Disaster Management, Agricultural sector monitoring and Security using space and satellite technologies. The scientific resources, the experience of our experts and the know-how of the company satisfy all customer needs, ensuring excellent quality of service. Aratos Technologies S.A. is certified with ISO 9001:2000.

More info at ARATOS website

DMC International Imaging

DMCii is a UK company specialising in satellite remote sensing, and in the unique position of coordinating a constellation of international satellites for commercial imaging campaigns and international disaster response, DMCii works with a range of end-users in Europe and GMES. DMCii supplies commercial imaging services with programmed multispectral imagery at 22 and 32metres gsd from the DMC wide-swath imagers on the 6 satellites in the DMC constellation, and very high resolution panchromatic data of 2.8 and 4metres gsd from the Topsat and Beijing-1 satellites. DMCii specialises in the rapid and timely supply of satellite imagery for precision agriculture services, and in the provision of value-added forest monitoring services, especially in difficult tropical rainforest regions. It has imaged the Brazilian Amazon since 2005, and is currently working across Africa and Indonesia.

More info at DMCii

Researchers studying carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas and a key driver of global climate change, now have a new tool at their disposal: daily global measurements of carbon dioxide in a key part of our atmosphere. The data are courtesy of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft.

Moustafa Chahine, the instrument’s science team leader at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., unveiled the new product at a briefing on recent breakthroughs in greenhouse gas, weather and climate research from AIRS at this week’s American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. The new data, which span the seven-plus years of the AIRS mission, measure the concentration and distribution of carbon dioxide in the mid-troposphere—the region of Earth’s atmosphere that is located between 5 to 12 kilometers, or 3 to 7 miles, above Earth’s surface. They also track its global transport. The product represents the first-ever release of global carbon dioxide data that are based solely on observations. The data have been extensively validated against both aircraft and ground-based observations.

AIRS provides the highest accuracy and yield of any global carbon dioxide data set available to the research community, now and for the immediate future,” said Chahine. “It will help researchers understand how this elusive, long-lived greenhouse gas is distributed and transported, and can be used to develop better models to identify ‘sinks,’ regions of the Earth system that store carbon dioxide. It’s important to study carbon dioxide in all levels of the troposphere.”

Chahine said previous AIRS research data have led to some key findings about mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide. For example, the data have shown that, contrary to prior assumptions, carbon dioxide is not well mixed in the troposphere, but is rather “lumpy.” Until now, models of carbon dioxide transport have assumed its distribution was uniform.

Carbon dioxide is transported in the mid-troposphere from its sources to its eventual sinks. More carbon dioxide is emitted in the heavily populated northern hemisphere than in its less populated southern counterpart. As a result, the southern hemisphere is a net recipient, or sink, for carbon dioxide from the north. AIRS data have previously shown the complexity of the southern hemisphere’s carbon dioxide cycle, revealing a never-before-seen belt of carbon dioxide that circles the globe and is not reflected in transport models.

In another major finding, scientists using AIRS data have removed most of the uncertainty about the role of water vapor in atmospheric models. The data are the strongest observational evidence to date for how water vapor responds to a warming climate.

AIRS temperature and water vapor observations have corroborated climate model predictions that the warming of our climate produced as carbon dioxide levels rise will be greatly exacerbated — in fact, more than doubled — by water vapor,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas.

Dessler explained that most of the warming caused by carbon dioxide does not come directly from carbon dioxide, but from effects known as feedbacks. Water vapor is a particularly important feedback. As the climate warms, the atmosphere becomes more humid. Since water is a greenhouse gas, it serves as a powerful positive feedback to the climate system, amplifying the initial warming. AIRS measurements of water vapor reveal that water greatly amplifies warming caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide. Comparisons of AIRS data with models and re-analyses are in excellent agreement.

