Copernicus is the European Union’s Earth Observation programme: a user-driven space programme under civil control. Copernicus monitors the Earth using its own dedicated constellation of satellites – the Sentinels – complemented by other satellites provided by Member States and other third parties, as well as utilising a range of non-space (‘in situ’) data sources. The Copernicus programme supports the protection of the environment and the efforts of Civil Protection and civil security, and contributes to European participation in global initiatives. Copernicus offers six different service lines: Emergency Management, Atmosphere Monitoring, Marine Environment Monitoring, Land Monitoring, Climate Change, and services for Security applications. The Emergency Management Service is provided free of charge to authorised users. More information on Copernicus can be found at the following location: http://copernicus.eu Copernicus at a Glance Thanks to the Copernicus programme, European Union Delegations, as the representatives of the EU abroad, have at their disposal mapping and early warning services for the management of natural and man-made disasters as well as humanitarian crises. The Copernicus Emergency Management Service can be of particular assistance to EU Delegations in facilitating response to disasters, supporting preparedness, prevention and disaster risk reduction activities or monitoring the progress of reconstruction efforts. The service provides maps and analyses to support decision-making and facilitate the work of actors involved in Civil Protection or Humanitarian Crises. IN SUPPORT TO EU DELEGATIONS mapping for disasters & crises COPERNICUS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERVICE
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Copernicus is the European Union’s Earth Observation programme: a user-driven space programme under civil control. Copernicus monitors the Earth using its own dedicated constellation of satellites – the Sentinels – complemented by other satellites provided by Member States and other third parties, as well as utilising a range of non-space (‘in situ’) data sources. The Copernicus programme supports the protection of the environment and the efforts of Civil Protection and civil security, and contributes to European participation in global initiatives. Copernicus offers six different service lines: Emergency Management, Atmosphere Monitoring, Marine Environment Monitoring, Land Monitoring, Climate Change, and services for Security applications. The Emergency Management Service is provided free of charge to authorised users. More information on Copernicus can be found at the following location: http://copernicus.eu
Copernicus at a Glance
Thanks to the Copernicus programme, European Union Delegations, as the representatives of the EU abroad, have at their disposal mapping and early warning services for the management of natural and man-made disasters as well as humanitarian crises. The Copernicus Emergency Management Service can be of particular assistance to EU Delegations in facilitating response
to disasters, supporting preparedness, prevention and disaster risk reduction activities or monitoring the progress of reconstruction efforts. The service provides maps and analyses to support decision-making and facilitate the work of actors involved in Civil Protection or
Humanitarian Crises.
IN SUPPORT TO EU DELEGATIONS
mapping fordisasters & crises
COPERNICUS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERVICE
What the EMS provides
The Copernicus Emergency Management ServiceThe Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) has been in operation since April 2012. It supports crisis managers, Civil Protection authorities and humanitarian aid actors dealing with natural disasters, man-made emergency situations, and humanitarian crises, as well as those involved in preparedness and recovery activities. As an EU service, the EMS’s first priority is responding to EU needs and interests, whether within the EU or abroad.
The EMS is provided under the overall political coordination and budgetary management of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) - as are all Copernicus services - and operated through the 24/7 Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) at the Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (DG ECHO). The Joint Research Centre (DG JRC) is in charge of technical support and contract management. The Situation Room (SITROOM) of the European External Action Service (EEAS), based in Brussels, acts as the single point of entry for the receipt of EMS Mapping activation requests from the EU Delegations. The SITROOM, which also functions in 24/7 mode, processes activation requests and forwards them to the ERCC. The service must be activated by an Authorised User (see back page, “Requesting the Service”). It is free of charge.
The Copernicus Emergency Management service has two main components, Early Warning and Mapping.
The EMS Early Warning Service
The Early Warning component of the EMS currently provides alerts related to floods, forest fire danger predictions as well as near real-time assessment of forest fire impacts. The European Flood Awareness System (EFAS1) provides flood probability forecasts for all European rivers. National authorities in Member States receive twice-daily pan-European flood forecast information up to 10 days ahead. A pan-European overview of ongoing floods is posted on the EFAS website and updated daily. An extension of the coverage of EFAS from European to global scale, called GloFAS2, is currently being tested and is accessible in pre-operational mode. The launch of a robust global operational system is envisaged for 2017.
