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Author: EARSC

Socio-Economic Benefits Analysis of Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES)
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PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP along with ESYS Consulting plc and DNV
(the Consortium) have been contracted by the European Space Agency
(ESA), in cooperation with the European Commission (EC), to perform a
socio-economic benefits study of Global Monitoring for Environment and
Security (GMES), an initiative being developed jointly by the EC and
ESA, with the objective of establishing by 2008 a European capacity for
global monitoring of environment and security.

The objectives of the study are to:
Characterise and evaluate the overall benefits and impact resulting from GMES implementation;
Produce a political and strategic view of the benefits and impacts due to GMES implementation;
Evaluate benefits against cost envelopes from an economic perspective;
Understand the variation in benefit resulting from different implementation levels for GMES;

The Consortium will be undertaking a comprehensive consultation
exercise during the spring and summer of 2005 and will be contacting
key GMES stakeholders shortly. We welcome input from the Earth
Observation community on the perceived benefits of GMES and the
mechanisms by which these benefits can be demonstrated and quantified.
The Consortium can be contacted by email.

Questions on GMES extracted from the preparation of the ESA Council at Ministerial level

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– Should GMES become the European participation to GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems), decided on the Earth Summit in Brussels?

– Should Europe try to get independence in space borne data sources or should it only complement what is available e.g. in the US?

– Should we use another joint undertaking to implement GMES or should we use other cooperation models foreseen in the framework agreement (ESA as implementing agency of the EU)?

– Is the GMES financing model proposed the right one? (ESA pays phases A+B, mixed funding for phases C/D and EC funding after the first satellites including operation)

– Are the requirements defined so far, coming from the 12+4 initial GMES services and from the analysis of the data gaps in Europe the right ones?

Important dates to have in mind:

– High level on Space Policy Group- 3rd week March

– Joint Secretariat issues (EU Council, Coreper and ESA bodies) – beginning
April

– EU Council process documents- 3rd week April

– Draft joint document- end April

– High level on Space Policy Group, HLSPG, examine documents- beginning May

– Joint Secretariat revised draft documents- 2nd week May

– Research working party processes- 17 May

– Coreper I, finalised draft joint document- 27 May

– ESA processed finalised draft joint document- end May

– Second Space Council- 7 June

More information

Comments on the presentation of April 5th on preliminary elements of European Space Policy (Interface with Industry). Paul Kamoun on behalf OF EARSC

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Priorities

First of all, Europe needs a global space vision and associated
policies. This does not exist at the right level today except for the
realisation that present focus should be to put Space at the service of
the citizen. Within this context and for political, economic, social,
environmental, strategic, defence, technology, and industrial reasons
the priority must be put on Earth Monitoring as a whole including the
Environmental and Security dimensions, its Earth Observation,
Telecommunications and Navigation components and both its related space
and ground infrastructures. Such a priority must be translated in
short, mid- and long term planning and budgets.

Without swift and strong actions in these directions, the risks for the industrial space sector are that:

Satellite and sensors capabilities could be left to diminish in
large part,
Ground infrastructures could be left to receive mostly non-European
satellites data which mean no insurance of continuity of operation,
Value-added companies could face increase vulnerability in access to
data, as well as a paucity of European data leading to some VA
retailers elimination,
Users would face a lack of strategic and critical data, thus limiting
their autonomy,
European decision makers would face a loss of independence on the world
scene,
European stature in EO downstream market might decrease (it is now
about 300 Me annual i.e. 1/10 of U.S.; Ref.: ESYS, 2005).

The GMES programme as a flagship would be an important step forward
but must be fully deployed in its science and applications, technology
convergence and international dimensions.

Roles and responsibilities

EU should federate institutional demands and needs in relation with:
GMES
Security
Navigation
Regional Needs

EU should play an important regulating role:
On location based services linked to GALILEO
Widening universal service in broadband
Emphasising the strategic and political nature of space activities

Industry is eager to see in Europe quick decisions on, and a clear
definition of, who is doing what. First outlines of roles and
responsibilities given in page 8 of the “Preliminary Elements of the
ESP” are satisfactory in the XX-led area but must be quickly detailed
in the XX-Contribution area.

Industrial Policy Principles

The main concerns of European Remote Sensing companies are related to:
Maintaining the competitiveness and technological independence of European Industry,
The needs for the support of public authorities,
The urgency to start GMES with existing users, without waiting for future end-users to join in,
The needs for real programmes and not only FP,
The needs for proper financing mechanisms, at 100% level for non commercial applications,
The poor funding received by EO companies in the last years due to emphasis on space transport

The 2005 Edition of the CEOS Earth Observation Handbook has been prepared by the European Space Agency (ESA).

