Skip to content

Website ec.europa.eu/kopernikus


Overview

What is Kopernikus ?

Kopernikus is a European initiative, formerly called Global Monitoring for the Environment and Security (GMES), which uses satellites and other sensors on the ground, floating in the water or flying through the air to monitor our natural environment as well as keeping an eye on the security of every citizen.

The information provided by Kopernikus will help us understand better how and in what way our planet may be changing, why this is happening, and how this might influence our daily lives. In this way, Kopernikus will improve people’s safety in many ways, such as by providing early warnings on natural disasters such as forest fires or floods, thus helping prevent the loss of lives and large-scale damage to property.

Kopernikus also presents a clear potential for commercial applications in many different sectors by providing earth observation data for free to anybody who might have a use for them. Kopernikus will help us improve the management of our natural resources, monitor the quality of our waters and air, plan our cities and prevent urban sprawl, ease the flow of transportation, optimise our agricultural activities, promote renewable energy, etc. Clearly, Kopernikus has the potential to significantly improve the living conditions of our generation and the generation of our children.

Besides affecting our daily lives, Kopernikus will provide vital information to decision-makers and business operators that rely on strategic information with regard to environmental, e.g. climate change and adaptation, or security issues.

The infrastructures needed to collect the observations based on which Kopernikus services are produced are owned and operated either by international, European or national entities with their respective political and/or financial responsibilities. Kopernikus aims to coordinate all levels of these infrastructures relevant for delivery of such information at European level.

Kopernikus is an initiative driven by the needs of its users, and the information it provides is a public good. An indirect return of investment can be expected through the creation of a large downstream service market, which will grow and flourish provided that a long-term commitment to the Kopernikus programme is secured

Who was Kopernikus ?

Nikolaus Kopernikus was a famous astronomer born in the Hanseatic city of Thorn in the Kingdom of Poland (today Toruń), who greatly advanced the scientific understanding of his time by postulating that Earth revolves around the sun. “His works and the current initiative therefore have a fundamental thing in common: improving the knowledge about our planet,” says Vice-President Verheugen. “Kopernikus also was a true European: his family was partly German, partly Polish. He wrote in Latin and German and studied, lived and worked in several different countries in Europe.”

He observed the space from the Earth when articulating his heliocentric theory and laying down grounds of the modern cosmology. Today the initiative carrying his name uses satellites which observe the Earth from the space. We wish to honour the great European with our ambitious initiative.

What is the difference between Galileo and Kopernikus ?

Galileo and Kopernikus are complementary systems making use of satellite technologies. Both systems have their strategic value as each of them has its own mission, which do not overlap.

Galileo is essentially a ‘navigation’ system providing a permanent and more accurate than ever positioning and timing services worldwide. Kopernikus is an ‘Earth observation’ system providing information on the state of our environment and improving the security of our citizens.

There are other Earth-observation systems. What is the added value of Kopernikus ?

Earth-observation based services already exist in Europe, but they are dispersed at national or regional level, they are mostly not coordinated between each other and, except for weather services, they cannot guarantee the long-term service availability and sustainability that Kopernikus will provide. Further, in order to respond to ever growing challenges of global safety and to develop strategic policy options e.g. for climate change, Europe needs a well-coordinated, fully reliable Earth observation system of its own. Kopernikus is that system.

What is at stake with Kopernikus ?

Initially developed as a scientific project ten years ago, Kopernikus needs to evolve into a fully mature operational stage. This evolution has three requirements: a specific and sustainable operational funding programme, a robust governance structure and relevant data policies and legislation. Preventing the development of Kopernikus would undoubtedly cause a substantial opportunity cost for Europe, both in terms of money waste and loss of worldwide influence in such a strategic area.

Kopernikus Services

The Kopernikus initiative comprises a group of vertical services aimed at monitoring Earth sub-systems (land, ocean, and atmosphere) and horizontal services addressing emergency and security issues. See the general presentation of the available services or access by clicking the links below.