“The implication of these studies is that, should greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current course of increase, we are virtually certain to see Earth’s climate warm by several degrees Celsius in the next century, unless some strong negative feedback mechanism emerges elsewhere in Earth’s climate system,” Dessler said.

Originally designed to observe atmospheric temperature and water vapor, AIRS data are already responsible for the greatest improvement to five to six-day weather forecasts than any other single instrument, said Chahine. JPL scientists have shown a major consequence of global warming will be an increase in the frequency and strength of severe storms. Earlier this year, a team of NASA researchers showed how AIRS can significantly improve tropical cyclone forecasting. The researchers studied deadly Typhoon Nargis in Burma (Myanmar) in May 2008. They found the uncertainty in the cyclone’s landfall position could have been reduced by a factor of six had more sophisticated AIRS temperature data been used in the forecasts.

AIRS observes and records the global daily distribution of temperature, water vapor, clouds and several atmospheric gases including ozone, methane and carbon monoxide. With the addition of the mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide data set this week, a seven-year digital record is now complete for use by the scientific community and the public.

For more information click here

Source: JPL and eoportal

After nearly 5 years of concurrent operations with the Afternoon Constellation, known as the “A-Train,” the PARASOL satellite is going on another orbit “track.” The A-Train includes a number of NASA satellites that orbit the Earth one behind the other on the same track and until this month, PARASOL has been part of that train.

PARASOL is an Earth observation mission, managed by the French Space Agency (CNES). PARASOL stands for “Polarization and Anisotropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Sciences coupled with Observations from a Lidar.” According to CNES, it was maneuvered to leave its position inside the A-Train at 12:48 UTC, December 2, 2009.

The A-Train satellite formation currently consists of five satellites flying in close proximity: Aqua, CloudSat, CALIPSO, PARASOL and Aura. Each of these satellites cross the equator within a few minutes of each another at around 1:30 p.m. local time. By combining the different sets of nearly simultaneous observations, scientists are able to gain a better understanding its main mission, studying the important parameters related to climate change. As an additional benefit, the A-Train satellites provide unique information about tropical cyclones, the collective term for tropical depressions, tropical storms, hurricanes and typhoons.

The PARASOL satellite has now reached an orbit of 3.9 kilometers (2.4 miles) under the A-train, which will enable it to keep on sharing data periodically with the A-train members, while gradually leaving the A-Train neighborhood. Based on a typical decay of its orbit, it is expected to be completely out of the A-train neighborhood at the end of 2012. The CNES team will continue to coordinate operations with the A-Train Mission Operations Working Group to ensure safety.

PARASOL’s measurement of aerosols is based on polarization, so is unique within the existing A-Train. Its departure leaves a data gap that will be filled when Glory (also a polarization spectrometer) launches in 2010. Cross-calibration between Glory and PARASOL, to merge the 2 datasets into a single long-term trending dataset, will take longer with PARASOL in a different orbit.

Steven Platnick, Acting Earth Observing System Project Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. said, “With its novel combination of polarimetry and multiangle capabilities, PARASOL continues to provide a unique and important perspective on cloud and aerosol properties. More important, as a strong complement to other A-Train instruments, POLDER has contributed to an unprecedented data set that will be studied for years to come.”

CNES launched PARASOL into the A-Train orbit in December 2004. For the past five years, PARASOL, originally designed to be a 2-year mission, flew within ~30 seconds of the CALIPSO and CloudSat satellites.

For more information click here

Source: NASA
and eoportal

News on … Operational GMES Data Supply from the DMC Satellites, CEOS Calibration & Validation Task Force led by DMCii


Operational GMES Data Supply from the DMC Satellites

The GMES programme of the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA) has stepped up a gear, and is now providing access to imagery for projects from a variety of ESA’s Third Party Missions including the DMC. Following a consultation process with projects across Europe and associates around the globe, DMC imagery has been selected for a variety of datasets. The datasets will be used for monitoring many different environmental and man-made phenomena including land cover, floods, forest fires, disaster events, desertification and deforestation.

