Earth Observation users speak

Mark Weber
University of Bremen
4 April 2011 -

"ESA is to be commended for supporting the use of Earth observation to help solve the management issues of these truly complex coastal aquatic ecosystems."

Arnold Dekker
Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
9 February 2011 -

"Today, we are focusing on the tools needed for the International Climate Change Policy Regime. In that respect, space is not just nice to have; it's a need to have. We need science, knowledge and facts to formulate European policies. With those policies in place, we then need the tools to monitor them."

Connie Hedegaard
European Commissioner for Climate Action
4 February 2011 -

"In Australia we have learned to live with droughts and floods. Extreme floods cause terrible damage, but in other cases floods are vital for our river wetlands and irrigation communities. ESA's radar observations are helping us develop ways to monitor and predict the progression of floods."

Albert van Dijk
The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation
26 January 2011 -

"GlobCorine is much more than a project aiming to deliver a European land cover map. It is the scientific and technical demonstration that a description of the state of land surface on a continental scale can be provided within a year."

Sophie Bontemps
Université catholique de Louvain
23 November 2010 -

"GlobGlacier has made an important contribution towards the completion of the global glacier inventory. The close cooperation of the GlobGlacier consortium of remote-sensing specialists with the network of in-situ experts has been a key element for an improved understanding of glacier reaction to climatic changes."

Michael Zemp
Director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service
8 September 2010 -

"These satellites have provided new information that we could not get from the ground. One of the biggest results from almost 20 years of interferometry data is that you are able to measure small displacements of the terrain that are totally invisible, unless you have very specific methodologies to measure them."

Prof. Fabio Rocca
Politecnico University of Milan, Italy
6 July 2010 -

"Envisat is amazing when you factor in what it has taught us about Earth, and it is only there because so many people have spent their careers and even their free time on it. As a PB EO delegate, I see this in every mission and in the entire setup of ESA."

Dr Joost Carpay
ESA coordinator and PB-EO delegate at the Netherlands Space Office and Chairman of the ESA Data, Operations, Science and Technical Advisory Group (DOSTAG)
6 July 2010 -

"The ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat missions have increased the resolution of the radar altimeter (RA) dataset so that we can see more things and see things better. It is like going from an old TV set to a high-definition TV. You see much more information in the data, and you can start looking at the details.

"This has contributed a lot for studying things that we knew had to be in the ocean but couldn’t see. For instance, before the advent of RA, we had a theoretical framework that told us planetary waves have to be in the ocean but we couldn’t see them. When the RA started in the 1990s, we began to see them. What we know today about these very important waves is significantly due to the missions."

Dr Paolo Cipollini
National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK
6 July 2010 -

"The datasets from the ERS-2 and Envisat missions have catapulted European science into the forefront of atmospheric research. These comprise three primary objectives: monitoring of stratospheric ozone and our understanding of this key component of the atmosphere; air quality and pollution; and global climate change, specifically the measurement of greenhouse gases.

"So, these have been breathtaking achievements at the technological scientific level. They have given us a view of our blue planet that we never had before. They were absolutely timely and necessary because of the increasing human impact on the natural system and build the basis for an operational system that is required for managing the environment for sustainable development."

Prof. John Burrows
Director of the Institute of Remote Sensing/Environmental Physics at the University of Bremen
6 July 2010 -

"Satellite observations have revolutionised our understanding of the cryosphere and the critical role it plays in shaping Earth's climate system."

Dr Ghassem Asrar
Director of the World Climate Research Programme
15 June 2010 -

"ESA is the only space agency that has data – historical and incoming – with this capability operating routinely on a global basis."

Prof. Christiane Schmullius
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
25 March 2010 -

"Earth observation is playing an increasingly important role in the inventory, assessment, monitoring and management of wetlands."

Nick Davidson
Deputy Secretary General of the Ramsar Convention
02 February 2010 -

"The satellite images are providing invaluable information about the situation, such as the details about the lava flow and the fact that the Nyiragongo volcano is not showing any signs of abnormal activity."

Dr Nicolas d’Oreye
Senior scientist at the Geophysics/Astrophysics Department of the National Museum of Natural History, Luxembourg
22 January 2010 -

"Space-based observations are an essential element of climate monitoring in Latin America and a complement to ground-based stations. ESA instruments and observation protocols are particularly applicable to the type of information that needs to be collected over time in the Americas."

