Workshop Objectives

The COPERNICUS program of the European Union now provides routine observations of  the Earth and the environment, in particular with  the operational Sentinel  missions developed and operated by ESA. These missions offer excellent possibilities to monitor natural and man-made hazards and disasters, hence understand underlying scientific mechanisms and their interactions. The objective of this workshop is to address a number of natural and anthropogenic hazards, of high impacts on human societies, for which remote sensing data from the COPERNICUS Sentinels and other Earth Observation (EO) missions can be used in synergy, not only to report changes affecting the Earth system, but also to provide added-value information on the processes causing these changes. Focus will be given to the following topics:

  • Solid Earth processes (earthquakes and crustal deformations in active tectonic areas, volcanic hazards, land-slides, natural and anthropogenic subsidence)
  • Hydrological changes (water quality and resource)
  • Extreme events (storm surges, floods, storms and hurricanes, droughts, fires, etc.)
  • Land use change (deforestation, desertification, impact on agriculture and food security)
  • Natural and man-made forcings at land-sea interfaces
  • Pollutions (land, air, sea)
  • Tipping points in physical and biological systems

Obviously, the above topics cannot be treated in isolation since several of them are interconnected (e.g., land use change has impact on hydrology; pollution can affect water quality, etc.). The program will highlight these interactions and will identify the underlying scientific mechanisms and advances offered by combining different types of space-based and in situ observations and model results.

Update: 2019-04-15