Description:
In January 2020, EC and ESA launched a joint Earth System Science Initiative, formalised with the signature of a working arrangement between both institutions. The initiative aims at joining forces to advance Earth System Science to provide a coordinated response to the global challenges that society is facing at the onset of this century.
Eight initial Flagship Actions have been proposed and are under preparation. The Flagship action "Climate Adaptation to Extremes and Natural Hazards" aims to enhance our observation capacity and fundamental scientific understanding to deal with climate disruptions, multi-hazards risk, compound and cascade events, its interactions, and feedbacks with the Earth and climate system and its expected impacts on society and ecosystems.
Purpose of the event:
Organise user consultation in the frame of the EC–ESA Earth System Science Initiative, for the “Climate Adaptation to Extremes and Natural Hazards” flagship action, involving representatives from the institutional, scientific and private sector.
The consultation aims to define a roadmap for research and development projects utilizing space-based EO data to enhance our observation capacity and fundamental scientific understanding to deal with climate disruptions, multi-hazards risk, compound and cascade events, their interactions and feedbacks with the Earth and climate system and their expected impacts on society and ecosystems, as part of the ESA’s Science for Society component of the Future EO Programme.
Context:
Preparing Europe to deal with climate disruptions will require a quantum leap in our capacity to observe, understand and predict complex and inter-connected natural and anthropogenic processes occurring at different spatial and temporal scales.
Relying on the most comprehensive and sophisticated space-based Earth observation infrastructure in the world, Europe has now a unique opportunity to lead the global scientific efforts to build capacity to deal with the upcoming abrupt global environmental changes.
This workshop aims to look in-depth at the opportunities for Climate Adaptation to Extremes and Natural Hazards presented by the exceptional system of systems consisting of the Copernicus Sentinels, the ESA’s Earth Explorers, the coming meteorological missions and different EO observation satellites planned to be launched by national space agencies and private operators in Europe and to identify the necessary activities to be undertaken to ensure that the scientific community takes full advantage from this unique opportunity.
Objectives
• To collect and review the main requirements and needs from end-users to cope with hydro-climatic extremes and coastal hazards and to assess, monitor and predict the complex underlying Earth system processes governing such events and their impact on human activities and ecosystems
• To review the main ongoing activities, projects, services and initiatives on the topic;
• To assess the potential of the novel capabilities and synergistic potential of the latest EO satellite systems complemented with field measurements and citizen observations to address the identified user needs;
• To prepare a roadmap of collaborative scientific activities to be implemented in the ESA FutureEO-1 block 4 Programme, in collaboration with relevant institutions, initiatives and projects (funded by EC or national and international programmes) demonstrating the value of science, from scientific discovery to transferring the science results and technology developments into novel actionable solutions for society.