DMCii is acquiring up-to-date high resolution imagery of the majority of the land area of Africa for GMES. Imagery is being acquired over a period of only 12 months, with low cloud cover. Previous attempts to perform such an ambitious data collection have failed, with useable datasets spanning over three years or more. The cloud cover in tropical areas renders conventional optical satellite systems ineffective and requires the rapid revisit of a constellation to achieve regular annual rather than decadal datasets. This coverage will provide a much needed snapshot of the land cover conditions of Africa, and will reveal important information about our climate and environment.

DMCii is interfacing its systems with ESA to allow for quicker and more efficient imagery ordering and delivery, and to provide advanced cataloguing facilities for the benefit of all European users. The GMES initiative has important benefits for all Earth Observation data users and will put into place services moving towards self-sustainability. Data will be made available to the ESA to licensed users and can also be purchased from DMCii. The North African countries will also be imaged to complete the dataset in the DMCii catalogue Image: 1 DMC coverage of sub-Saharan Africa since Oct 2009

CEOS Calibration & Validation Task Force led by DMCii

Dr Steve Mackin, DMCii Chief Scientist, leads the CEOS Task Force for calibration of satellite imagery.

The annual Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) working group meeting for Calibration and Validation (WGCV) appointed Dr. Mackin to run a small task force (including members from India, China and the United States) to help explore elements of how to endorse quality assurance and quality control to meet the guidelines given within the Quality Assurance for Earth observation (QA4EO) framework. The ultimate aim being to provide quantitative quality estimators on every earth observation product.

DMCii manages the quality of DMC data across the constellation through a regular calibration programme and a campaign of continuous improvement.

The latest data review analyzed large numbers of DMC images from:
•Annual vicarious calibration campaigns over instrumented test sites in RailRoad Valley, Arizona and Tuz Golu, Turkey.
•Winter relative and cross calibration campaigns over Antarctic DOME C site.
•Monthly acquisitions over CEOS endorsed stable sites (Libya, La Crau) for calibration trending
The results of the review of DMC data show that:
•Radiometric procedure achieves less than 5% uncertainty in absolute radiometry.
•Cross calibration between DMC satellites delivers <1% uncertainty between the different satellite systems for all spectral bands.
•Relative band-to-band ratios very stable over three years (< 0.34% r.m.s error) for the UK-DMC-1 satellite.
•Noise Equivalent Radiance (NER) approaches Landsat.
•Orthorectified 32-metre data achieves 10-25 metres r.m.s. error with respect to reference data.

DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii)

DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii) is a UK company which supplies satellite imagery products and services to a wide range of international customers. DMCii supplies both programmed and archived optical satellite imagery from the multi-satellite Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC).
DMCii provides imaging and mapping services to meet specific customer and application needs. DMC images are used in a wide variety of commercial and government applications, including agriculture, forestry and environmental mapping. DMC imagery is used by organisations such as the European Commission, Brazilian Space Agency, United Nations and the US Geological Survey, as well as private precision-agriculture and other applied remote sensing organisations.

The small satellites of the DMC provide daily revisit capability combined with an unmatched 660km imaging swath width for frequent broad area coverage. Multispectral image products offer a resolution of 32-metres GSD and 22-metre GSD.
Panchromatic image products feature a very high-resolution 4-metre pixel GSD, from Beijing-1. All DMC images are calibrated and processed to a variety of product levels according to customer requirements.