For an overview of Kopernikus services click here

For direct access to the services click on the links below
Land Monitoring Core Service
Marine Core Service
Atmosphere Core Service
Emergency Response Core Service
Security Service
More info on Kopernikus services

Observational Infrastructure

The Kopernikus initiative federates a wide range of observational networks and data providers, exploiting the most recent observation techniques and technologies, for developing edge-cutting information products to end-users. In principle, the Kopernikus observational infrastructure composes of two main components.

Space infrastructure
The space component shall ensure sustainable provision of satellite derived Earth observation data to all Kopernikus services. The architecture of the component is derived from service requirements provided by the user communities. ESA and EUMETSAT are two main European actors in this area who should play the major role in co-ordination, implementation and operational running of the infrastructure.

European Space Agency
EUMETSAT

In-situ infrastructure
The in situ component is based on an observation infrastructure owned and operated by the large number of stakeholders coordinated, in some cases, in the frame of European or international networks. In situ observation activities and associated infrastructure derive from a range of national, EU and international regulatory requirements and agreements or form part of research processes. None was created to meet the needs of Kopernikus, and they cover a much wider field than the Kopernikus services. By this reason European Environmental Agency was appointed to co-ordinate the consolidation of in-situ networks for Kopernikus purposes.

European Environmental Agency

Key Documents

-COM 565 Final – Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: GMES: From concept to reality PDF
-COM 65 Final – Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council: Establishing a GMES capacity by 2008 – (Action plan 2004-2008) PDF
-COM 609 Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: Outline GMES EC Action Plan (Initial period: 2001-2003) PDF
-DIRECTIVE 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007, establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) PDF
-COM 46 Final – Communication from the Commission: Towards a Shared Environmental Information System PDF

More reference documents to be found here

Funding opportunities

* FP7 call for proposals
* Regions for economic change

Space Research

In focus:
* Second FP7 Space Call
* Critical technologies

Research

Space Policy

Europe needs an effective space policy that will allow the EU to take global leadership in selected strategic policy areas. Space can provide the tools to address many of the global challenges that face 21st century society: challenges that Europe must take a leading role in addressing.

The adoption of the European Space Policy communication and its endorsement by the joint European Space Council in the Spring of 2007 gives Europe its first agreed space policy.

More info

SOURCE EC.EUROPA.EU/KOPERNIKUS

Jason-2 meets its performance requirements

On September 11, 2008, Jason-2 received its in-flight acceptance after the evaluation of the functioning of its spacecraft platform and payload during a in-flight assessment meeting in Toulouse.

To some extent the success of the Jason-2 mission was due to the recurrence between the Jason-1 and Jason-2 missions, which allowed the latter to be launched on time and to a smooth transition between the different parties working within Jason-2. According to these positive results, a similar overlap between Jason-2 and the future Jason-3 is expected.

Ensuring the management of the routine satellite operations, the French space agency – CNES is in charge until the end of October, and then NOAA (the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) will take over.

On November 15, 2008, in Nice, the Ocean Surface Topography Science Team meeting will decide how to proceed with the dissemination of the first Jason-2 Operational Geophysical Data Record (OGDR) data.

More information on Eumetsat website

Source GMES.Info

INDRA ESPACIO invites European Earth Observation companies to submit proposals to participate in the tendering process for the PLAN JAGUAR miniprojects in the context of ESA’s EOMD programme. The call includes 4 small test projects (“miniprojects”) to cover different Earth Observation topics of interest for the development of European EO services in Latin America.

The goal of the JAGUAR PLAN is to design an action plan for European Space Agency (ESA), in order to promote the international development of the European and Canadian EO market in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The JAGUAR PLAN has been running since June 2006. Several documents have been produced which are available to the EO community in the JAGUAR website. The miniprojects from the present ITT are the final step to elaborate the Jaguar Strategic Plan with the findings from the whole project.