The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS3) is a web-based geographic information system that provides fire danger forecasts up to 10 days in advance and near real-time and historical information on forest fires and their regimes in the European, Middle East and North Africa regions. Fire monitoring in EFFIS encompasses the full fire cycle, and the service provides information both on pre-fire conditions and post-fire damages. The extension of EFFIS towards a Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS4) is underway. A prototype of GWIS already exists, providing, as within EFFIS, fire danger forecast information and active fire locations. The inclusion of burnt area maps and fire damage assessment in GWIS is anticipated as from 2016.
The EMS Mapping Service
The Mapping Service is provided in two configurations:
Rapid Mapping (RM) is the delivery of maps (and analyses) within hours or days, immediately following a catastrophic event. The EMS Rapid Mapping service can be used in the case of disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, floods, severe storms, landslides, forest fires or industrial accidents (e.g. explosions, oil spills), as well as humanitarian crises (e.g. monitoring refugee and IDP - Internally Displaced People - camps).
Risk & Recovery Mapping (RRM) is the delivery of maps (and analyses) within weeks or months, in support of activities dealing with the prevention, preparedness, disaster risk reduction and recovery phases. Information for different hazards on the exposure, vulnerability and resilience of people and buildings can be requested. The RRM component can complement a post-disaster needs assessment and assist in the development of recovery plans. By comparing images taken at different points in time, the progress of donor-funded reconstruction and recovery projects and programmes can be monitored. EU Delegations can benefit from this component of the service to monitor the progress of related projects and programmes under their supervision.
More detailed descriptions of the products offered by the Copernicus EMS are available in the dedicated brochures for Rapid Mapping, Risk & Recovery Mapping and Early Warning. Electronic versions of these documents are available at: http://emergency.copernicus.eu/
Satellite imagery enables the identification of important features which provide valuable information for emergency management as well as preparedness, prevention and risk reduction activities. The examples opposite, taken from previous activations of the Copernicus EMS, illustrate the kind of information available to users in the form of maps, analyses and reports which Copernicus EMS places at their disposal.
The Copernicus Emergency Management Service provides maps based on satellite imagery to support disaster management as well as preparedness, risk reduction and recovery activities.
DG ECHO/ERCC staff examine maps during response operations following the Balkan floods in 2014 (Credits: DG ECHO/Viktorija Jeras).
Damage assessment - Maps and Analysis (Central African Republic, 2014)
Refugee Camp Monitoring - Map and Analysis (Jordan, 2013)
Maps and analysis supporting decision-making
The extent of damages to buildings and infrastructure following a disaster or a violent conflict can be assessed and access roads, shelter, and evacuation routes can be identified. This example is from an activation over Bangui, Central African Republic, after the violent clashes in December 2013. The activation was requested by DG ECHO for humanitarian aid operators working in the area.
The boundary and density of temporary settlements can be assessed as a proxy for determining the affected population (and hence, the amount of aid - food, medicine, water – required). The accuracy of such analysis is context-dependent (see overleaf).
This is an extract from a monitoring map of the Al Za’atari refugee camp near the city of Al Mafraq in Jordan. Since 2012, the camp has been sheltering increasing numbers of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria. EMS products were requested by the German Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) to support the on-site planning of camp construction and operation activities, in cooperation with UNHCR and its partners. The map, which is part of a series of monitoring maps, shows the camp structure and key buildings, and provides an analysis of the number of facilities.
Understanding the spread of Ebola using CopernicusIn the context of the Ebola crisis in West Africa, the EMS was activated with the aim of identifying areas of palm oil cultivation. Fruit bats, which dwell on oil palms, are believed to be the primary transmission vectors of the disease, and epidemiologists used the EMS maps and analysis as a means of locating high-risk areas where potential victims might be found.
RAPID MAPPING
RAPID MAPPINGPopulation displacement following conflict or humanitarian crisis
Assessment of damages after disaster or armed conflict RAPID MAPPING
Assessment of vulnerability to hazards
The exposure of populations or assets (e.g. buildings) to risk from a range of natural hazards can be assessed. This example is from an activation of the service for Rio Mamore, Bolivia in 2014. Local authorities expressed the need to better understand the vulnerability of populations and infrastructure in flood-prone areas. Proposals related to protection measures and evacuation plans for the most populated areas were delivered in a report which accompanied the mapping products. This is an extract from a flood risk assessment, showing the exposed assets at risk, visualised as a risk index between 1 (low) and 4 (very high).
