Global Monitoring for Environment and Security : from the early ideas to the construction of a European plan in the context of a European Strategy for Space (original) (raw)
GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) is an idea which originated during a meeting organized by the European Commission in Baveno, Italy, in May 1998. This meeting generated what was called at the time the “Baveno initiative”, a call for Europe to get its act together in the field of environment monitoring from space, define a well articulated strategy in this area and build upon its excellent scientific research community, its proven technical prowess in Earth observation from space and its nascent political will to express its objectives in international fora related to climate change and other global environment topics. Indeed, Europe was very active in the eighties and nineties in the most advanced areas of global monitoring but its rather uncoordinated efforts (even within the European Commission) lacked visibility. They also did not appear to fit into a clearly established strategy. The Baveno initiative was an attempt to remedy this situation. It had to build upon a growing European concern with global environment protection issues and find its proper place within a developing “European Strategy for Space” where the European Space Agency and the European Union are more and more required to work together. GMES was also extended to include the “security” aspects of global monitoring, the word “security” being understood in its wider sense, a move that produced a number of questions and misunderstandings, but opened the door for many in Europe to realize that monitoring activities of the Earth’ land masses, oceans and atmosphere do include a security dimension. GMES is first and foremost an attempt to define a European strategy. It is not a space project, nor even a monitoring programme, but will eventually incorporate an implementation plan which will call upon various monitoring techniques, including observations from space and in situ, ambitious modelling projects and connections with society’s more urgent requirements with respect to environment protection and prevention or reduction of risks related to natural hazards. This will entail significant efforts to inform the user communities and to convince them of the relevance and usefulness of this initiative. It will also provide a sound basis for the European contribution to the new initiative for an improved coordination of strategies and systems for Earth observations called for by the Earth Observation Summit held in Washington on July 31st, 2003.
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