The miniprojects address the delivery of pre-specified EO products, services or consultancy activities in close collaboration with end users intended to understand better the prospects for European EO services in Latin America and the Caribbean. The 4 selected miniprojects are:

Miniproject 1. Definition of the Lake Titicaca Territorial Observatory.

Miniproject 2. Remote Sensing as an instrument to manage risks and to develop agrarian insurances in the rural sector.

Miniproject 3. Viability analysis of remote sensing products for the urban management in LAC countries.

Miniproject 4. Methodology of environmental audit for the oil and gas activity in Ecuador using Earth Observation techniques.

The success of the international expansion of the EO market will be strongly dependent on the knowledge of the local EO actors in the different countries, and on the establishment of professional links with them and between them.

The complete text of the call and additional supporting information is available at the JAGUAR project website

This website is intended to function as a meeting point where interested institutions and companies can provide their professional data, as well as look up on information from other EO users and from the EO industry.

September News


Kongsberg Satellite Services signs two contracts on improvement of ship and ocean object detection

Kongsberg Spacetec signs two contracts with KSAT.

The objective of the first contract is to implement an improved confidence estimator to distinguish between real detections of a ship or another floating object, and false ones. This will be done using a set of ship related characteristics.

The objective of the second contract is to integrate a set of prototypes into a single prototype service and visualization system and install it in the operational system at KSAT.

For more information about the customer: Kongsberg Satellite Services

Norwegian Defence Research Establishment signs contract on ocean object detection in SAR images

Kongsberg Spacetec signs a contract with Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (NDRE) to assess possible methodologies for using coherence image processing in order to improve ocean object detection in SAR images.

The objective of the work is to use complex radar backscatter and coherence image processing to provide improved object detection on the sea-surface.

For more information about the customer: Norwegian Defence Research Establishment

ESA contract – GSTP Framework Extension for SAR Level 3 Processing

Contract signed between KSPT (Kongsberg Spacetec) and ESA (European Space Agency). The contract is within the GSTP (General Support Technology Programme), and the name of the activity is “Framework Extension for SAR Level 3 Processing”.
The main objective of the project is to develop qualified technology to facilitate multiple channel SAR data exploitation for ship detection, and the project will run until April 2010. Commercial ship detection is an important area for KSPT, with success-stories from both KSAT (Kongsberg Satellite Services) and CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites). CLS has stated that pirate fishing in their area of interest has abolished due to ship detection capabilities. KSAT has been providing operational ship detection services for years. Both are using KSPT systems.

Source “Spacetec”: http://www.spacetec.no/

INNOVA Consorzio per l’Informatica e la Telematica in collaboration with ASI (Italian Space Agency) presented at the 14th Ka and Broadband Conference, held in Matera on the 24-26th September, the first results of a qualitative analysis of real COSMO-SkyMed SAR data with the aid of an open source tool, GSDView.

The COSMO-SkyMed Programme is without a doubt the major Italian project in the space industry. It foresees a total constellation of 4 radar satellites for Earth Observation for dual (civilian and military) use. The constellation will acquire data in several SAR image modes, and will generate focused data products. Presently, two satellites are in orbit and the launch of the third satellite is scheduled for October. The constellation will be complete by 2009.

But why is SAR data so important? Because it allows for constant all weather Earth Observation. Coupled with COSMO-SkyMed’s fast site revisit time, the data from COSMO-SkyMed will be of extreme importance for EO products and applications. This is where INNOVA’s know-how and expertise come into play.

INNOVA has developed the Spotlight processors for Cosmo-SkyMed, and is currently developing the GSDView open source tool for SAR image manipulation and other SW to offer SAR image functionalities such as Data processing, Quality Analysis, Interferometry, Change Detection and MTI.

The qualitative analysis presented has been carried out with the support of the correspondent optical images. The approach used has been to:

-Individualize the targets and the characteristics of the SAR data.
-Verify the characteristics of the data, of the satellite configuration and of the SAR.
-Interpret the data and the connected phenomena.

