Missing Link: Copernicus program - how Europe watches over the world
Page 2: Mapping for disasters and crises
In addition to the monitoring and warning service, CEMS has various mapping services as a second component, which can provide an overview of the state of a region in general or in relation to an event (possible in the future or already occurred). Depending on the question, maps with additional information and reports are provided as time series (before, during, after an event) or over a longer period of time.
Since 2012, mapping services have been activated in over 800 cases, with a peak of 107 activations in 2023. The cases cover 130 countries, but the focus is on Europe.
After a catastrophic event, rapid mapping can provide initial images and situation information for the immediate response phase within a few hours. In Germany, for example, rapid mapping was activated during the floods in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate in July 2021 and the fire at the ammunition depot in Berlin's Grunewald forest.
The ERCC relies on service providers from a European consortium of companies to carry out the mappings. This includes e-GEOS and Ithaca (Italy), GAF and IABG (Germany), Telespazio Iberica (Spain), SERTIT and CLS (France), GMV (Portugal), Planetek Hellas (Greece) and Hensoldt Analytics (Austria). The consortium is contractually obliged to provide an initial assessment in the form of maps and vector layers within 2 hours in the event of a crisis. Further information from satellite data must be available within a maximum of 10 hours to enable a detailed assessment of the damage (extent of the affected area and degree of damage). The maps are created in a semi-automatic process. Although the CEMS teams analyze the earth observation data manually, they also draw on the help of AI algorithms to process the data.
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Risk & recovery mapping, on the other hand, is intended for the prevention, preparation and reduction of disaster risk or a crisis, but also for recovery after an event. Products of this mapping are only available after a few days. In 2016, for example, the BKK commissioned CEMS to produce a detailed mapping of the most important chemical industry locations in Germany.
Keeping an eye on the population and its infrastructure
The Global Human Settlement Layer(GHSL) is used in exposure mapping to better assess and respond to the risk to the population and the impact of disasters on residential buildings and infrastructure. The GHSL provides information on the status and temporal development of settlements and population density.
Papua New Guinea, for example, uses CEMS data for the planning and implementation of the upcoming census, and South Africa for the follow-up of such a population census. In 2020, the BKK had an inventory drawn up for Germany in the form of the Basic European Assets Map (BEAM) via Risk & Recovery Mapping. A BEAM shows the monetary assets per unit area (€/m²) as a kind of value map at various levels (type of use, population density).
To support German Agro Action, BKK commissioned a mapping of the border region between Afghanistan and Tajikistan in 2022 to determine the state of agriculture and infrastructure in detail. Machine learning was used to classify the cultivated areas (potatoes, wheat, etc.) from the satellite images and calculate productivity over a vegetation period. The data should help to provide an overview of the supply situation for the local population.
AI is now being used for detailed and rapid assessment of crop types, quantities and quality. Large-scale crop maps help to monitor the food supply.
Guardians of the sky and soil
The data used for this comes, among other things, from Europe's eyes in space, which watch over the earth with different viewing angles, sensors and resolutions. Copernicus has so-called "sentinels" for this purpose - the Sentinel satellites. In addition, there is data from other EU satellites and privately operated satellite missions.
Satellites offer different perspectives on the earth, but do not provide a complete picture of the situation. This is why Europe also uses various eyes on the ground that provide in-situ data (non-space data) and accesses other data sources. Weather and hydrological measuring stations, for example, regularly provide temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction as well as rain accumulation, but stream flow data is also measured.
Georeference data from authorities and institutions, open source datasets (OpenStreetMap) and crowdsourced data are also used. Information on administrative boundaries, transport and water networks, industrial and utility facilities, formal and informal settlements and population data (e.g. from censuses and other population statistics) is also collected. Where data is not available in sufficient quality, the visual interpretation of satellite data is used to close the data gaps as far as possible.
In emergency situations, CEMS also uses drones from state and private organizations in individual cases. A Copernicus Emergency Management Service Drone Operator Network was created for this purpose, which includes national disaster control authorities, fire departments, rescue services and companies specializing in aerial reconnaissance and surveillance. This drone network currently only exists in Europe.
Largest space data provider for AI
The EU is relying on big data analysis for Copernicus. AI and machine learning are to help evaluate and analyze this mass of data in various application areas.
For example, AI is already providing much more precise maps of snow depths from satellite images and will help to predict volcanic eruptions. AI is not only used to predict floods and inundations, but also after a flood to determine the damage to lost crops, for example. However, the mapping of individual affected buildings and damage assessment after events is currently carried out by humans, as AI is still too imprecise here. However, with the AI4Copernicus project, the EU now wants to support scientists, researchers, companies and interested parties in the development of AI systems.
Much of the data from the Copernicus earth observation program is made available free of charge. Alternatively, Copernicus earth data can also be processed and analyzed on data platforms in the cloud. The German Aerospace Center provides an overview of the various ways to access Copernicus data.
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