Istanbul 2004
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TOWARDS À EUROPEAN SERVICE CENTER FOR MONITORING LAND SURFACES
AT GLOBAL AND REGIONAL SCALES : THE GEOLAND / CSP PROJECT
a ; a 7270 * ^Ii t > > : i ; > i f i
Marc Leroy *, Roselyne Lacaze *, Ralf Lindau °, Folke Olesen ©, Luis Pessanha ¢, Isabelle Piccard °, Andries Rosema ‘, Jean-Louis
Roujean 5, Franz Rubel ", Wolfgang Wagner ! , Marie Weiss‘
" MEDIAS-France, 18, avenue E. Belin bpi 2102, 31401 Toulouse Cedex 9, France
? U. Bonn, Auf dem Huegel 20, 53121 Bonn, Germany
* Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Herrmann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany
? IM Portugal, Rua C ao Aeroporto de Lisboa, 1749-077 Lisboa, Portugal
* VITO, Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol, Belgium
' EARS, Kanaalweg 1, Delft, Netherland
* CNRM / Météo-France, 42 avenue G. Coriolis, 31057 Toulouse Cedex, France
hU. Wien, Veterinärplatz 1, 1210 Vienna, Austria
' TU Wien, Gusshausstrafie 27-29/122, 1040 Vienna, Austria
! NOVELTIS, Parc Technologique du Canal, 2 avenue de l'Europe, 31526 Ramonville, France
Commission IV, WG IV/8
KEY WORDS: Environment, Land, Vegetation, Global-Environmental-Databases, Algorithms, Processing
ABSTRACT:
The European GMES (Global Monitoring of the Environment and Security) initiative provides a political framework for future
implementations of Service Centers in charge of the provision of products and services related to environmental applications. The
GEOLAND project targets the land cover and vegetation thematic area of GMES. The goal of GEOLAND is to demonstrate pre-
operational capabilities by establishing strong and efficient producer / user relationships, with the objective of implementing GMES
operational services in 2008 and beyond. One of the main goals of GEOLAND is to address global land surface monitoring issues to
support related international and European policies. This activity has been structured in GEOLAND in one Core Service, the Bio-
geophysical Parameter Core Service, and three Observatories related to carbon flux, crop production and land cover change
estimates. The function of the Core Service is to provide value-added remote sensing products needed as input in the Observatories ;
the latter provide end users (including policy makers) with appropriate thematic products. After a series of introductory statements
on GMES and GEOLAND, the present paper focusses on the description of the Bio-geophysical Parameter Core Service. The team
produces a number of bio-geophysical products at continental and global scales : leaf area index, vegetation fraction cover,
downwelling radiation at surface level, surface temperature and humidity, burned areas, maps of water bodies, evapotranspiration,
and precipitation. Multi-year, multi-sensor products will be produced in the project lifetime, from a variety of spaceborne
instruments including VEGETATION, MERIS, POLDER, SEVIRI, METEOSAT, AVHRR, (A)ATSR, ERS / Scatt, and AMSR.
The paper describes the team organisation, the generated products and associated methodological principles and sensors.
hoc intergovernmental Group on Earth Observation (GEO) at
the international summit of Washington in July 2003.
1. INTRODUCTION
There is an increasing need of environmental databases, not
only for scientific purpose, not only for operational The GMES timeframe includes an implementation period,
meteorology, but also for many emerging applications at all where the demonstration of pre-operational capabilities should
scales, e.g, early warning of food shortage, carbon flux ^ be made, up to 2007, followed beyond 2008 by an operational
assessment, monitoring land cover and forest degradation, period with the onset of operational services. In the
urban and agricultural planning, water quality assessment, implementation period, GMES actions are being undertaken by
monitoring of protected areas, etc. EU, through the 6" Framework Program of the Research
General Directorate, and by ESA, with the onset of the so-
The GMES (Global Monitoring of Environment and Security) called GMES Service Elements program.
initiative led by the European Union (EU) and the European
Space Agency (ESA) constitutes an adequate framework for ^ The GMES initiative covers environmental issues related to the
providing not only space and ground segment infrastructures, Ocean, the Atmosphere and Land Surfaces. For the latter, the
assuring the operational continuity of space missions, but also GMES priorities are :
the future implementation of Service Centers in charge of the — Land Cover Change in Europe
provision of adequate products and services. — Environmental Stress in Europe
Ik As — and Global Vegetation Monitoring.
GMES can potentially be considered as a European component
of a wider international initiative which was set up by the ad
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