With the future of forests a global concern, sustainable management practices are increasingly urgent. GMES supplies accurate, timely and readily available information on the state of this precious resource.

Conditions at sea, human error and mechanical failure are some of the main causes of oil spills. For an effective clean-up operation to be organised, a knowledge of the extent of the spill and direction it is moving is essential. Radar satellites and the upcoming Sentinel missions provide data to monitor and respond to this form of pollution.

Floods are usually accompanied by cloudy skies making it difficult to monitor them from space. Using radar technology, the new GMES Sentinel-1 satellite is able to 'see' through clouds and rainfall to map emergency-stricken regions.