DMCii provides imagery from the two satellites it owns and operates, UK-DMC (32metre gsd) and UK-DMC2 (22metre gsd) and also coordinates the commercial activity of the DMC satellite constellation. The DMC satellites are independently owned and operated by a cooperating consortium of organisations representing member nations:
• Centre National des Techniques Spatiales, Algeria
• Beijing Landview Mapping Information Technology Ltd, China
• National Space Research and Development Agency, Nigeria
• Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, United Kingdom
• Deimos Imaging S.L., Spain

The DMC Consortium members work together through DMCii for commercial sales and for collaborative Earth observation campaigns.
_Contact DMC International Imaging Ltd. by email at info@dmcii.com or Tel +44 1483 804299
See our web site www.dmcii.com to access the DMCii catalogue and price lists._

As chairman of EARSC I like to welcome you to the first edition of our earth observation magazine EOmag of 2010 but overall I like to wish you –also on behalf of all directors of EARSC- a very good business year 2010.

Dear EOMag readers,

In this edition of our magazine we will update you on the executed and planned activities of our Association. In the current edition you will find an interesting interview on GMES initial operations with Mr Francisco Gaztelu, Deputy Head of Cabinet of Vice-President Verheugen Enterprise and Industry at European Commission. At the members profile we have invited our member Spacemetric, Sweden to present their organization to our stakeholders.

2010 EARSC goal is to further help our members to expand and develop business outside the ‘traditional” governmental sector. In several market studies important export markets have been identified for the earth observation industry in and outside Europe. Therefore, EARSC would like to invite members to give their opinion on whether EARSC should organize a seminar on exports markets and if so what should be covered in this seminar. Please send your reaction to our secretariat-at-earsc.org. Your valuable contribution is highly appreciated.

During 2009 we have informed you that EARSC will undertake an ESA study under the banner of eoVox2 with a view to carry key actions that were required in order to help foster the growth and development of the EO VA industry in Europe and Canada. Since this announcement EARSC directors have been quite active in getting the contract signed. I am pleased to announce that specific actions will start in 2010 to help our industry. More information on eoVox2 as well as on the status of the new secretary general will be prepared in dedicated website news.

In June 2009 EARSC had organized a very successful workshop on the oil and gas sector in Brussels. I am also very pleased to announce that EARSC is currently active involved in organizing a follow up workshop with the oil and gas industry and ESA for Autumn 2010. The main goal of this workshop is to bring the earth observation industry and the oil and gas industry together and identify business opportunities. More information on this workshop will soon be provided on our Website.

Finally, I like to inform our Members that our next Annual General Meeting is planned for 22 June 2010 in Brussels and we like to invite you to schedule this event in your agenda.
With my best wishes to you all and to our association!

With my best wishes to you all and to our association!

Han Wensink
EARSC Chairman

Please share with us any suggestions you may have for improving the usefulness of this bulletin.

Eomag!_Editorial, Issue 20_Winter 2009-2010.pdf

In what might seem rather appropriate weather conditions, the CryoSat-2 Earth Explorer satellite has completed its journey to the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan, where it will be prepared for launch on 25 February.

The satellite and support equipment left the ‘IABG’ test centre in Ottobrunn, Germany, by lorry on 12 January. The CryoSat mission is dedicated to precise monitoring of the changes in the thickness of marine ice floating in the polar oceans and variations in the thickness of the vast ice sheets that overlay Greenland and Antarctica. With much of Europe still in the grip of one of the coldest winters for some years, the icy conditions aptly set the stage for this first leg of CryoSat-2’s journey.

After arriving at Munich airport, the containers were loaded onto an Antonov aircraft. Along with team members from ESA and their industrial partner for CryoSat-2, EADS-Astrium, the Antonov took off in the early evening bound for Ulyanovsk, a city some 900 km east of Moscow, Russia. Once through customs clearance at Ulyanovsk, the aircraft continued the journey to the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The weather was –12°C and fine on arrival. Safely cocooned in its thermally controlled container, CryoSat-2 and accompanying cargo were offloaded and moved to the integration facility. The launch campaign team will now spend the next six weeks preparing the satellite for launch. CryoSat-2 will be launched by a Dnepr rocket – a converted intercontinental ballistic missile – on 25 February at 14:57 CET (13:57 UT).