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The 2005 Edition of the CEOS Earth Observation Handbook has been
prepared by the European Space Agency (ESA). The report presents the
main capabilities of satellite Earth observations, their applications,
and a systematic overview of present and planned Earth observation
satellite missions and their instruments. It also explores society’s
increasing need for information on our planet. As humanity exceeds the
planet’s capacity to sustain us, such information is playing a vital
role in understanding, monitoring, managing and mitigating key Earth
System processes. This is true on a global scale, in support of
improved global environmental governance and the underlying conventions
and treaties (such as the Kyoto Protocol), and on regional and national
scales, as countries adapt competitively to shrinking reserves of
natural resources and to the basic needs of expanding populations.
Earth System information may be considered as the essential foundation
for sustainable development policies aimed at ensuring our continued
health and prosperity.

Source information

Paris, April 6, 2005 – Jason-1 satellite with its altimetry payload and the MERIS hyperspectral instrument onboard ESA‘s Envisat have simultaneously celebrated the completion of three years in flight, in December 2004 for Jason and in February 2005 for Meris. Both provide key Oceanography products, and an user-oriented workshop took place in Cannes for the event end of March.
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Paris, April 6, 2005 – Jason-1 satellite with its altimetry payload and the MERIS hyperspectral instrument onboard ESA‘s Envisat have simultaneously celebrated the completion of three years in flight, in December 2004 for Jason and in February 2005 for Meris. Both provide key Oceanography products, and an user-oriented workshop took place in Cannes for the event end of March.

This allowed main players within the Oceanography community to meet (being either from agencies from Cnes to NASA, or actual end-users -ACRI, LTMG, Ifremer, universities…), and to have fruitful exchanges on the uses of existing sensors (Envisat and Jason-1) and about the future (US development plans, European GMES Sentinel-3).

The main findings are the following:

Owing to Envisat/Meris and Jason, Europe has demonstrated its capability to build reliable instruments, spacecrafts and system tools.
Today the only programmable hyperspectral instrument in flight, MERIS demonstrates the best availability among the whole Envisat payload with just not a single outage in three years. Similarly, the Proteus/Jason satellite demonstrates an outstanding availability and has been designed as part of a versatile batch procurement in order to reduce costs –“more science for the money”.

Operational Oceanography is on its way
Very efficient system and processing tools are now in place that ensure a regular and timely data extraction, merging and diffusion: the complete chain is now mature, and this for multiple applications, from chlorophyll index to hydrology basin monitoring to fish management.

The issue is about Continuity of Oceanography from Space
While many end-users make tremendous efforts to merge data even from very different satellites, and develop very promising (pre)-operational services , the high regularity of today‘s products critically depends on renewing the current space capacity: this indeed is generally well identified in all european institutions but the issue lies with the actual in-orbit replenishment schedule.

Oceanography and hydrology applications (like those presented by LTMG or Mercator) will be considered as dependable on a regular basis and trigger more users only if the continuity of current services is secured.
The general agreement is that numerous applications are definitely turning operational, and this is why all participants unanimously called for GMES Sentinel 3 to get prioritary attention from Europe decision makers.

AlcatelAlcatel Space Press Contact:
Sandrine BIELECKI
Tel (office): 04 92 92 70 94 – fax (office): 04 92 92 33 10
Email

With growing involvement in disaster and risk management, NPA are at the forefront in the application of satellite SAR Interferometry (InSAR) for ground displacement and subsidence detection.
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With growing involvement in disaster and risk management, NPA are
at the forefront in the application of satellite SAR Interferometry
(InSAR) for ground displacement and subsidence detection. Stage 1 of
Terrafirma, the Pan-European Ground Motion Information Service of the
ESA GMES Service Element Programme, is now complete under NPA’s lead.
Initially the service focuses on urban subsidence but will include
earthquake zones, landslides, coastlines and flood plains, in support
of policies aimed at saving lives, improving safety and reducing
economic loss. The project utilises PSI (Persistent Scatterer
Interferometry) to detect millimetric ground motion displacements from
multiple radar scenes. NPA Chairman Nigel Press together with Dr.Chris
Browitt, seismologist with British Geological Survey, were interviewed
live on BBC Radio 4‘s Material World programme featuring InSAR and
Terrafirma. To hear the March 10th broadcast via web go to BBC Listen
again”.