GSDView was used to elaborate the CSK images. It is an Open Source Tool, currently under development by INNOVA under an ASI (Italian Space Agency) contract, which can manage SAR images from COSMO-SkyMed and other missions (ERS, Envisat, etc). Once completed, GSDView will be a comprehensive tool for SAR images. Currently, it has the following functionalities:-Ingestion / data exchange -Graphic Interface

For more information, visit GSDVIEW

Various contexts were analyzed within the SAR images, with specific attention to human interest areas, such as: metropolitan areas, ports and coasts and agricultural areas.
The data set used for the analysis has been predominantly from SCS (Single-look Complex Slant), DGM (Detected Ground Multilook), GEC (Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected) and GTC (Geocoded Terrain Corrected) products acquired by the COSMO-SkyMed satellites SAR1 and/or SAR2 in StripMap and Spotlight acquisition modes.

The completed analysis shows the great potential of the sensor. The COSMO-SkyMed data regards the possible use in Earth Observation (EO) applications such as Change Detection (CD), Moving Target Detection (MTD) and Interferometry, of significant importance in both Military and Civilian spheres because they consent target detection with geometric and physical characteristics. The stability and high resolution characteristics of the sensor together with the fast revisit rate foreseen for the COSMO-SkyMed system will allow to define new high level product categories and make possible new innovative applications for the EO field.

Future activities will cover in-depth quantitative analysis with ground measuring and validation campaigns.

About INNOVA
Headquartered in Matera, Italy, INNOVA Consorzio per l’Informatica e la Telematica is a technology provider in the remote sensing field, with experience in the development of Fleet Management and Geographical Information Systems (GIS), know-how and expertise geared towards the Earth Observation industry and the Public Administration Sector, and highly specialized knowledge of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), High Performance Computing (HPC) and GRID technology.

For more information, please contact our International Relations Manager, Marina Doubell:
Email: doubell@consorzio-innova.it
Phone: +39.0835.307760
Website: www.consorzio-innova.com

The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación) has approved the Integra Project (Migration Management Technology Research) in which GMV is participating.

(September 2008). Integra, run by a consortium of fifteen Spanish firms and several research bodies, will develop an integrated management system for migratory movements from the country of origin to the destination country, closing borders to illegal and improper traffic of people without hindering legal and proper movements of people.

It will also furnish the necessary tools for obtaining, processing, analyzing and generating valid and dependable information for creating a known environment.

‘Integra’ thus aims at “advancing technologies for guiding the concept of migratory control towards a vision of migration management”. This vision takes in the whole set of preventive, immigrant-control and -integration actions “in terms of the new all-embracing concept of the extended border”, taking in the country of origin, the transit area, the regulated and unregulated border crossings and the territory of the destination country itself.

Within this consortium GMV is task leader in the use of satellite-based technology for immigration control, involving several technological developments.

The project, part and parcel of the “Cenit” program, will last for four years and involve an investment of €28 million.

Source GMV#

Crop-mapping + Gisat ISO compliant + FLOREO prevents flooding + COCONUT project


Crop mapping

Agriculture land mapping for pesticides monitoring in the hydrosphere

Landcover & landuse mapping for environmental monitoring is one of our key activities. Today, lot of remote sensing applications in this domain are possible and the users´ requests are more and more demanding. Having in mind the dynamics of landscape changes the agriculture land is in the main challenge.

In 2007 Gisat has been contracted to deliver acriculture crop map for the whole country. This task was part of the project “Occurence and transport of pesticides in the hydrosphere” realized by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (Department of Water Quality) and the Czech University of Life Sciences (Department of Soil Science and Soil Protection). One the the project topics is pesticide risk areas delineation. Agricultural crop map represents the main input here. In the next step the problems of pesticides transport through the soil layer and potential underground water contamination are discussed.

