Enhancing Earth observation services for emergency management

Previous security-related projects such as G-MOSAIC developed technologically non-mature geospatial crisis management services and identified related gaps. Further research and development is needed to transform them into operational products and services.

Building on the outcomes of and lessons learned from previous projects, the EU-funded G-SEXTANT (Service provision of geospatial intelligence in EU external actions support) project addresses technological and governance-related gaps in order to develop a standardised portfolio of EO products and services.

Overall, the aim is to support the geospatial information needs of EU external action users and stakeholders, such as the European External Action Service (EEAS). This includes mapping and EO products ready for deployment during emergencies and crises.

To achieve this, project partners will perform demonstrations in six key scenarios that cover services for security applications: humanitarian crises, natural resources, land conflict situation awareness, nuclear activities, illicit crop monitoring and border surveillance beyond the EU. All project results will consider feedback from users to improve the final operational EO products and services.

During the first reporting period, security user scenarios were defined. In mid-2013, the project started delivering pre-operational services and receiving requests from users. These services, which terminated at the end of 2014, included event-driven responses and periodic or non-event-driven responses. The development of technological tools and thematic studies for each scenario is underway.

Ongoing work in G-SEXTANT is helping to develop functioning products and services that support intelligence from satellite-based EO data. The security user community will greatly benefit, resulting in the better protection of European citizens.