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German contribution to the Group on Earth Observations and the establishment of the Global Earth Observation System of SystemsGEOSS in brief :: About GEO :: About D-GEO :: European contributions - GMES and INSPIRE :: German Contributions :: Documents :: News |
European Contributions - GMES and INSPIRE |
Documents and Links |
In the context of the joint activities GMES and INSPIRE, Europe
delivers important and coordinated contributions to GEOSS and positions
itself together with the national contributions of the member states
as strong partners in GEOSS. The European Commission is one of the
four GEO co-chairs together with the USA, China and South Africa.
It bundles and represents the European community interests in the
GEO. Two European Countries hold rotating seats in the Executive Committee. They are nominated by the European GEO Members for two years.
Presently, these are France (up to 2010) and Italy (up to 2011). |
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„GMES“ (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security, GMES) is a joint initiative of the European Union and ESA with the goal of developing an operational European earth observation capacity. It will create efficient information services supporting public and private services for environment and security. GMES is the second "flagship" of European space-based applications, alongside GALILEO. It contains Europe's main contribution to GEOSS. Services for land applications, marine environment, rapid mapping support for emergency anc crisis management, and air qualtity are currently in a pilot operations phase. Further services are being developed and will follow gradually. |
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| „Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe“ (INSPIRE) is the EU directive to harmonize Geo Data in Europe, which entered into force on May 15, 2007. With INSPIRE the conditions of interoperable data management and improved data are created. This is at the same time an important contribution for the harmonization of Geo Data Infrastructures globally. | |
| Building the Integrated Carbon Observing System (ICOS) Europe is creating an infrastructure for monitoring regional carbon balances over the long term. ICOS consists of observation networks for measuring the atmospheric CO2 concentration and fluxes in representative ecosystems and the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, and the northern Atlantic. Through GEOSS this system can be complemented with satellite measurements and can be integrated into a global carbon observation system. ICOS is considered the European component of the "Integrated Global Carbon Observation System" (IGCO). The European Commission currently funds an ICOS preparatory phase. After that the EU Member States are expected to operate ICOS. |