Crop mapping for such a large region is not an easy task. It is necessary to use satellite imagery covering large area with high temporal resolution. Envisat MERIS data with spatial resolution of 300m has been processed to classify five agricultural clasess using the neural network classifier.

Gisat ISO compliant

The company is certified according to the ISO 9001:2000 & 14001:2004 standards

In September Gisat has formally completed its effort to certify company´s Quality Management System (QMS) and Environmental Management System (EMS) according to the ISO 9001:2000 & 14001:2004 standards.
The certification through the United Registrar of Systems Ltd., an internationally recognized certification body headquartered in the United Kingdom, confirmed our long-term focus to maintain and continuously improve the quality of provided services and products.

At the same time the company is aware of increasing importance of environmental issues and reflects its responsibility to contribute to sustainable development principles.

You can find more information about about our QMS and EMS in the Quality & Environment section

ISO 9001:2000 Certificate of Registration
ISO 1401:2004 Certificate of Registration

FLOREO prevents flooding

How Earth Observation can help during flood risk modelling and monitoring?

FLOREO (Demonstration of ESA Environments in support to FLOod Risk Earth Observation monitoring) is an ESA PECS project that is part of the programme to support Czech research and industry in cooperation with ESA before the country becomes a full ESA Member.

The project is oriented on development and implementation of relevant EO-based services in the Czech Republic to support existing hydrological monitoring activities, especially snow melt and surface water runoff contributing to flooding events. The idea of the project and the approach chosen have been thoroughly discussed with the Czech Hydrometerological Institute (CHMI), the main national organization mandated in monitoring and prevention of flood threat.

The use of EO data as a tool to deliver timely, spatially exhaustive and consistent information about different parameters of land surface brings new possibilities for hydrological monitoring systems used in flood risk analysis. The information about snow, as an important component in hydrological monitoring systems, is delivered by means of EO in full coverage compared to only discrete point measurements. Other land surface properties and their dynamics monitored by EO allow more detailed predictions of for instance surface water runoff contributing to flooding events.

The proposed methodology is based on combination of the different spatial and temporal scales of the imagery as well as employing optical and radar technology. The use of medium and coarse resolution satellite imagery with high temporal resolution will be focused on snow cover mapping & monitoring.

Soil moisture topic will be approached from two different aspects: use of soil water modeling technique (by means of soil and precipitation data) and use of soil moisture products derived from EO data. The model may be run regularly to simulate soil moisture changes in a predefined grid. Surface water runoff modeling and the flood risk assessment will be approached by analysis of the up-to-date information about capacity of soil water infiltration and corresponding surface water run off risk from coming precipitation. This analysis includes soil moisture modeling and vegetation monitoring. The data about vegetation status in form of decadal LAI or NDVI map will be used. The CN2-Runoff Curve Number method is used to model water run off risk. The availability of above information together with the land cover data and soil map will allow much advanced and more reliable implementation of this model.

After the assessment and validation of modeling approaches it is expected the last step will represent the integration of weather scenario forecast data to allow modeling and quantification of eventual flood risk.

The project also includes development of web portal based solution with integration of external data sources. The portal will be based on open standards respecting ESA recommended SOA architecture (WS) and will provide two types of access. The user interface in Czech language will allow national users direct access to web portal services. It will provide basic, easy and simple access to predefined set of service elements implemented within this system. This shall be the dedicated solution for the main user – Czech Hydrometerological Institute. For the other users the FLOREO service elements will be accessible through the global ESA SSE portal. Full set of required interfaces for service publishing (such as Service Provider or Data Provider) will be implemented.

