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Copernicus Emergency Management Service :

Today and Tomorrow

22 January 2014 2

Service implementation Evolution as from 2014

Activities now transfer to future operations

Copernicus operational

programme

GIO

R & D

2004 2010 2006 2012

R & D

Preparatory

actions

2008 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022

From 2000 to 2013: ESA – Space Segment (ESA + EU budget) EU – Development of Applications and Services EU contribution mainly through R&D Budget – annual call for proposals, contracts with multi-EU partner consortia.

As from 2014 : ESA – Space Segment (ESA + EU budget) EU Operational budget (~3.7b€ 2014-20) Delegation Agreements, Public Tenders, based on service specifications.

4

Validation

Rush mode

• On demand

• “Standardized”

• Hours-days

Reference maps

Disaster response maps

Non-rush mode

• On demand

• Standard base widely adaptable to user requests

• Weeks-months

Reference maps

Pre-disaster situation maps

Reference maps

Post-disaster situation maps

Rush delivery time

5

Product TYPE Full package First available map

REFERENCE Max 6h Max 6h

DELINEATION (+Reference)

Max 24h

6h [ref map]

Max 3h (flood, fire) Max 8h (others)

GRADING (+Delineation +Reference)

Max 24h

24h [del map] 6h [ref map]

Max 3h (flood, fire) Max 8h (others)

First available map Post event, 1 map, 1 format, not quality checked

Time after satellite data reception and quality acceptance. Target delivery time from activation: 6h (reference), 24h (delineation, grading).

Non-rush mode products

GIO-EMS rush mapping

Rush: 66 activations in the period April 1, 2012 – now; (generating 313

reference maps, 259 delineation maps and 75 grading maps)

35 in Europe, 31 outside Europe;

In Europe, primarily floods forest fires earthquake , others;

Outside Europe, primarily humanitarian crisis (Syria), large floods (SE Asia,

Africa), disaster events (Philippines) complimentary to International Charter

“Space and Major Disasters”;

Non-rush: 10 activations. Mix of support to CP exercises, post-event impact for

fires and humanitarian/preparedness (non-EU),

Validation: several requests for rush mode, incl. GCP survey…

7

8 22 January 2014

Data acquisition

The “Data Profile” of EMS

using the ESA-DAP mechanism and the GEST procedures (the service

provider is the actual user)

Concentrated in VHR1 & VHR2 categories, both archive and new

acquisitions;

Highly variable in time, area coverage, sensor classes (optical or SAR);

Very limited data re-use potential due to specificity of event/data use;

Access to reference ortho-imagery in Europe is now a viable alternative

to the use of archive satellite imagery;

10 22 January 2014

11 22 January 2014

Service elements of data provision

Timeliness criterion is essential for a successful EMS service;

The user expects (max) 24 hours after request submission;

Satellite latencies for new acquisitions consume most of that 24 hour slack:

Fixed equatorial crossing times for optical sensors;

Deadlines for tasking requests for next day’s orbit;

Priority conflicts and technical failures in acquisition;

Variability in data delivery delays after acquisition;

Oh, and cloud cover...

EMS and GEST already introduced some measures recently to mitigate these

effects (e.g. multiple tasking, pre-alerting…..)

Map generation

Example Philippines Typhon : event time 08 nov 06:00 Hr (utc)

12 22 January 2014

Data dissemination

Our principle is open access to the derived products!!!! (except for

products which are labelled sensitive).

• All our products are available and downloadable through our

image portal

15 min after FTP push by our contractors.

Both vector and raster

GIS compatible data sets (can be picked up and used by OSM for ex)

• We are working on wms, wfs links as well.

Full resolution satellite imagery has license restrictions…

www.emergency.copernicus.eu

13 22 January 2014

Future trends

14 22 January 2014

Satellite latencies discussed with ESA : measures to be integrated in new Data Warehouse (ESA-DAP) specifications

New relevant sensors will start to operate Introduction of Sentinels [free and open data] Introduction of a new generation of space EO sensors (skybox, urthecast, planet-labs, WV-3, etc.)

Including video-from-space

Speed and quality are the driving criteria. Can be improved by faster image processing (GPU’s) and more stringent mapping guidelines.

Big data (not yet an urgent issue …due to limited size of impact areas… Integration of airborne imagery, sentinels and future satellite video can trigger big data needs…..

Fixed wing UAV devices for mapping over high value assets….

Technology trends

Challenges • EMS is currently best trade-off between speed and quality

Harmonization with other mechanisms (UNOSAT, Charter,….) in order to achieve

common quality and mapping guidelines and to promote open access to results.

• Focus on Disaster Risk Reduction for non-rush

DRR practitioners (UNDR, Worldbank,..) need to be updated and informed about

relevant satellite image and mapping capacities in their domain….

• Public procurement of new contracts for rush and non-rush for post-2014

• SAR based assessment will remain (very) problematic.

• Rapid deployable (un)manned aerial assets, price and better resolution

makes the airborne imagery competitive (as a gap filling approach)

against VHR satellite imagery especially for damage assessments

How to introduce this capacity in Copernicus ?

• Maturing of crowd mapping alternatives

• Automated, sophisticated processing still plays a minimal role

15 22 January 2014

Future trends

Peter.spruyt@jrc.ec.europa.eu

www.emergency.copernicus.eu

16 22 January 2014