Brussels, 13/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - As of next month, the multitude of environmental data collected by Copernicus, the European Earth observation system, will be openly accessible free of charge, the European Commission announced on Wednesday 13 November.
This new open dissemination regime for data on, for instance, greenhouse gases which have an effect on climate change, reactive gases which influence the quality of the air we breathe, the ozone layer and levels of solar UV radiation reaching the ground, and aerosols that affect tempoerature and air quality will make it easier to monitor the environment. However, the Commission also anticipates benefits for industry and employment in Europe. While the production and dissemination services for the environmental data and the space industry are expected to benefit from this new regime, it is also likely indirectly to help other sectors, such as transport, the oil and gas industry, the insurance sector and agriculture. The new open data dissemination regime will also allow individuals, businesses, researchers and politicians to include an environmental dimension in all their activities and decision-making procedures.
“This open data strategy is essential in unleashing the full potential of the Copernicus programme and developing the Earth observation markets. Its services will deliver information to a chain of information re-processors and end users on a sustained basis. The 'Copernicus economy' will grow by attracting investment in the innovative applications market, which is striving to meet increasing user demands for new services”, said Antonio Tajani, Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship.
Studies show that Copernicus, which includes six dedicated “Sentinel” satellite missions to be launched between 2014 in 2011, could bring about financial gains in the region of €30 billion and create some 50,000 jobs by 2030.
In a world which is increasingly exposed to natural and human disasters, Copernicus aims to collect together observations and to set in place information services to monitor the evolution of the environment on the Earth, at sea and in the atmosphere, and at the same time to increase the safety of the citizens. The case of Typhoon Haiyan, which recently devastated the Philippines, is an illustration of this. The emergency response service of Copernicus, which was activated on 8 November, has supplied initial images and maps to assess the damage in the worst-hit areas, which has helped civil protection players to organise rescue operations.
In the view of Janez Potocnik, European Commissioner for the Environment, the free, full and open access to Copernicus data “represents an essential contribution to good governance in Europe in environmental matters”. He points out that Copernicus is a vital element of the shared environmental information infrastructure, which will significantly help towards better implementation of environmental policies - one of the cornerstones of the seventh environmental action programme - and that drafting future environmental policy depends on up-to-date, precise and comparable data on the current and future state of the Earth. (AN/transl.fl)