Copernicus and Earth observation's potential for the EU environment

“Environmental policy making depends on timely, accurate information about the state of our planet and predictions about its future.” With this sentence, the European Union’s Science for Environment Policy Future Brief sketches the vast importance of Earth observation programs like the EU-led initiative, Copernicus (previously known as Global Monitoring for Environment and Security, or GMES).

Copernicus aims to produce data to be used by national and local EU authorities for monitoring, modelling, forecasting and reporting while at the same time contributing to key EU-led initiatives like Resource-Efficient Europe, EU Environment Action Programme 2020, SEIS and INSPIRE.

Copernicus is a joint effort with the European Space Agency (ESA), which is developing five new missions called Sentinels specifically for the operational needs of the Copernicus program. The Sentinel missions, to be launched this year, are based on a constellation of two satellites to fulfill revisit and coverage requirements, providing robust datasets for Copernicus Services. These missions carry a range of technologies, such as radar and multi-spectral imaging instruments for land, ocean and atmospheric monitoring.

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Source EOportal Earthzine