Walter Vergara
Lead Engineer-Latin America Environment Department - World Bank
15 December 2009 -

"Operational monitoring of climate using Earth observation is essential."

Gilberto Camara
Director of the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE) and CEOS Chair
11 December 2009 -

"New space assets are crucial for improving marine communications in many regions of the Arctic Ocean in order to improve search and rescue and environmental response activities; [...] only space assets in the long-term can provide the coverage necessary to achieve effective monitoring and tracking of Arctic ships. [...] Continued satellite monitoring is also central to recording the retreat of sea ice and other changes to the cryosphere in a warming Arctic."

Dr Lawson Brigham
University of Alaska Fairbanks
05 November 2009 -

"Detailed mapping of urban temperatures and the associated heat stress for the citizens can help us position ambulances during heat waves; thus considerably shortening transport times to the hospitals for those suffering from the heat."

Dr Maria Varinou
General Secretariat for Civil Protection
27 August 2009 -

"The quality and frequency of images acquired by ESA satellites mean that the break-up of Wilkins Ice Shelf can be analysed far more effectively than any previous event. For the first time, I think, we can really begin to see the processes that have brought about the demise of the ice shelf."

David Vaughan
British Antarctic Survey
28 April 2009 -

"As the Arctic ice pack is constantly moving, conventional methods can only provide sparse and intermittent measurements of ice thickness from which it is difficult to tell whether the changes are local or across the whole Arctic. Satellites provide the only means to determine trends and a consistent and wide area basis."

Dr Katharine Giles
Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University College London
28 October 2008 -

"Often made up of complex and inaccessible terrain, monitoring ecological changes in wetlands without the use of satellite data is very difficult. [...] ESA EO data has considerable power and potential in providing the intelligence behind making sound decisions on management and policy."

Nick Davidson
Ramsar Convention on Wetlands
3 June 2008 -

"Unbiased, timed satellite images help build stakeholder trust because they clearly illustrate the activities taking place in our oil sands mine leases. They present clear, accessible visuals, provide objective information on development and eventual reclamation of our oil sands leases and help us in our reporting on environmental performance."

Ashley Nixon
Sustainable Development Integration Manager at Shell Canada
25 March 2008 -

"That we are able to detect regionally elevated CO2 over Europe shows the high quality of the SCIAMACHY CO2 measurements."

Dr Michael Buchwitz
Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP) at the University of Bremen
18 March 2008 -

"Land cover data is an essential requirement of the sustainable management of natural resources, environmental protection, food security, climate change and humanitarian programmes. The GlobCover product will be the first freely available product at 300m resolution and is therefore a milestone product which will be fundamental to a broad level stakeholder community."

John Latham
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
17 March 2008 -

"Data assimilation makes use of the diverse observational data now available to us and synthesises them into a coherent picture of the evolving state of the planet - a digital rendition of the real world. No institution has all the skills in one place, but must be drawn from university and operational institutions distributed across many countries. With this objective in mind for Europe, ESA funded the GlobModel project and GENESI-DR could represent the way to ensure easy access to all necessary data and resources."

Prof. Alan O'Neill
Director of the National Centre for Earth Observation at the University of Reading
10 March 2008 -

"Improved GMES capabilities are of paramount importance for our environment and security policies. I welcome today’s agreement, because citizens have a right to live safely and to have reliable information on the environment."

Günter Verheugen
European Commission Vice-President
28 February 2008 -

"Sophisticated processing and satellite data from ESA will combine to deliver state-of-the-art information on air quality. [...] I am excited about the opportunity that this service creates to help us provide timely information on Europe's environment at an unprecedented level."

Project Manager Tim Haigh
European Environment Agency
5 February 2008 -

"GMES is the European solution for the needs of citizens in Europe to access reliable information on the status of their environment."

Günter Verheugen
European Commission Vice-President
19 December 2007 -

"ESA is leading the way in satellite observations and applications for geohazards."

Dr Vernon H. Singhroy
Senior Research Scientist at the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing
12 November 2007 -

"We have been very lucky to have had the capability to monitor the polar regions with satellites since the 1970s because it has allowed us to fully capture the trend. Furthermore, because of satellite monitoring we will be able – with a high-degree of precision – to indicate if the trend is reversing, continuing or worsening."

