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•(INSPIRE/ESDI)
•Global Monitoring for Environment and Security

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• INSPIRE
•Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe
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•GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) is a European initiative for the
implementation of information services dealing with environment and security.
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•GMES is based on observation data received from Earth Observation satellites and ground based
information. These data will be coordinated, analysed and prepared for end-users.
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•Through GMES the state of our environment and its short, medium and long-term evolution will be
monitored to support policy decisions or investments.
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•GMES is a set of services for European citizens helping to improve their quality of life regarding
environment and security.
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•GMES is built up gradually: it starts with a pilot phase which targets the availability of a first
set of operational GMES services by 2008 followed by the development of an extended range of
services which meet user requirements.

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http://www.gmes.info/typo3temp/GB/177a4753e4.png
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•2. How did it start?
•Years of research in the fields of science and technology associated with observation and
understanding of the processes and phenomena of the terrestrial environment led in 1998 to the idea
to launch GMES.
•By a combination of measurements at terrestrial level and from space, it rapidly became clear that
new operational services could be offered in fields such as oceanography, precise mapping of land
use, rapid mapping at times of emergency for the civil protection field or air quality monitoring.

•The progressive implementation of GMES is made possible by the activities and investments of
European Union and ESA Member States. These and other public and private contributions are jointly
supported by the European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

•3. To whom is it addressesd?
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•GMES is the European solution to respond to the needs of citizens in Europe to access reliable
information on the status of their environment.
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•GMES will mainly support decision-making by both institutional and private actors. Decisions could
concern either new regulations to preserve our environment or urgent measures in case of a natural
or man–made catastrophes (i.e. floods, forest fires, water pollution).
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•But to take decisions, it is necessary to anticipate, intervene and control. (předcházet,
zasahovat, řídit)
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•GMES will integrate these functions by assembling the information acquired in a reliable, valid
and compatible manner and make them available for user friendly exploitation. The services will be
used by environmental agencies, local, regional and national authorities, civil protection
organisations, etc.
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•The new observation techniques and analysis of data will permit these actors to better anticipate
potential threats, to intervene timely and to increase the efficiency of the intervention.

•By observing the main Earth sub-systems (land, air, seas) a number of information services can be
developed and used for the definition and monitoring of EU policies in the field of environment and
security.
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•Moreover, by building on these services and adding value to them (possibly using other data and
observations), more targeted and customised (tailored) services can be developed addressing for
instance health issues, productivity increases and other aspects.
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•Some examples of services are:
•Oil spill/discharge detection & monitoring;
•Land cover/land use for policy making and services to farmers;
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•Support to civil protection – rapid mapping;
•Environment and health services – ozone monitoring and UV exposure.
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•WHAT SERVICES WILL BE PROVIDED?
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•The services provided by GMES can be classified in three major categories:
•Mapping, including topography or road maps but also land-use and harvest, forestry monitoring,
mineral and water resources that do contribute to short and long-term management of territories and
natural resources. This service generally requires exhaustive coverage of the Earth surface,
archiving and periodic updating of data.
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•Support for emergency management in case of natural hazards and particularly civil protection
institutions responsible for the security of people and property. This service concentrates on the
provision of the latest possible data before intervening.

•Forecasting is applied for marine zones, air quality or crop yields. This service systematically
provides data on extended areas permitting the prediction of short, medium or long-term events,
including their modelling and evolution.
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•The widespread and regular availability of technical data within GMES will allow a more efficient
use of the infrastructures and human resources. It will help the creation of new models for
security and risk management, as well as better management of land and resources.
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•GMES is the European participation in the worldwide monitoring and management of our planet Earth
and the European contribution to the Group on Earth Observation (GEO). The global community acts
together for a synergy of all techniques of observation, detection and analysis.
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•At the World Summit on Earth Observation in Washington in July 2003, the Group on Earth
Observations (GEO) was established, with the goal of addressing the information requirement for the
environment on a global scale. This work was completed in Brussels in February 2005 by the adoption
of a 10 year implementation plan of an integrated Global Earth Observation System of Systems
(GEOSS).
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•The GEOSS is an ambitious programme of information for ecological security and durable development
intended for mankind. It principally foresees the monitoring and understanding of nature, the
extent of disasters due to human activities, the impact of global warming, desertification, erosion
and deforestation.
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•GMES will be the main European contribution to GEOSS.
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•The Forum GMES 2008 held in Lille on 16-17 September 2008 marked the launch of the first GMES
services in pre-operational mode:
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•Marine Environmental Services
•Atmospheric Environmental Services
•Land Environmental Services
•Support to Emergencies and Humanitarian Aid
•Support to security -related activities
•The development of these services is supported by implementation groups put in place in the
context of the Action Plan 2004 - 2008.
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•Marine Environmental Services
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•MyOcean is a project granted by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme, with
the objective to define and to set up a concerted and integrated pan-European capacity for Ocean
Monitoring and Forecasting.

