12/12/2016 (Agence Europe) – On Monday 12 December, the European Commission announced the creation of Global Surface Water Explorer, a new interactive tool to help understand changes to surface water around the world to inform future E and global practices in this domain. The tool which was coproduced by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JCR) and US internet giant Google’s Earth Engine, consists of three million satellite images collected over the past 32 years. The maps show that most changes to water are due to human beings. European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, Tibor Navracsics, said: ‘This initiative of the Joint Research Centre and Google Earth Engine has enabled satellite data to be translated into a user-friendly tool that is both accessible to citizens and will help policy makers across the EU and the world take informed decisions.’ (TR)