Dr Pablo Clemente-Colón
Chief Scientist at the US National Ice Center and International Ice Charting Working Group (IICWG)
26 October 2007 -

"The big advantage of using satellite data from the point of view of public health is that it gives us spatially extensive coverage that we do not get any other way."

Simon Hales
Senior Research Fellow at the University of Otaga, New Zealand
22 October 2007 -

"By working together, the Charter’s international partners are helping to save lives across the globe."

Ian Pearson
UK Minister for Science and Innovation
17 October 2007 -

"These map products proved to be very helpful for managing the severe fires that Greece suffered."

Fivos Theodorou
Director for Emergency Planning and Response of the General Secretariat for Civil Protection
21 September 2007 -

"The wind field derived from the ESA ERS-2 scatterometer measurements are distributed via a EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) project to a registered database of a few hundred users, originating from all over the world, including the Americas, Australia, Asia and Europe. Scatterometer winds are used directly by shift meteorologists in forecast rooms and to initialise Numerical Weather Prediction models aiding the forecasting of hurricanes 5 days ahead."

Dr Ad Stoffelen
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)
21 August 2007 -

"The results of the IWAREMA project can be used to protect Zambia’s ecosystems particularly in the Kafue flats where wildlife, agricultural activities, fisheries and tourism compete for regulated water resources."

Jack Nkhoma
Zambia’s Department of Water Affairs
3 August 2007 -

"GOCE will result in an improved accuracy of the geoid and will facilitate the establishment of a unified global height system"

Bente Lilja Bye
Research Director from the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority
1 August 2007 -

"Envisat is the first satellite to provide us with the good temporal coverage that we needed for the algorithm and the methods to be successful. Chinese scientists have already used our data to initialise weather forecasts and demonstrated they could better predict the location and intensity of a precipitation event, which resulted in a flood".

Wolfgang Wagner
Vienna University of Technology
16 July 2007 -

"I was able to follow the changes in ice conditions and ice drift thanks to the daily coverage provided by the Envisat ASAR sensor. [...] Combined with an automatic data processing system and daily mosaics from the MERIS optical instrument, it helped me predict safe and unsafe areas in the sea ice and provide this crucial information to Alain and Dixie in the field via the International Polar Foundation."

Leif Toudal Pedersen
Danish National Space Centre
12 June 2007 -

"Satellite observations show us that the polar ice is responding more quickly to climatic warming than the glaciologists had anticipated. ESA’s ERS and Envisat satellites have made especially important contributions. The ice sheets of Greenland and the Antarctic are increasing sources of global sea level rise. The ‘trillion dollar’ questions are ‘How much?’ and ‘How quickly?’ Ongoing monitoring from space will be essential to get the answers."

Professor Chris Rapley
Director of the British Antarctic Survey
12 June 2007 -

"The ESA Aquifer project has demonstrated to us and the countries several tools that space technology can provide. We are starting the GEO-AQUIFER project because we think this technology can help us to get information quickly on issues that have an exponential evolution."

Youba Sokona
Sahara and Sahel Observatory Executive Secretary
8 June 2007 -

"The 709 band used by MERIS is not present on other ocean-colour sensors. It was essential to our detecting Sargassum. The MCI index has allowed us to find so many interesting things, including Sargassum and Antarctic super blooms. It really gives us a new and unique view of the Earth."

Dr Jim Gower
Canadian Institute of Ocean Sciences
6 June 2007 -

"The SAR Wave Mode product allows us to locate and systematically track swells globally. In the near future we anticipate using SAR wave data to predict their arrival time and intensity."

Dr Bertrand Chapron
IFREMER - The French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea
16 May 2007 -

"[GlobCover] will also significantly contribute to the monitoring and assessment of global land cover and as such will support the contribution of FAO to the assessment of land degradation and the monitoring of global forest cover."