Flood Risk Assessment - Maps and Report (Bolivia, 2014)
RISK & RECOVERY MAPPING
Analysis: Based on
the interpretation of the
satellite imagery, estimates
of affected population and
settlements are provided
by the service.
Map: This extract from a Copernicus EMS grading map shows the extent of
damage to buildings, graded in severity from dark red (destroyed) to yellow
(possibly affected).
The benefits and limitations of satellite imagery Using satellite imagery to acquire information about a situation on the ground offers numerous advantages: >Information about difficult-to-access locations can be obtained (e.g. remote, conflict-stricken and border areas). >Radar satellites (such as Copernicus’ Sentinel-1) can acquire imagery at night and irrespective of weather conditions (e.g. even when cloudy) >Large areas can quickly be assessed for damages to transport and building infrastructure; this can be particularly valuable in dense urban areas with large populations. >It is possible to monitor an area over a period of time to observe changing phenomena such as the expansion of urban areas or settlements, the movements of displaced populations, and the progress of construction activities.
Requesting the service How does it work?
EU Delegations are well positioned to serve as an interface to the EMS, either as requestors of the Copernicus EMS or as a facilitator and entry point for national or regional authorities of affected countries which wish to request the activation of the service. Activating the Copernicus Emergency Management Service requires the intervention of an “Authorised User”. Member States’ National Focal Points and EC services can activate the EMS. The EEAS Situation Room (SitRoom) is also an Authorised User, and acts as the point of contact for activations from EU Delegations. DG ECHO’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) is ultimately responsible for authorising the start of the map production process.
What do I have to do?
To activate the service and request maps: >Fill in the relevant Service Request Form (SRF): Rapid Mapping SRF or the Risk & Recovery Mapping SRF (available at http://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/ems/how-use-service) >Send it to [email protected] and [email protected] >Telephone the SitRoom (open any time of day or night, all year round) to indicate that the form has been sent: +32-2-584.5000
Eligibility check for Rapid Mapping requests
Copernicus EMS Mapping requests are subject to eligibility checks. The criteria specify that the activation should address emergency situations or humanitarian crises related to large-scale natural disasters or man-made accidents (scope) and the event must pose a serious impact on lives, property, environment and/or cultural heritage (impact), which is expected to exceed the capacity of the national or regional authorities concerned. For Rapid Mapping activations, the event should require an imminent response, typically within 24 hours (urgency). In case an activation is found to be sensitive in regard to
EU security interests, the ERCC will take appropriate measures, either restricting information dissemination to specific users, suggesting a modification of the area of interest, blurring part of the area on the map, passing the request on to the Copernicus Services for Security applications or even rejecting the activation altogether. EU Delegations can support the initial assessment of whether a service activation placed on behalf of national or regional authorities is likely to be accepted by the ERCC by, for example, providing contextual information, clarifying the scale of the event and the exact location of the area of interest. They can also serve as facilitators in efficiently collecting the required information from national or regional authorities wishing to activate the service, thus enabling the processing of the activation to be carried out with a minimum of delay.
Activate early for best results
The time taken to acquire the satellite imagery is one of the main factors affecting the speed of service delivery. For optical satellites, there is a “window of opportunity” on any given day for acquiring imagery, which is generally up to and around midday (when shadows are at their minimum length and the probability of acquiring high quality imagery is highest). After this, the satellites have already made their pass over the target area, and the acquisition is put on hold until the following day (or days) - affecting the entire service delivery chain. Taking into account the time taken to programme an image acquisition, the following approach is recommended:
(1) Informing the SitRoom (which will then pass the information on to the ERCC) of the possibility of an imminent service activation. This “pre-alerting” allows preparatory steps to be taken which can speed up service delivery when the activation is eventually requested.(2) Activating the Copernicus EMS as early as possible after the disaster event, or in anticipation of it (in cases where early warning information is available), thus maximising the possibility of timely image acquisition.
For detailed information on the portfolio of the EMS and its activations, see http://emergency.copernicus.eu
For more information on the Copernicus EMS service and how to activate it, please contact
Considerations to be taken into account when satellite imagery is used include the following: >Optical satellites can only acquire images during the day, and image quality can be severely degraded by the presence of clouds, haze or smoke. >The accuracy and quality of the mapping results can vary depending on the nature of the phenomena observed.
