Copernicus Services: Assessing flood risk and economic impact in the Drin river basin

Detailed elevation data provided to the Copernicus Emergency Management Service by the State Authority for Geospatial Information (ASIG), Albania was essential for assessing flood risk and its economic impact in the Drin river basin.

AISG also provided digital national orthophotos of 8 cm and 20 cm resolution, retrieved through CORDA.

“Flooding along the Drin river has caused high economic and environmental losses to the infrastructure of the region – from houses to power distribution, gas stations and water supply. As the National Mapping Agency of Albania, our trusted relief information and height data is vital for assessing, managing and, therefore mitigating, flood risk in this important environmental and economic region.”
Vilma TomcoGeneral Director, State Authority for Geospatial Information (ASIG), Albania

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Coperncius Services: Understanding the impact of extreme weather to plan preventive measures

Authoritative digital elevation and land cover data provided by the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG), Germany is being used to better understand, predict and prevent future flooding caused by extreme weather. 

In July 2021, heavy rainfall caused catastrophic flooding that devastated communities and claimed at least 187 lives along the Moselle, Rhine and Ruhr rivers in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. To better prepare and recover from such events in the future, it was crucial to understand how the disaster evolved within such a short timescale. The Copernicus Emergency Management Service Risk and Recovery Standard was activated by the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) so that it could carry out a retrospective assessment of the flooding.

“Extreme weather conditions caused by global climate change have become increasingly frequent phenomena of our everyday life. By establishing a nationwide uniform basis for heavy rainfall hazard information maps in Germany, the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) is making an important contribution to risk management. As the first region mapped, North Rhine-Westphalia marks the beginning of the BKG project planned to be expanded to other federal states.”
Professor Paul Becker, President, Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG), Germany

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Copernicus Services: Evaluating impact and erosion risk after devastating forest fire

Transportation, Land Use and Land Cover data provided to the Copernicus Emergency Management Service by the National Geographic Institute of Spain played a key role in evaluating the impact of the 2022 Ceuta wildfire. It was also used to assess the risk of soil erosion in more than 130 hectares of forest in the Spanish autonomous city which is located on Africa’s north coast.

"As the National Mapping Authority for Spain, we were pleased to support post-fire impact assessments with authoritative data. The insight gained from the various analysis not only identified the levels of damage in different areas but also confirmed the subsequent erosion risk due to soil loss."
Lorenzo Garcia Asensio
Director General, National Geographic Institute, Spain

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Maps for a data-driven Europe

Demonstrating how integrated government data across sectors is strengthening digital society

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Maps for a data-driven Europe

Contributing to Belgian’s National Access Point for multimodal transport information

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Maps for a data-driven Europe

Data sharing platform at heart of national response to Covid-19

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Maps for a data-driven Europe

Demonstrating value of cadastral information in managing natural disasters

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Maps for a data-driven Europe

Providing an insight into potential of solar energy

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Maps for a data-driven Europe

How a ‘Geo-common’ strategy supports major Lidar and land use projects in France.

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Open Maps For Europe Case Study

The European External Action Service (EEAS) is the European Union’s (EU) diplomatic service, and since 2011 has carried out the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy to promote peace, prosperity, security, and the interests of Europeans across the globe. It uses EuroRegionalMap, a pan-European dataset available through the Open Maps For Europe project, for planning military mobility and investment programmes.

“We need a coherent database, and we need data that we can trust and rely on. We need authoritative geospatial information, quality controlled, preferably from governmental sources with borders and boundaries that should reflect the EU view. We also need a common place where we can do planning. So, the 1:250 000 scale seamless open data is crucial for us in determining, for example, where we reinforce our bridges so that heavy trucks can cross them without breaking or planning our routing systems.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Soenke Fischhoefer, Senior Geospatial Officer EUMS, EU External Action Service.

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