e-GEOS, a company established by Telespazio (80%) and the Italian Space Agency (20%), has been reconfirmed head of the consortium that provides the Emergency Management Service (EMS) – Rapid Mapping services for the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
In fact, the European Commission has renewed the 36 million euro contract for the provision of satellite maps for the emergency management sector for the fourth time. The contract, which has been managed by the e-GEOS-led consortium for the past 10 years, will run from 2023-2029 as part of the operational division of the Copernicus European Union’s Earth observation programme, a unique global service in the field of emergency management.
Under the new contract, the consortium will provide the European Commission with on-demand satellite maps of areas affected by natural disasters or humanitarian crises within just a few hours from request (2 hours for initial assessment and a maximum of 10 hours for the complete range of services).
EMS – Rapid Mapping, which is active 24 hours a day 365 days a year, will be operated by a consortium led by e-GEOS and its German subsidiary GAF, Telespazio Iberica in Spain, the Italian company Ithaca, French partners Sertit and CLS, GMV in Portugal, IABG in Germany, Planetek Hellas in Greece and Hensoldt Analytics in Austria.
Since its launch in 2012, the service has been used to monitor more than 650 events, delivering over 5000 satellite maps to more than 46 countries, both in Europe and worldwide. The European Commission provides all civil protection, emergency and territory management users in Europe with maps free of charge, facilitating damage assessment procedures, allowing relief agencies to respond much more quickly and efficiently. To ensure worldwide coverage, coordinated access to multi-mission satellite data is guaranteed by the European Space Agency (ESA) within the framework of an EU delegation agreement.
“I am really proud that e-GEOS and the entire consortium has been reconfirmed as Europe’s technological reference point for a service that is useful for every citizen. This international team has developed unprecedented skills and know-how in the world of geoinformation services which, today, given the growing emergency situations, have become more important than ever before”, states Paolo Minciacchi, CEO of e-GEOS. “With this contract, e-GEOS and its industrial shareholders, Telespazio and Leonardo, reaffirms its leadership as a provider of services and technologies to support emergency management”.
Copernicus EMS Rapid Mapping is a well-established, internationally recognised service, which is further confirmed by the positive feedback and engagement of its users across Europe. A European success story for all EMS-RM stakeholders, including the European Commission, the European Space Agency and other service providers, that work to improve and consolidate the service in this ever-evolving domain.
Over the term of the 6-year contract, this state-of-the-art service will be further improved by leveraging technology and digitization to deliver maps at an increasingly faster rate. With this is mind, a new Situational Reporting has been added to the Rapid Mapping portfolio, providing key information on the disaster-affected area, such as the exposed population and critical infrastructure, photographic images and open-source data and multimedia content and other useful information to assess the impact of the disaster, within the first 4 hours of activation, which will be updated as and when new information and products become available.
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