The role of the european space agency in global change observations

Abstract

In the last several decades, environmental issues that affect our planet have mobilised scientists, governments, financial institutions, citizen groups, private companies and environmental organisations in the entire world. The need for understanding of these problems has galvanised several scientific communities with the modellers, in particular, at the forefront. Most Earth Science models require input and control data, which, by their global nature, could only be provided through the observation of the Earth by remote sensing satellites. The European Space Agency has been developing Earth Observation satellites for more than 30 years for the meteorological community (e.g the METEOSAT satellite series) this has been expanded within the last 16 years toward the environment in general with the ERS-1, ERS-2 and ENVISAT satellites, (Fig. 3.1). Now following the positive demonstration that these environmental satellites are a fundamental data source for understanding and monitoring the environment, the European Space Agency togetherwith the European Commission have agreed on the Global Monitoring for the Environment and Security programme. In this programme, after having actively participated in its definition, the European Space Agency is responsible for the development of the Space segment and the corresponding operational satellite series, Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 (Fig. 3.1). In the mean time the European Space Agency continues to investigate new technology capabilities through a series of Earth Explorer satellites each addressing challenging Earth systems questions (Fig. 3.2) World governments have signed several multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) pursuing solutions to alleviate environmental degradation worldwide. As an example, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, resulted in the definition of Agenda 21, a comprehensive plan of action to be implemented by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment, and the subsequent signature of multilateral environmental agreements such as the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (UNCBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The roadmap initiated in 1992 was continued at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002. In fact, during the Johannesburg meeting, governments reinforced their commitment to sustainable development and its implementation at the local, regional, national, and international levels and recognised MEAs as useful instruments to achieve that objective. The implementation of environmental conventions requires the collection, analysis and understanding of a huge amount of environmental information from local to global scales. This information serves environmentalists, to better understand the scientific background of the problems faced, policy makers, as a support for decision taking, environmental agencies, to put in place environmental plans and even the Convention Secretariats and related implementation bodies, to better assess the performance of the convention and apply enforcement procedures when necessary. In this context, EO technology can provide a significant contribution by: Improving the scientific knowledge of the environmental problems addressed; Improving the basis for execution of National Action Plans (NAPs); Improving regulatory performance of MEAs; Broadening the political process; Contributing to create common databases and reporting procedures among different Conventions; Climate change is a global issue. It must be addressed with globalmodels and global data are needed as input to these models. Earth Observation has a unique capacity to provide such global data sets in a continuous and consistent manner. However, Earth Observation also provides data on national and local scales, which can help in the implementation of the convention and protocol, and support the Parties in their reporting duties.