New advances will be made soon in Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) with the European Commission’s imminent publication of a communication on development of the space segment of this European system of Earth observation in the areas of the environment and the security of people and property. Indeed, GMES is not an ex nihilo creation. The system already includes land, air and even space tools developed in Europe at national level, through multinational cooperation and in European initiatives undertaken by the EU in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA). The challenge is to reinforce the evolution of this patchwork of instruments into a more integrated, more complete and more operational system leading to the development of a host of specific services that can be used across the planet and that will give rise to technological innovation and novel applications for the benefit of environmental protection, the fight against climate change, prevention and management of natural or man-made disasters and so on.

MATCHING RESOURCES AND GOALS

GMES was created in May 1998 on the shores of Lake Maggiore, in Baveno, Italy, with a declaration of intent signed by space agencies in Europe at a time when Europe seemed hesitant even as the need for comprehensive, permanent and reliable earth observation and monitoring was starting to be seen as increasingly relevant. The Commission itself notes that, at the time, apart from operational meteorology, many Earth observation services available in Europe were “unreliable due to infrastructure gaps and lack of guarantees on their availability in the long term”. This was “a cause for concern for end users like public authorities, but also for downstream service providers, who are reluctant to invest significantly in non-mature, risky markets and would face additional difficulties raising capital for such investment”.

The ‘Baveno manifesto’ was meant to create political impetus. It emphasised the vital need for interaction among all innovative technologies, including observation satellites, in order to meet these new crucial needs. The initiative led, in May 1998, to the EU’s decision, in partnership with its member states and the ESA, to give Europe “a major service of general interest in supplying information on the environment and for security”. In the following decade, all players made very substantial efforts, notes the Commission, to determine the scope of services, identify implementation priorities and create certain space infrastructures that were lacking, via an ESA programme. On 17 September 2008, a significant step was taken with the official announcement, at the GMES Forum in Lille, of the first services to users available in pre-operational mode: services related to the marine environment and the atmosphere, and services related to land, emergency services and security.

LAND AND SPACE INFRASTRUCTURES

GMES comprises development activities and an operational phase. To date, GMES services are incomplete, explains the Commission. They are not yet fully and permanently globally available and their sustainability is not yet fully guaranteed. The system includes two components. The first, the in situ component, is made up of “a large number of facilities, instruments and services owned and operated at national, regional and intergovernmental levels inside and outside the EU”. These infrastructures provide data for the monitoring of the Earth’s oceans, continental surfaces and atmosphere. They provide information, explain the experts, on the chemistry of the atmosphere, air quality, ice cover and soils, as well as geophysical data. The second, the space component, is the infrastructure for observation of terrestrial, atmospheric and oceanographic parameters. In practical terms, it will be based on both existing or planned European space infrastructure, ie primarily ESA, EUMETSAT and member states’ satellites, and on space infrastructure to be co-financed by the EU and the ESA, notably the programme meant to develop and build satellite missions known as ‘Sentinels’.

DECISIVE SUPPORT UNDER FP7

Investments are needed, including in space infrastructure, to remedy current gaps in GMES services and ensure their long-term reliability and continuity. The Commission recommended, in November 2008, as a means of ensuring “cost-efficient development of GMES,” to “build the system in a modular or phased implementation approach based on available space and ground-based resources”. Concerning development activities, notes the Commission, the Seventh European Research and Technological Development Framework Programme (RTDFP) contributes to the development of space infrastructure and the financing of the above-mentioned pre-operational services with a budget of €1.2 billion for the period 2007-2013, of which around €550 million for the development of services.

In Lille, the stakeholders nevertheless agreed on the need to supplement existing research appropriations during the 2011-2013 period in order to launch operational services “in areas where services risk being interrupted”. A fully-fledged GMES will have to be adopted under the next multiannual financial framework, ie from the 2014 budget exercise. Part of the development and operating costs of all the space facilities and in situ facilities, adds the Commission, will have to be borne by the EU member states and by intergovernmental organisations because “EU financing of the total costs for all the necessary infrastructure could violate the proportionality and subsidiarity principles”. European credits will be allocated as a matter of priority to investments for which a Community intervention “will provide clear added value”.

When the time comes, the Commission does not rule out private investments in the development of services. It notes that GMES services primarily target the public authorities but that “where not precluded by the security interests of the EU and its member states,” they will offer possibilities for private sector use of their data. Public investments “will encourage enterprises to explore new ways of integrating observation, communication and information technologies and are expected to facilitate commercial adoption by suppliers of value added services, among them a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)”. The EU executive expects the development of commercial outlets to bring down the proportion of public investments, “even though this is unlikely to happen in the short or medium term”.

The observations possible under GMES will cover the following areas:

Air quality and atmospheric environment: The GMES atmosphere service will allow monitoring and forecast of the chemical composition of the atmosphere (including stratospheric ozone and ultraviolet radiation) and monitoring of air quality at European level. This service will have wide applications, including the forecasting of ozone peaks, cross-border circulation of pollutants and analysis of implications on health, agricultural production and livestock.

C limate change: A service is expected to be set up in the future to provide data on the evolution of climate parameters.

M arine environment: The experts report that the marine core service provides valuable data on marine resources serving as input for decisions to be taken to deal with disasters, such as the Erika oil spill. They explain, for example, that, with this tool, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) offers an oil slick observation service and models have been developed that make it possible to determine the identity of the ships responsible.

E mergency situations: Decisive information (including emergency maps) will be made available to member state emergency response services and to the main United Nations agencies concerned, including in the areas of civil protection, humanitarian aid and crisis management, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, “so that they can respond to emergencies and humanitarian disasters more efficiently and effectively”.

T erritorial management: A specific service will produce Europe-wide mapping for the implementation and monitoring of European initiatives, such as the biodiversity strategy, agricultural policy and water management under the framework directive, and at local level, to manage problems like land use in urban areas and noise modelling.

M onitoring of borders and maritime surveillance: A number of tests and pilot projects have already been conducted or are under way in the context of EU research programmes and the ESA’s GMES Services Elements Programme, in association with the EU satellite centre. The example given by the Commission is the LIMES maritime surveillance project, which also responds to EU requirements under maritime policy.

S ecurity and defence: The importance of European space capacities as a strategic strength is highlighted in the 2008 report by the high representative for CFSP and the European Commission on the impact of climate change on international security. Space programmes, such as GMES and Galileo, have a civilian definition, unlike the American GPS and Russia’s GLONASS, for example, but it is obvious that their multi-use capacity means they can be used by security services and military forces. A horizontal action concerning information security is being implemented to prepare the plan for data exchange in the field of security.

The system already includes land, air and even space tools developed in Europe at national level