The EUGENE project and its contributions to the GEO Ministerial

1. The EUGENE project and its contributions to the GEO Ministerial 4th GEO European Projects Workshop 29/30 April 2010

2. Objectives and expected outcome • EUGENE: Improving coordination, visibility and impact of European GEOSS contributions by establishing a EUropean GEO NEtwork • Foster collaboration and strengthen coordination of European programmes and organisations in their work towards GEO • Significant national programmes and organisations also addressed • Contribute to a coherent European position with special attention to 2010 Ministerial Summit • Contribute to a European GEO strategy by proposing a structured approach for selected societal benefit areas (SBAs) • Contribute to a process that ultimately leads to a strong European GEOSS component fully applying GEO principles

3. Partnership and main tasks

4. Scope and Methodology Consider to address additional SBAs in the course of the project Consider to address additional SBAs in the course of the project Today

5. Current status • Project kick-off on 5 October 2009 • Project Website www.eugene-fp7.eu • Status quo study reports • Draft reports for all three SBAs so far • To be reviewed and further developed by expert workshops • „Living documents“ for the time being • Publication on the EUGENE website in autumn • EUGENE expert workshops • Climate: 26-27 April, EUMETSAT, Darmstadt • Water: 11-12 May, Federal Institute of Hydrology, Koblenz • Disasters: 1 June, DLR/Helmholtz Bureau, Brussels • Besides strategic issues, contributions to the Beijing Ministerial to be discussed at the workshops

6. Climate SBA • Initial Situation: • National Met.-Offices routinely share their data (add. other data are needed) • Earth observation requirements have extensively been studied, e.g. GCOS Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) • abundant relevant European activities and strengths • Climate (change) topic is a political priority • Issues raised at the workshop 26/27 April, focus Europe: • Lack of coordinated European framework for sustainedClimate activities (future role for GMES?) • Maintaining a high-quality global network of in-situ observations, Europe needs global data sets • Important activities are carried out on a project basis, due to a lack of funding no transfer to sustained operations. • However add. operations must not weaken support/funding for research! • sparseness of ocean data • Common definition of terms (future GEO tasks?) • Data quality, access, exchange, availability needs improvement (GEO DSP!)

7. Climate SBA ctd • Issues raised at the workshop 26/27 April ctd: • Climate theme has it’s own link to the political level via UNFCC, WCC etc. • GCOS as the climate contribution to GEO well structured, full European support • Satellite data with growing importance, in-situ not to be neglected • Strategic work needs further discussions, initial major aspects are • Full support to GCOS, incl. Capacity building via GCOS Implem. Plan • European framework for climate services for a better global standing • Possible contributions to Beijing Exhibition: • JRC will give input for a “European Landscape” of climate centres/institutions and their work/output. This “map” presenting the information interactively and electronically on a screen. Experts of the EUGENE team will further discuss technical solutions to this idea.

8. Water SBA • Initial Situation: • Restrictive data sharing policies and lower level of collaboration • Requirements consolidation more complex • Issues raised: • Observational gaps: Many terrestrial parameters cannot be measured from space! Alarming trends in the development of hydrological in-situ networks! • Hydrological applications (esp. forecasting) hampered by unsatisfying situation regarding data sharing • Possible contributions to Beijing: • To be discussed at expert workshop (11-12 May, Koblenz, Germany)

9. Disasters SBA • Initial Situation: • Many different types of disasters • Prominent role of emergency response in the framework of GMES • GEOSS addresses all phases of the risk management cycle (mitigation and preparedness, early warning, response, and recovery) • Issues raised: • Natural disasters in Europe often meteorological disasters • Collaboration of GMES and meteorological warning systems could be enhanced • Relationship of International Charter and GMES • Possible contributions to Beijing: • Emergency response activities: E.g. Haiti earth quake (SAFER) • To be discussed at expert workshop (1 June, Brussels)

10. General considerations regarding contributions to the Beijing exhibition • Visibility of broad European activities and technical/scientific strengths in earth observation • GMES as Europe’s main contribution to GEOSS • Eye-catching presentation of European achievements • 3D presentation considered (3d screen and glasses to be provided to visitors) • Glossy report • European achievements/contributions in the areas of Climate, Disasters, and Water • Workshop outputs as far as suitable for the global audience

11. Thank you for your attention! www.eugene-fp7.eu