GMES-Global Monitoring for Environment and Security
GAF AG supports the European Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) initiative, which is being implemented by the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA) . GMES is driven by the need to improve the capacity for monitoring of the European and global environment and by governments’ obligations to ensure the security of citizens. It is a concerted effort to bring data and information providers closer together with the users, which are mainly governments, public institutions, and the citizens. GMES will allow to access more reliable and accurate environmental and security-related information through enhanced or new services to support decision-making of both institutional and private actors.
GMES aims to establish a self-contained European earth observation capacity. It is the European contribution to the integrated Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) .
GAF participates in several GMES programmes:
ObsAIRve
The project obsAIRve aims at providing comprehensible air quality information to the European public. Various air quality data providers across Europe are involved in the project. The information products of obsAIRve cover current measurement values as well as forecast model data for today's evening, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. To improve the knowledge of the current air quality situation and to increase the awareness of the European public for environmental health issues, obsAIRve provides a special, intuitively understandable information product, the so called Common Air Quality Index (CAQI). The CAQI is a single integer value between 0 and 100 that concentrates measurement (or model) values of different species into a single number. The CAQI ensures that the citizens of the EU will benefit from an air quality service that shows easy comprehensible information obtained from scientifically solid base data.
GSE Forest Monitoring
After successfully conducting the first Stage of the ESA-supported GMES Service Element Forest Monitoring (GSE FM) from 2003-2005, GAF also acts as Prime Contractor for the Implementation Stage 2 of the GSE FM. With an international network of more than 65 partners from industry, research and public institutions from the Earth Observation Domain, the project aims to implement fully operational forest systems and services for an expanding user community in a constantly increasing geographical service area in a sustainable manner.
The services and products are based on a wide set of forestry and environmental policies and comprise highly accurate yearly carbon balance estimates compilations forest disturbance data and information products for practical forest and land use management operations such as:
- land use/cover and forest change maps
- clear cut/disturbance maps and related databases
- stand-type maps that support sub-national forest Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
- forest fragmentation and structural diversity maps
- stem volumes, biomass and carbon statistics and corresponding change data, as well as user-customised versions and/or combinations of the above
Visit GSE Forest Monitoring Website
geoland2 - Towards an operational Land Monitoring Core Service
The EU Framework Programme 7 collaborative project geoland2 aims at developing, testing, and demonstrating the core components of a future GMES Land Monitoring Core Service. GAF AG leads the European GMES forest component establishing pan-European processing chains and products.
BOSS4GMES
GAF contributes to the EU 6th Framework Programme (FP6) financed project BOSS4GMES (Building Operational Sustainable Services for GMES), which aims at ensuring the sustainable operation of GMES services by 2013. GAF's contributions focus on defining and establishing sustainable operational, structural, managerial and financial structures for a successful future Land Monitoring Core Service.
LIMES
The goal of the FP6 project LIMES (Land and Sea Integrated Monitoring for European Security) is to define and develop prototype information services in support of security management at European and global level. GAF contributes to water crisis management and early warning system development.
DeCOVER
DeCOVERGAF contributes to the German financed project DeCOVER which aims at developing and demonstrating an innovative concept for mapping and updating of an improved national land cover data base in support of public institutions' information and policy reporting needs.
CORINE Land Cover
GAF contributes to the CORINE Land Cover project CLC2006, which is now part of the European GMES project. The update of the CORINE database was one of the projects of the GMES Fast Track Service on Land Monitoring. High resolution satellite data with reference year 2006 are used to map all changes ≥ 5 ha.
Visit CORINE Land Cover Website
GMES Quality Bureau Project
The objective of this ESA-financed project is to define standards for commonly accepted certification and validation procedures that will improve the service quality as well as the perceived credibility and reliability of the European Earth Observation Service Industry, thus contributing to enabling long-term sustainable services.
