The contract, entitled “Copernicus Emergency Management Risk and Recovery”, was signed with the JRC, the in-house science and knowledge management service of the European Commission who is in charge of running the EMS through service contracts. It was awarded to a consortium led by e-GEOS that include leading European companies and universities.
It covers the supply of satellite maps and digital vector datasets to be used for managing emergencies caused by natural disasters (earthquakes, flooding, fires, and landslides) as well as human-made emergency situations and humanitarian crises throughout the world. This service consists of the on-demand provision of geospatial information which supports emergency management activities not related to the immediate response phase.
This service addresses prevention, preparedness, disaster risk reduction or recovery phases and is divided in 2 sub-categories. Risk and Recovery Standard (RRM) for a predefined set of standardized products and Risk and Recovery Flex for tailor made studies. The RRM standard service offers standard portfolio of products that cross the various support themes in the phases before and after emergencies.
This activity is included in one of the operational service that e-GEOS operates since 2012 for the European Copernicus programme for Earth observation and in particular in the emergency management field.
Within Copernicus Emergency Management Service agreement, e-GEOS heads a consortium made up of its subsidiaries GAF (Germany) and Telespazio Ibèrica (Spain), and partners ITHACA (Italy), SIRS and Strasbourg University (France), IABG (Germany) as well as GMV (Portugal). The team acquires and processes satellite data that comes primarily from remote sensing platforms, and makes maps available within a few hours of the service being activated by one of the authorised users (EU Member States and Copernicus participating states, European Commission Services and EU Agencies), showing the areas struck by a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis.
Massimo Claudio Comparini, Head of the Geoinformation Business Line at Telespazio, a joint venture between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%), and CEO of e-GEOS, said: “e-GEOS is proud to head a new successful teams that see international partners work together effectively with a single common goal - to guarantee the provision of very high-quality services to the European Union and our users. With the support of its industrial shareholders, Telespazio and Leonardo, and the Italian Space Agency, e-GEOS continues to invest in new technologies, and aims to confirm its leadership as a supplier of services for the European Copernicus programme”.