With the effects of a changing climate fast becoming apparent, particularly in the polar regions, it is increasingly important to understand exactly how Earth’s ice fields are responding. Diminishing ice cover is frequently cited as an early casualty of global warming and because ice, in turn, plays an important role regulating climate and sea level, the consequences of change are far-reaching.

In order to understand fully how climate change is affecting these remote but sensitive regions, there remains an urgent need to determine exactly how the thickness of the ice, both on land and floating in the sea, is changing. By addressing this challenge, the data delivered by the CryoSat mission will complete the picture and lead to a better understanding of the role ice plays in the Earth system.

Following on from GOCE and SMOS, CryoSat-2 will be the third of ESA’s Earth Explorers launched within 12 months, marking a significant step in ESA’s dedication to improving our understanding of the Earth system.

“Source ESA”: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM1UZLJ74G_index_0.html

News from ITT VIS

ENVI EX:Enhance Your GIS with Imagery

To add information from imagery to your GIS, you need more than just image analysis software. You need a software solution that integrates with your existing software tools.

ENVI EX is the image analysis software for GIS users. It’s designed specifically with your needs in mind and is seamlessly integrated with ArcGIS, the software tool you already use and trust.

A tight integration with ArcGIS means you can:

  • Easily drag and drop data and layer files from ArcGIS to ENVI EX

*GeoLink to ArcMap to synchronize the geolocation of the display in both products
*Work with ArcGIS layers in ENVI EX and maintain the same symbology, styling, and rendering

Source ITT

With the world becoming ever more interconnected and interdependent, governments are exploring new ways of collaborating with one another on common goals. (reprinted at earthzine website December09 from MEA Bulletin September08)

The Group on Earth Observation is co-chaired by China, the European Commission (EC), South Africa and the United States. They are represented by Dr. Zheng Guoguang, Administrator of the China Meteorological Administration; Ms Manuela Soares, Environment Director in the EC’s Research Directorate General; Dr. Phil Mjwara, Director General of the Department of Science and Technology, South Africa; and Ms Sherburne Abbott, Associate Director for Environment, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Ms. Abbott was chair of the Washington meeting.

The 2009-2011 GEO Work plan
• Users were given access to the world’s largest collection of land surface imagery – including Global Landsat data – via the Land Surface Imaging portal;
• A new digital topographical map of the Earth was made publicly available to respond to the critical need for a comprehensive, highly accurate, fully consistent, and freely available global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM);
• The principle of “universal access” to the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters was endorsed by space agencies. In 2008, 45 GEO Member countries still did not have Authorized User status to the Charter;
• World seismic information strongly progressed towards free availability at minimum time delay. Access to the complete Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data holdings was granted through the Supersite website. Over 170 geological datasets were made available by 40 nations through the OneGeology Portal;
• Major global reanalysis datasets were released by national and international numerical weather and climate centers in Europe, Japan and the USA;
• Satellite data records were expanded through the launch of the Japanese Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite “IBUKI” (GOSAT) satellite and the development of a new Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) virtual constellation to provide ocean biology and bio-geochemistry products;
• Near-real time and archived measurements of remotely-sensed ocean-color products and seasurface temperature (SST) were made available for South America, Africa and the Indian Ocean through the ChloroGIN portal;
• Numerous global runoff data sets and products were made available through the newly-reworked Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) website – including time series of daily and/or monthly river discharge data of more than 7,300 stations from 156 countries over a period of around 38 years;
• Long-record (quasi-)global precipitation climatology datasets were made available by the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC), the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), and the TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA);
TIGGE – a global database of ensemble weather forecasts originating from 10 major numerical centers (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Japan, Korea, UK, USA and ECMWF) – was made a free resource for high-impact weather research in early warning and societal applications”

At the global level, they are pursuing the renewal and restructuring of the 60-year-old United Nations system. In the field of environmental governance, for example, diplomats are debating whether to maintain the current sprawl of stand-alone treaties and specialized bodies or to fold them all into a comprehensive World Environment Organization.