FLOREO team is formed by three Czech partners: SPRINX (project leader), Gisat a Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague

COCONUT project

Understand the effect of land-use change on biodiversity in Europe

Since November 2006 Gisat is involved in the COCONUT (Understanding effeCts Of land use Changes ON ecosystems to halt loss of biodiversity due to habitat destrUction, fragmenTation and degradation) project. It is two year FP6 project coordinated by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala with eleven partner institutions of eight EU countries.
The main objectives have been defined as follows:

* to assess impact of historical habitat loss on biodiversity
* to evaluate biodiversity loss in Natura 2000 sites
* to model impacts of future land use on biodiversity

Gisat keeps the responsibility for mapping part of the project – land use change mapping in about 150 selected sites of five EU countries (Germany, Spain, Sweden, Finland and Estonia). Except for Corine Land Cover like mappping (43 thematic classes, minimum mapping unit of 25 ha, minimum mapping change of 5 ha) the important task was to realize detailed mapping of the most valuable areas – from the biodiversity aspect these were defined as various local types of seminatural grassland.
Such a mapping was based on the current aerial orthophotos and the archive aerial images of 60’s of the last century (first of all the archive images have been orthocorrected and mosaicked).

At the same time wide range of biodiversity data about the species richness of plants and animals have been collected by local experts to evaluate the impact of historical loss, fragmentation and degradation of habitats.

More information about COCONUT and related projects can be found here

COCONUT project leaflet

Delta II rocket launched on September 6, 2008 the satellite GeoEye-1.

GeoEye-1 is the world’s highest resolution, commercial Earth-imaging satellite at this time.

GeoEye-1 is part of the NGA NextView program. The NextView program is designed to ensure that the NGA has access to commercial imagery in support of its mission to provide timely, relevant and accurate geospatial intelligence in support of national security. GeoEye won its $500-million NextView contract in September 2004 and was able to build and launch GeoEye-1 without any contract cost overruns in less than four years after contract award.

GeoEye-1 will simultaneously collect 0.41-meter ground resolution black-and-white (panchromatic) images and 1.65-meter color (multispectral) images. Designed to take digital images of the Earth from 681 kilometers and moving at a speed of about four-and-a-half miles (seven kilometers) per second, the satellite camera can distinguish objects on the Earth’s surface as small as 0.41-meter or 16 inches in size. Due to U.S. licensing restrictions, commercial customers will get access to imagery at half-meter ground resolution.

GeoEye-1 was built by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in Gilbert, Ariz. The imaging system was built by ITT in Rochester, NY. ITT is also building the imaging system for GeoEye-2 slated for launch in 2011. The 4310-pound satellite was launched at 11:50 a.m. PDT on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The launch of GeoEye-1 marks the 83rd consecutive successful launch of the Delta II rocket.

GeoEye-1 will now undergo a calibration and check-out period before imagery products will be available for sale.

You can find more info about the launch here

China launched two satellites on Saturday 6 September 2008

Both of them have to monitor the environment and natural disasters. The two satellites, launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi Province and carried by a Long March 2C rocket, were expected to enhance the country’s capacity to forecast natural disasters, according to Bai Zhaoguang, a leading scientist and designer of the satellites.

The satellites are the first of their kind put into space by China. They are expected to have a lifespan of more than three years. They have state-of-the-art imaging systems and infrared cameras and provide a global scan every two days. The satellites can closely track natural disasters and provide quick assessments of damage to guide rescue and reconstruction work. The role of the satellites will be significant when China faces such natural disasters as this year’s snowstorms and massive earthquake.

The satellites are unparalleled in monitoring the environment in terms of their scale, speed and ability to operate regardless of weather. China had several natural disasters this year. In the winter, prolonged snowstorms affected large areas of southern and central China and stranded millions of people. On May 12, an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter Scale struck southwest Sichuan Province. It is feared more than 87,000 died in the disaster. China used satellite images to help assess damage to infrastructure after that quake.

Geoville workshop

The final user workshop of the GeoVille led ESA project DIVERSITY took place at the Zamarano University in Honduras by invitation of CCAD (the inter-governmental Commission for Environment of Central America). The meeting was attended by official delegates of all 7 nations within Central America and covered by the national newspaper in Honduras, demonstrating the high interest of the region.

Link to the press release of the Honduras newspaper La Tribuna

Source Geoville