• The areas of benefit are:
•Maritime Security
•Oil Spill combat
•Marine Resources management
•Climate Change
•Seasonal Forecast
•Coastal Activities
•Ice Survey
•Water Quality and Pollution.
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•MyOcean is the last step toward the GMES Marine Core Service after many Europe founded programmes
such as POLARVIEW, ECOOP, MARCOAST, MERSEA, ...
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•Atmospheric Environmental Services
•The prototype atmospheric services of GMES are currently provided by two cooperating consortia
that operate the PROMOTE GMES Service Element project funded by the European Space Agency, and the
GEMS project funded by the European Commission as part of the 6th Framework Programme for Research,
Technical Development and Demonstration.
• The focus of PROMOTE is the delivery of services to support informed decisions on issues related
to stratospheric ozone depletion, surface UV exposure, air quality and climate change. Services are
based both on products derived directly from satellite data and on products from established data
assimilation and modelling systems. Services can be accessed from PROMOTE website.
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•The focus of GEMS is to develop new integrated systems for monitoring the global distributions of
atmospheric constituents important for climate, and for monitoring and forecasting constituents
affecting air quality and surface solar radiation, with a focus on Europe. Trial versions of these
systems are currently being operated, and the products can be accessed from GEMS website.
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•From mid-2009, the core services of the atmospheric component of GMES will be delivered by a new
consortium comprising most of the partners of the GEMS project and core production partners from
PROMOTE,

•following the conclusion of a grant from the European Commission under the 7th Framework
Programme. These services will continue and rationalize the provision of the main sets of data
products provided currently by PROMOTE and GEMS. It is also expected that the Framework Programme
will support development of a set of downstream services that provide user-oriented information
based on the core-service data products.

•Land Environmental Services
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•Land Environmental Services operationally provide sound, reliable and affordable land related
geo-information products on the regional, European and global scale. Their aim is to effectively
support public authorities of the European Commission and the EU Member States in the
implementation of the new European Environmental Directives as well as international treaties
towards adaptation to Climate Change.
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•By the combined analysis of data received from Earth Observation satellites and ground based
measuring networks theses services provide wide-area and cross-boarder harmonized geo-information
products for a multitude of thematic areas,
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•like land use / land cover change, soil sealing, water quality and availability, spatial planning,
forest management, carbon storage and global food security. Selected examples of products from
various European regions can be viewed and tested on the Land Information Services portal.

•Fast Track Service / CORINE Land Cover 2006
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•Based on previous consolidation results, the European Environment Agency (EEA) has added the first
Pan-European High-Resolution Land Cover Data to its data service: a Sealing Layer and a Forest
Layer covering entire Europe. In addition, the CORINE Land Cover database, existing since the
1990s, was updated for the third time for the year 2006.
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•The ambition is to add further high-resolution layers during the coming years during the
implementation of the Land Information Core Services
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•Urban Atlas
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•Quality of Life in Europe’s cities is being recorded by the Urban Audit initiative of DG Regional
Cohesion and DG Environment. The Urban Atlas Core Service Element is to add a spatial dimension,
e.g. to show the accessibility to green urban areas or to enable the localization of abstract
statistical parameters (e.g. population density).
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•Forest Monitoring
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•Forest Monitoring Services provide innovative, timely, cost-effective and quality-assured forest
information to support reporting on national and international policies such as the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, the UN Convention on Biological
Diversity (UNCBD), the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE) and
processes related to Streamlining European Biodiversity Indicators by 2010 (SEBI 2010). Making use
of Earth Observation methodologies allows retrieving spatially explicit information on the state
and development of forests from continental to regional scale in a cost-efficient way and at proven
high quality.
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•Water Quality
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•Water Quality Services address the Water Framework Directive (WFD) obligating the EU Member States
to manage, monitor and report the status of the water resources on river basin scale. The services
focus on identification and management of nutrient and pesticide inputs into the water cycle
resulting from diffuse and point sources.
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•Spatial Development
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•The Spatial Development Service provides spatially referenced and consistent geo-information for
monitoring of urban structure, urban growth and soil sealing in support of reporting obligations.
Products describe the pressure, state and impact of urban land take for integrated spatial
planning.