At the regional level, from the European Union to the African Union to ASEAN, neighboring countries are continually reviewing their governance structures in an effort to better address changing conditions.

Meanwhile, as fresh issues and opportunities for cooperation arise, governments often face proposals for new institutions to manage them. Concern over the large number of existing organizations and mandates, however, has convinced many governments to “go slow” on creating new institutions.

Strengthening Earth Observations

One global issue that has recently gained traction is the need for better information about environmental change. Improved Earth observations are essential for tackling global warming, biodiversity loss, resource depletion and other barriers to sustainable development.

Fortunately, new technologies and increased investments in both satellite and in-situ monitoring systems are generating vast quantities of high-quality data and analyses about the Earth system. Joining these national assets together to form an interconnected “system of systems” would enable governments to pool their data and resources, coordinate investments and fill information gaps.

Recognizing this, governments and international organizations have joined forces to proactively build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS. By making diverse monitoring instruments and analytical tools “interoperable,” GEOSS will give decisions-makers greater access to cross-cutting environmental information and decision-support tools.

Collaborating on GEOSS is attractive to the scientific community because the Earth itself is a system of systems. Modelers increasingly seek to “couple” systems to see how, for example, the atmosphere and the oceans interact with one another. Because GEOSS cuts across disciplines, information on climate and water, or on biodiversity and agriculture, can be integrated for a more comprehensive understanding of the complex changes occurring in the global environment.

Collaborating on GEOSS is also attractive to governments. Simply stated, no single government can afford on its own to build and maintain an Earth observation system as comprehensive and ambitious as GEOSS. Collaborating with other governments reduces costs, advances scientific understanding and makes it easier to solve the very real problems that all governments face: a win-win-win proposition.

Forming a Group

The benefits of collaborating on GEOSS are clear, but what form should this collaboration take? The answer hit upon in 2005 was to rely on an extremely flexible form of governance embodied by the Group on Earth Observations, or GEO.

As suggested by the informal moniker “Group,” GEO has a limited legal identity based on a multilaterally agreed 10-Year Implementation Plan. While GEO has established a small secretariat to facilitate collaboration, its financial and contractual commitments are managed through one of GEO’s Participating Organizations (the World Meteorological Organization). Contributions to the secretariat’s budget are strictly voluntary. The staff consists largely of experts seconded from governments and organizations for two or three years. Overhead is reduced by working in English only and limiting the amount of documentation for meetings.

GEO is an intergovernmental body, but its 80 [75 in 2008 ] Members (consisting of national governments and the EC) are joined by 57 [51 in 2008] Participating Organizations. Although the conclusion of the 10-Year Plan in 2015 does not constitute a sunset clause, it does make it easier to phase out the Group should governments decide that it has completed its mission.

Collaboration on networking the world’s Earth observation systems takes place through specific “Tasks.” Tasks are informal arrangements led and implemented by all governments and organizations willing to participate.

Governments and organizations also “contribute” their national systems, instruments, services and tools – known as “components” – to GEOSS.

This flexible and completely voluntary approach is working: a Ministerial Summit held in Cape Town last November [2007] “note[d] with satisfaction the numerous contributions and early achievements made by Members and Participating Organizations towards the 10-Year GEOSS Implementation Plan …”

Free Riders And Competition

How widely applicable is the GEO model? For many issues, such a voluntary collaboration clearly would not work. In particular, organizations and treaties that confront the problems of free riders and non-compliance may require binding commitments. In the area of sustainable development and environmental change, this is particularly true when it comes to protecting the global commons.

For example, it is unlikely that global releases of CFCs would have been brought under control if the Montreal Protocol had been conceived as a voluntary agreement; some governments may have been tempted to reap the rewards of ozone protection without paying the costs of switching over to ozone-safe chemicals. Or take the public-health example of containing infectious diseases such as influenza; unless all countries firmly commit to collaborating, the disease could find a foothold in an uncooperative country before spreading around the world. The purely voluntary approach of GEO may not work for such issues.

