Emergency management
From 1 April 2012 the GMES Emergency management service entered into its initial operations. The core activity of the GMES Initial Operations for emergency management service (GIO EMS) is to provide mapping support for crisis management situations within Europe and internationally. The service addresses a wide range of emergency situations resulting from natural or man-made disasters (e.g. floods, forest fires, landslides, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and humanitarian crises). GIO EMS targets users in civil protection (National Civil Protection Offices – NCPOs) and humanitarian response communities offering maps that help emergency teams to timely respond to crisis situations.
For more information about current GIO EMS products and services, please visit GIO EMS website.
In-situ data such as orthophotos, digital elevations models (DEMs), transport networks, administrative and settlements boundaries, are essential information to create GIO EMS products. The data is used to process and validate satellite information and to form additional information layers in mapping products (e.g. reference maps based on pre-disaster images or delineation maps of the areas impacted by a disaster). On European level much of the required data is available in EU Member States. Environment agencies, mapping and cadastral agencies, and weather services also collect many in-situ datasets. Through visits, GISC raises awareness in the countries about the GMES related in-situ requirements and negotiates access to relevant data. One success of GISC is an agreement between EEA and Eurogeographics (EG), which is the membership association of the European cadastre, land registry and national mapping authorities. EG helps identifying available data in its member countries’ organisations and is developing access mechanisms.
On global scale, the data situation is challenging. GISC investigates open source data and a possible contribution through data from international organisations. Moreover, GISC is task leader in the Group of Earth Observations (GEO) of the component “Development, Maintenance and Coordination of Surface-based Observing Networks (in-situ and airborne)” which will help providing sustainable in-situ data also to the GMES emergency management service.
GISC’s progress related to the in-situ coordination for the GMES EMS is presented in the following documents. Further details can be found in the complete reports available under the project deliverables section of this website.