•Environmental Resource Management in Africa
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•The Service for Environmental Resource Management in Africa ensures permanent access to high
quality pre-processed data for all African countries by using advanced satellite telecommunication
infrastructures. Products of the service comprise advanced environmental parameters (in particular
related to vegetation conditions), processed according to standard procedures, as well as maps such
as land cover maps, forest maps, etc.

•Support to Emergencies and Humanitarian Aid Services
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•Support to Emergencies and Humanitarian Aid services target three main application domains:
•Civil Protection: National Civil Protection Services of Europe, DG ENV (European CP Unit), and
more globally all risk management actors in Europe at different territorial scales
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•Humanitarian Aid: DG RELEX, DG ECHO, NGOs
•Security crises: European Council, Member States
•It addresses all types of disasters: natural disasters (floods, fires, landslides, storms,
earthquakes, etc.), technological accidents, humanitarian crises (for instance after a severe
drought period), civilian-military crises.
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•Pre-operational services for Crisis management support have been developed by the GMES Service
Element for Humanitarian Relief - RESPOND and the GMES Service Element for Civil Protection –
RISK-EOS
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•Data Portal
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•The Connecte@sy portal offers access to products delivered by the PREVIEW and RISK-EOS projects.
The goal of this common portal is to provide a unified access to the products in order to
facilitate the information exchange and sharing between the service providers and the risk user
community.
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•In complementary with the existing delivery means held by the service provider for specific users,
the Connecte@sy portal proposes the following functionalities at a global level:
•The consultation of the available products,
•The on-line visualisation and combination of data,
•The possibility to retrieve and visualise data in Google Earth.

•Windstorm Services
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•Alerts of strong winds over Europe for 1-2 and 3-5 days ahead using a traffic light warning
system, and with the facility to access more forecast detail.
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•Fire Services
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•Fire Meteo Indices: The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) supports the services in
charge of the protection of forests against fires in the EU countries and provides the European
Commission services and the European Parliament with updated and reliable information on wildland
fires in Europe.
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•Automatic Burn Scar Mapping: Daily provision of burnt area maps based on an Automatic and
Autonomous system. The Automatic Burn Scar Mapping service provides during the summer fire season
daily products regarding burn scars mapping at medium-resolution for burnt areas larger than 48ha.
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•Burn Scar Mapping: The Burn Scar Mapping service package is dedicated to provide, seasonally,
after the summer and winter fire seasons, information products regarding burnt scar mapping at
high-resolution (60 m accuracy).
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• Regional Fire Monitoring: Detection and Monitoring of active fires near real-time by MSG/SEVIRI
data (updated every 15 minutes)
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•Floods services
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•Medium-range plain flood forecasting: The benefit of the European Flood Alert System (EFAS) is
two-fold.
•First, EFAS should provide the European Commission with useful information for the preparation and
management of aid during a flood crisis.
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•Second, National Water Authorities should benefit from additional medium-range flood information
that might contribute to increased preparedness in an upcoming flood event. EFAS is aimed at
complementing national flood forecasting systems, not to replace them. The European Flood Alert
System (EFAS) activity is at present in a development and testing phase at the European Commission
Joint Research Centre.
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•Flood Information System (floodserver):
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•The use of flood management and information systems shows the benefits of readily available
information and the need for effective and efficient cooperation between the users.
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•The floodserver supplies detailed information on the extent, impact and damage potential of past
flood events. It is designed to provide extensive flood risk information for whole Europe quickly,
reliable and easily accessible for everyone using detailed maps and information about past and
potential future flood events.
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•At present flood relevant information about the rivers Rhine, Elbe and Lower Weser is already
available. For the river Severn a TerraSAR-X based flood extent map has recently been implemented
into the floodserver.
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•Northern Flood: Probability forecasts for exceeding the High Flood, i.e. flood with a return
period 2-10 years.
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•Flood Risk Analysis: Delivery of information products to support flood scenarii elaboration and
flood prevention plans
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•Flash Flood Early Warning: Hourly mapping of excessive runoff and overflow risks on basin prone to
flash floods
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