NPA supports the MapAction Asian tsunami relief effort with expertise
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NPA expert and MapAction volunteer, Nicola Capes was deployed to Sri
Lanka where she provided GIS and mapping services and advice to NGO‘s
in the field for the tsunami relief effort. Field information was
gathered with GPS for integration into the GIS to create quality maps
for Government agencies, UN (including Kofi Annan and team) and NGOs,
to show where the problems lay, what relief aid was needed and how to
get it there. MapAction are a charity providing rapid response mapping
services in disaster areas and development programmes and are part of
the GMES Respond consortium for global humanitarian mapping. Read
Nicola‘s account in GeoConnexion, March 2005 ‘Lending a helping hand’ and in ‘Spotlight’.

The first image from Japan’s new weather satellite, MTSAT-1R, has now been successfully received and processed by the new ground facilities at the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA)’s Hatoyama centre, 100km north of Tokyo.
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The first image from Japan’s new weather satellite, MTSAT-1R, has
now been successfully received and processed by the new ground
facilities at the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA)’s Hatoyama centre,
100km north of Tokyo.

MTSAT-1R was launched on 26 February 2005 to provide regular weather
images and data over the East Asia region. The facilities to process
data and correct them for dissemination to the user community were
supplied by LogicaCMG under contract to NEC Toshiba Space Systems, Ltd.
(NTSpace).

The payload data ground segment processes the MTSAT-1R images in
real-time, applying radiometric calibration, removing minor distortions
by automatically analysing landmark features in the image, and then
disseminating the corrected images to users within a few minutes.

Mr Takashi Ohshima, Head, Office of Meteorological Satellite Planning,
of JMA said “This successful processing of images is an important
milestone in the MTSAT programme to replace the Geostationary
Meteorological Satellite (GMS) series covering the East Asia and the
Western Pacific regions.”

Mr Hideki Kimura, MTSAT-1R image data processing system manager, of
NTSpace said “The ground facilities are crucial to ensuring that
MTSAT-1R data meets the timeliness and quality requirements of the
meteorological user community. The complex real-time software required
to process the MTSAT-1R images was supplied and supported by LogicaCMG
and is significantly more sophisticated than the software for previous
series of Japanese weather satellites. The performance of the whole
MTSAT-1R system including the ground facilities is a new breakthrough
in weather satellites.”

LogicaCMG credits

Picture shows LogicaCMG landmark processing.
Note that the scale of the arrows is exaggerated compared to the MTSAT-1R image scale

NPA have been involved in the ESA EOMD ‘Earth Observation Response to Geo-Information Market Drivers – Location Based Service Market Segment’ project led by Comsine.
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NPA have been involved in the ESA EOMD ‘Earth Observation Response
to Geo-Information Market Drivers – Location Based Service Market
Segment’ project led by Comsine. Working together with the EO
industry (GAF & EUSI) and key LBS players such as M-spatial (a
mobile phone mapping solution provider) and Multimap (a leading
provider of mapping and location-based services) the project undertook
an analysis of the global LBS markets and the EO service industry, and
sought to identify opportunities in and blockages to the increased use
of EO data products in the LBS market. NPA and Multimap have developed
a visualisation web-demo for GMES Terrafirma, and continue to explore
further opportunities.

The Respond GMES service element in Humanitarian Aid has been active in providing timely mapping for recent crises
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The Respond GMES service element in Humanitarian Aid has been active in providing timely mapping for recent crises, including:

For UN OCHA and NGO rapid response teams, rapid production of
high resolution maps of the main area affected by the recent Sumatran
earthquake – Gunung Sitoli,
For the Word Health Organisation, the production of mapping to support
actions against the emerging marburg virus in the Cabinda region of
Angola,
For the UN Environment Programme, an assessment of the size of the post
crisis debris field in the major settlements affected by the tsumani,
For distribution via the UN Humanitarian Information Centre in Banda
Aceh, Sumatra, 1000 copies of a post crisis double sided street map /
satellite map, printed on waterproof paper and folded for easy use.


Space map of Cabinda city, Angola – at risk from the marburg virus © Repond/DLR 2005

Respond is one of the 12 ESA funded GMES service elements, primed by
Infoterra UK Ltd and including a very strong team of 21 organisations
and companies spanning the entire supply chain. It has been
active in providing mapping support for Humanitarian actions in areas
including Darfur, All the nations affected by the Tsunami, Liberia,
Myanmar and Iraq.

Information on Respond, recent products, participants and background can be found at the Respond website or by email.