Understanding Copernicus: The European Union’s Earth Observation Program

hat is Copernicus?

Copernicus is a groundbreaking initiative by the European Union (EU) aimed at developing information services based on Earth observation data collected from satellites and in situ (non-space) sources. The program is primarily implemented by the European Commission (EC) with support from the European Space Agency (ESA) for the space component, and the European Environment Agency (EEA) for the in situ component.

Copernicus's primary objective is to monitor and predict the state of the Earth's environment—whether terrestrial, maritime, or atmospheric. This initiative plays a crucial role in supporting strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation, efficient emergency management, and enhancing citizen safety. The data provided by Copernicus is instrumental in ensuring public safety, offering critical insights into natural disasters such as wildfires and floods, thereby helping to prevent loss of life, property, and environmental damage.

The program is designed with user needs in mind, providing comprehensive, open, and free information services to public authorities. Copernicus is powered by dedicated satellites known as Sentinels, supplemented by additional contributing missions operated by various commercial and national agencies. Since the launch of Sentinel-1A in 2014, the EU has been working towards a constellation of nearly 20 satellites by 2030. These satellite data are further validated with in situ data, ensuring high accuracy and reliability.

The Six Copernicus Services

Copernicus transforms vast amounts of comprehensive, free, and open data into value-added information by processing and analyzing them into services and products such as informative maps and datasets. The six key Copernicus services include:

1. Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
2. Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS)
3. Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS)
4. Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S)
5. Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS)
6. Copernicus Security Service

What is CEMS - Mapping?

The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) leverages satellite imagery and other geospatial data to provide free mapping services during natural disasters, human-made emergencies, and humanitarian crises globally. It covers a wide array of events, including:

• Floods
• Earthquakes
• Landslides
• Severe storms
• Fires
• Technological disasters
• Volcanic eruptions
• Humanitarian crises
• Tsunamis

CEMS mapping services are available throughout all phases of the emergency management cycle. The maps produced by CEMS are delivered in two temporal modes:

1. Rapid Mapping: Provides geospatial information within hours or days of activation, supporting emergency management activities immediately after a disaster. Standardized mapping products are provided to determine the situation before the event (reference product), identify and roughly assess the most affected areas (first estimate product), evaluate the geographical extent of the event (delineation product), or assess the severity of the damages (grading product).
2. Risk and Recovery Mapping: Offers on-demand geospatial information to support disaster management activities unrelated to immediate response, particularly for prevention, preparedness, risk reduction, and recovery phases. The products are categorized into three main types: Reference Maps, Pre-disaster Situation Maps, and Post-disaster Situation Maps.

Examples of CEMS Data and Maps in Action

The CEMS plays a crucial role in emergency response and disaster management by providing detailed data and maps on a wide variety of incidents. These maps assist in making quick and informed decisions during critical situations. Key functionalities of CEMS include:

• Reference Maps: Provide an overview of the affected area before the event, helping to understand existing infrastructure and terrain conditions.
• Change Detection Maps: Created based on satellite imagery captured before and after the event, these maps show significant changes in the landscape, such as destruction of infrastructure or changes in land use.
• Damage Assessment Maps: Offer detailed evaluations of damages caused by natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and wildfires, aiding in prioritizing areas that need immediate assistance.
• Risk and Vulnerability Maps: Identify areas susceptible to future disasters, enabling the implementation of preventive and mitigation measures.

List of Emergencies Covered by CEMS

The list of emergencies addressed by CEMS is extensive, including but not limited to:

• Wildfires: Providing data on fire extent, burned areas, and potential spread.
• Floods: Monitoring water levels, flooded areas, and impact predictions.
• Earthquakes: Assessing structural damage, affected infrastructure, and risk areas.
• Storms and Hurricanes: Tracking trajectory, intensity, and potentially affected areas.
• Landslides: Identifying risk areas and analyzing occurred events.

Benefits of CEMS Data and Maps

The data and maps provided by CEMS are essential for various stages of emergency management:

• Preparation: Assist in creating contingency plans and conducting simulation exercises.
• Response: Provide real-time information to coordinate relief efforts and resource allocation.
• Recovery: Aid in damage assessment and reconstruction of affected areas.
• Mitigation: Contribute to risk analysis and implementation of preventive measures to reduce the impacts of future disasters.

By making these data and maps available, CEMS directly supports public authorities, relief organizations, and other stakeholders in protecting lives, property, and fostering the development of more resilient communities.

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Creating Maps with CEMS Data Using QGIS

Using the data provided by CEMS and leveraging QGIS, an open-source Geographic Information System (GIS), it is possible to create detailed maps that aid in emergency analysis and management. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

1. Data Collection: CEMS provides geospatial data on various types of incidents, such as wildfires, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. These data are available in formats compatible with QGIS, such as shapefiles, GeoTIFFs, and other raster and vector formats.
2. Importing Data into QGIS: The collected data are imported into QGIS by loading the data files into the software and configuring the necessary layers for visualization and analysis. Layers can include satellite images, reference maps, change detection data, and damage assessment maps.
3. Data Processing and Analysis: Using QGIS’s processing and analysis tools, data are transformed into useful information. This can include:some text
   • Spatial analysis to identify the most affected areas.
   • Buffer creation to assess impact zones around critical areas.
   • Overlaying different data layers to better understand the interactions between various factors.
4. Map Creation: With the processed data, the final map can be developed, including:some text
   • Visual Elements: Titles, legends, scales, and orientation arrows to facilitate understanding.
   • Symbology: Use of colors and symbols to represent different types of data and impact levels.
   • Annotations: Inclusion of textual information to describe important details about the affected areas and necessary actions

