Rome, Feb.24, 2015 — e-GEOS, a company established by Telespazio (80%) and the Italian Space Agency (20%), has been awarded a contract from the European Commission worth 12 million euros, to provide satellite maps for emergency management. The contract, identified as Copernicus Emergency Management Service – Rapid Mapping, will be active in the period 2015 to 2019.
This is the operational service of the European Copernicus programme for Earth observation and is unique at a global level in the field of emergency.
Already in 2012 e-GEOS was awarded a contract by the European Commission for the provision of such services during 2012-2014. In this period, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service was activated in more than 100 events, and produced over 1,000 satellite maps relating to 46 countries in Europe and worldwide.
Under the new contract, the consortium will prepare and make available to the European Commission, in a short time after the activation of the service by the authorized user, satellite maps of areas affected by a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis. The Copernicus Emergency Management Service – Rapid Mapping, active 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, is operated by a consortium led by e-GEOS and composed of the German subsidiary GAF, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Italian company Ithaca and the French partners Sirs and Sertit.
To provide the service on a global scale, the consortium uses a dedicated access to multi-mission satellite data activated between the European Union and the European Space Agency (ESA).
The European Commission makes available satellite maps, free of charge, to all users operating in Europe in the field of civil protection, emergency and land management, facilitating the damage assessment and the assistance intervention management. The Copernicus programme also assists international humanitarian relief operations, in collaboration with the United Nations, the World Bank and NGOs.
The results of the service in near real time are published on the Copernicus portal, directly managed by the European Commission and are made publicly available in accordance with the Copernicus policy on free and open data.
Notes:
The address of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service portal: emergency.copernicus.eu
The latest activation of the service for the flooding of the river Ebro in the province of Zaragoza (Spain):
http://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/list-of-components/EMSR118
The members of the consortium led by e-GEOS are:
DLR, German Space Agency / German Aerospace Center – Cologne (Germany) –
www.dlr.de/dlr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10002
DLR is a research establishment for engineering sciences in Germany in five main research areas:
aerospace, aeronautics, energy, transport and security. DLR operates the “Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information” (ZKI) which provides a 24/7 service for the rapid provision, processing and analysis of satellite imagery during natural and environmental disasters, for humanitarian relief activities and civil security issues worldwide.
GAF – Munich (Germany) – www.gaf.de
GAF, a subsidiary of e-GEOS, is one of the major Earth observation service provider with a European and Global footprint, and leader in geo-information technology and technical assistance consultancy.
ITHACA – Torino (Italy) – www.ithacaweb.org
The non-profit association ITHACA is a center of applied research devoted to support humanitarian activities in response to natural disasters by means of remote sensing techniques.
SERTIT – Strasbourg (France) – sertit.u-strasbg.fr
SERTIT, a 24/7 provider of rapid mapping since 1999 within the International Charter and multiple projects, is a service of the University of Strasbourg developing EO applications covering the full crisis cycle, carrying out R&D in many other 3D and environmental domains.
SIRS – Villeneuve-d’Ascq (France) – www.sirs-fr.com/en
SIRS is an independent consulting and GIS engineering company and specialist in the production of
geographic data from satellite or aerial images