But many governments are clearly pleased to contribute their Earth observation resources to a common effort that supports the global public good. The wealthy nations of the G8, in particular, have repeatedly highlighted the importance of GEOSS in their annual declarations, most recently at their 2008 Summit in Hokkaido, Japan. Emerging economic powers such as Brazil, China, the Republic of Korea and South Africa have also become firm supporters. While potential competition over security issues or commerce cannot be completely ignored, the spirit of voluntary collaboration remains strong. Meanwhile, countries that do not join GEO can still reap many of the benefits, and their preference to free ride on GEOSS does not generate unacceptable costs or disincentives for GEO’s active Members.

GEO, then, is a governance structure that is well suited to its time and purpose. It demonstrates that a light touch and minimal formality may be all that governments need to collaborate on certain ambitious endeavors. As the world community itself moves increasingly towards “interoperability,” it is a model well worth considering.

By Michael Williams, posted on December 14th, 2009 “Earthzine“http://www.earthzine.org/2009/12/14/geo-an-experiment-in-governance/
MEA Bulletin – Guest Article No. 53 –Thursday, 11 September 2008. Reprinted with permission at earthzine

Provisional agendas for Council meetings prepared by Coreper I during the SP presidency

Note, hereunder, some issues which might be relevant for the space sector.

1-2 March: Competitiveness Council (p.9)
· Internal market/Industry – Industrial policy
§ Adoption of Council conclusions
§ Exchange of views

· Research – Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Earth Observation Programme (GMES) and its initial operations (2011-2013)
§ Progress report / (poss.) General approach

- Commission Communication on the EU 2020 Strategy (as regards research and innovation)
§ Presentation by the Commission
§ Exchange of views

- Results of the Copenhagen Conference. Implications for European industry
§ Information from the Commission

- High-Level Event on Information and Communication Technologies for Energy Efficiency (ICT4EE): towards a sustainable society (Brussels, 23 and 24 February 2010)
§ Information from the Presidency

15 March: Environment Council (p. 30)

- Climate change
§ (poss.) Adoption of Council conclusions/ Exchange of views

25-26 May: Competitiveness Council (p.12)

· Internal market/Industry – European Innovation Plan
§ Presentation by the Commission / Exchange of views / Adoption of Council conclusions

· Research – Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Earth Observation Programme (GMES) and its initial operations(2011-2013)
§ General approach / (poss.) Political agreement

- European Innovation Plan
§ Presentation by the Commission / Exchange of views / Adoption of Council conclusions

- Commission Communication on simplifying participation in Research Framework Programmes
§ Adoption of Council conclusions

- Future development of the ERA:
§ a) Progress with joint programming of research
§ b) Research infrastructures of pan-European interest
§ c) Synergies between cohesion funds for research and innovation and Framework Programmes for Research and for Competitiveness and Innovation
§ d) Public-Private Partnerships for research and innovation
§ e) European Institute of Innovation and Technology: the first Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs)
· Adoption of Council conclusions

31 May: Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council (p. 18)

· Telecommunications and Information society – Communication from the Commission on the European broadband strategy: next generation networks
§ Presentation by the Commission / Exchange of views / Adoption of Council conclusions

21 June: Environment Council (p. 32)

- Climate change
§ (poss.) Adoption of Council conclusions/ Exchange of views

- Challenges for a good environmental status of the marine environment
§ Presentation by the Presidency / Exchange of views

24 June: Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council (p. 21)

· Transport – (poss.) Galileo: Proposal for a Regulation on Public Regulated Services
§ Presentation by the Commission / Policy debate

- Communication on the mid-term review of the Galileo programme
§ Presentation by the Commission

provisional agenda.pdf

(Source Eurospace)