Example Applications of the Map

• Wildfires: The map can display the extent of burned areas, identify active heat spots, and predict fire spread, aiding in resource allocation for firefighting and evacuation.
• Floods: Representing flooded areas and high-risk zones can assist in coordinating relief efforts and evacuating vulnerable regions.
• Earthquakes: Structural damage maps can help identify areas that require urgent inspection and repairs.
• Emergency Response Planning: Detailed maps support authorities in preparing and executing emergency plans and communicating effectively with the public.

Benefits of Using QGIS with CEMS Data

• Access to Detailed and Updated Data: CEMS provides comprehensive and continuously updated data, offering a solid foundation for creating accurate and relevant maps.
• Advanced Analysis Tools: QGIS offers a wide range of tools for spatial analysis and data processing, enabling deep insights and informed decision-making.
• Flexibility and Customization: QGIS allows for map customization to meet the specific needs of each project, including the addition of local data layers.

Creating maps with CEMS data using QGIS is a powerful approach to emergency management. These maps provide clear and detailed visualizations of affected areas, supporting quick and effective decision-making to protect lives and property. Additionally, they facilitate communication between authorities, emergency teams, and the public, promoting a coordinated and efficient response to natural disasters.

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Creating Maps with CEMS Data Using R

To generate maps using data from the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) with R, you can follow a series of steps that include data acquisition, preprocessing, and visualization. The terra package is ideal for handling raster data, while tmap or ggplot2 can be used for visualization. Below is a step-by-step guide to accomplish this task:

Step 1: Installing and Loading Necessary Packages

First, install and load the relevant packages. The terra package is used for raster data manipulation, and tmap is employed for visualization.

install.packages(c("terra", "tmap", "sf"))
library(terra)
library(tmap)
library(sf)
  

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Step 2: Acquiring CEMS Data

CEMS data can be downloaded directly from the Copernicus website or other sources that offer such datasets. For simplicity, we'll assume the data has already been downloaded and is available locally.

# Example: Loading a raster file from CEMS
raster_file <- "path/to/your/cems_data.tif"
cems_raster <- rast(raster_file)
  

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Step 3: Data Manipulation and Preprocessing

You can perform basic operations on the raster data, such as cropping, resampling, or calculating statistics. Here’s an example of cropping using a shapefile of an area of interest.

# Load the shapefile of the area of interest
shapefile <- "path/to/your/area_of_interest.shp"
aoi <- vect(shapefile)

# Crop the raster with the area of interest
cems_crop <- crop(cems_raster, aoi)
  

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Step 4: Creating Maps with tmap

tmap is an excellent choice for creating visually appealing maps, whether interactive or static.

# Set tmap mode (interactive or static)
tmap_mode("view")  # For interactive maps
# tmap_mode("plot")  # For static maps

# Create the map
tm_shape(cems_crop) +
  tm_raster(palette = "viridis", title = "CEMS Data") +
  tm_shape(aoi) +
  tm_borders(col = "red", lwd = 2) +
  tm_layout(main.title = "CEMS Data Map",
            main.title.size = 1.5,
            legend.outside = TRUE)
  

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Step 5: Saving the Map

You can save the generated map to a file if needed.

# Save static map as an image
tmap_save(tm = last_map(), filename = "cems_map.png")

# Save an interactive map as HTML
tmap_save(tm = last_map(), filename = "cems_map.html")
  

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Complete Example

Here is a full example from start to finish:

# Install and load packages
install.packages(c("terra", "tmap", "sf"))
library(terra)
library(tmap)
library(sf)

# Load CEMS raster data
raster_file <- "path/to/your/cems_data.tif"
cems_raster <- rast(raster_file)

# Load shapefile of the area of interest
shapefile <- "path/to/your/area_of_interest.shp"
aoi <- vect(shapefile)

# Crop the raster with the area of interest
cems_crop <- crop(cems_raster, aoi)

# Set tmap mode to interactive
tmap_mode("view")

# Create the map
map <- tm_shape(cems_crop) +
  tm_raster(palette = "viridis", title = "CEMS Data") +
  tm_shape(aoi) +
  tm_borders(col = "red", lwd = 2) +
  tm_layout(main.title = "CEMS Data Map",
            main.title.size = 1.5,
            legend.outside = TRUE)

# View the map
print(map)

# Save interactive map as HTML
tmap_save(tm = map, filename = "cems_map.html")
  

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This approach allows you to efficiently process and visualize CEMS data in R, enabling you to create detailed maps that can be used for various purposes in emergency management and disaster response.

References:

Copernicus Emergency Management Service. Directorate for Space, Security, and Migration, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EC JRC). Accessed on May 20, 2024. https://emergency.copernicus.eu/.

Copernicus Emergency Management Service (© 2024 European Union), [EMSR722] Flood in Saarland region, Germany.

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