A complex set of european monitoring systems for  land, oceans, atmosphere, emergency response and security. It is GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) and the CMCC plays an active role as partner of MyOcean project.

The European Earth observation program GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) is a complex set of systems which collects data from multiple sources, such as earth observation satellites and in situ sensors (e.g. ground stations, airborne and sea-borne sensors), processes these data and provides users with reliable and up-to-date information through thematic services.

GMES is an EU-led initiative. The European Commission ensures the coordination and management of the GMES programme. The setting up of initial versions of the GMES services have been assigned to several projects partly financed through the 7th Research and Development Framework Programme of the European Union, while the developments related to the observation infrastructure are performed under the aegis of the European Space Agency for the space component and of the European Environment Agency and the Member States for the in situ component.

The first GMES services in brief

The EU-funded GMES projects are developing pre-operational services which address the following 5 main fields: land monitoring (geoland2 project), ocean monitoring (MyOcean project), atmosphere monitoring (MACC project), emergency response (SAFER project) and security (G-MOSAIC project).

Geoland2 aims at providing geo-information data on the regional, European and global scale and covers a wide range of thematic domains like land use/land cover change, soil sealing, water quality and availability, special planning, forest management, carbon storage and global food security.

MyOcean aims at defining and setting up a concerted and integrated pan-European capacity for ocean monitoring and forecasting. The
project covers maritime security, oil spill prevention, marine resources management, climate change, seasonal forecast, coastal activities, ice survey, water quality and pollution.

MACC provides data records on atmospheric composition for recent years, current data for monitoring present conditions as well as forecasts of the distribution of key constituents for a few days ahead.  MACC combines atmospheric modelling with Earth observation data to provide
information services covering European Air Quality, Global Atmospheric Composition, Climate, and UV and Solar Energy.

SAFER supports civil protection authorities and humanitarian relief organisations by providing a rapid mapping capacity in response to emergency situations such as natural disasters (e.g. floods, fires, landslides, storms, earthquakes), technological accidents or humanitarian crises. The emergency response service can be activated through a focal point available on a 24-hour/7 days a week basis.

G-MOSAIC develops pilot services for security applications. It supports EU intervention and peace-keeping actions in the world’s hot spots by providing intelligence data useful for crisis prevention, crisis management, damage assessment, reconstruction and resilience.

Related content:

• the GMES program web site;
• the GMES institutional portal;
• MyOceran web page in the CMCC’s web site