Dr. John Latham
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
11 May 2007 -

"SCIAMACHY allows us to map the sources of carbon monoxide and see where they are blown to"

Annemieke Gloudemans
SRON - Netherlands Institute for Space Research
8 May 2007 -

"There is now evidence there is a distinctive upward trend in global sea surface temperatures, and this we can now see from measurements made from Envisat"

Professor David Llewellyn-Jones
Head of Earth Observation Science at the University of Leicester
27 April 2007 -

"We are on the verge of a new era where the quality of satellite data is sufficient that we can both monitor important international protocols like the Montreal Protocol, controlling ozone depleting substances, and Kyoto Protocol, observing greenhouse gases, the precursors of climate and temperature changes."

Prof. John Burrows
Bremen University, Germany
23 April 2007 -

"The agreement with ESA is very valuable for the new European oil spill monitoring service of the Agency. ESA’s Earth observation satellite Envisat is an extremely powerful tool that will enable us to provide valuable additional services to EU Member States in the fight to control ship-sourced pollution."

Willem de Ruiter
Executive Director of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA)
02 March 2007 -

"Clues to climatic changes may already be written on the oceans’ surface. [...] ESA is making a difference to public awareness of climate change by helping us to better understand the sea surface temperature story."

Prof. Ian Robinson
National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS)
11 December 2006 -

"The value of EO-derived information increases as it is used in integrated water resources management to improve decision making. The transfer of expertise and the building of local capacity is a real achievement."

Akram Mohamed El Ganzori
Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation in Egypt
28 November 2006 -

"Thanks to ESA's support for GlobWetland and its data dissemination, the situation of monitoring single, several or nation-wide wetlands has recently improved rapidly."

Prof Hartmut Graßl
The Head of ESAC (Earth Science Advisory Committee)
07 November 2006 -

"Tourists appreciate having a ‘satellite eye’ that takes care of their skin during sun exposure. Tourists, snorkellers and divers all appreciate having information on sea water in order to find the best conditions."

Marco Bongiovanni
Baja Hotels General Manager
12 October 2006 -

"Students will also learn about our planet through Earth Observation technology. Satellite images stimulate most people to ask questions about what we are seeing and how we are able to see it."

Charlotte Hasager
Project Coordinator and senior scientist at Risø National Laboratory
11 August 2006 -

"Because Envisat is routinely acquiring data in areas prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, we were able to make very precise measurements of this rare phenomenon for the first time. The results from Envisat have been vital for guiding our ongoing field studies, and without the satellite data we would have had no idea of the scale of this event".

Tim Wright
University of Leeds
20 July 2006 -

"Many researchers use satellite data as part of their daily activities. During IPY those researchers will push to extract more and more information from the satellites, particularly to understand recent and current distributions of snow and ice. We will use every form of satellite data - passive visual, active microwave, and even sensitive gravity measurements - to understand changes in the global ice sheets."

Dr. David Carlson
Director of the International Programme Office for the Polar Year
30 June 2006 -

"To obtain the amount of information covered with the EO data, alternative methods will be of considerable higher cost. With in situ measurements you cannot produce a gradient map as obtained with EO images. The value of this information is the area and resolution obtained in a single didactic image."

Francisco Puga
Mainstream Group Development Manager
13 June 2006 -

"Remote sensing is increasingly being used for environmental disaster prevention and management. The GMES programme helps by making remote sensing data available to end users, such as the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Environment and Conservation, who use it to add value to their existing environmental disaster prevention services."

Clyde Jackman
The Newfoundland and Labrador Minister for the Department of Environment and Conservation
07 June 2006 -

"The [ATSR World Fire] atlas is an excellent resource that provides a glimpse of the world that was not previously possible, and which is certain to allow ecologists to address both new and old questions regarding the role of fire in structuring the natural world".

Matt Fitzpatrick
University of Tennessee’s Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
24 May 2006 -

"Through Earth observation we are able to react in time to specific events. In the future it will also be possible to detect and to react to natural disasters like floods and avalanches."

Günther Verheugen
Vice-President of the European Commission
20 April 2006 -

"Our key issue is time – but very quickly the satellite maps give us an impression of the flood extent, and the areas that are affected. The maps can support high-level decision making and the best use possible of human and material resources."

Colonel François Maurer
French Directorate of Civil Defence and Security (DDSC)
20 March 2006 -

"The importance of the ERS archive to this work is enormous. ERS-1 and ERS-2 1992 and 1996 data is our reference survey for decades to come. It is quite important to maintain this reference. [...] None of our work would have been possible without it."

Eric Rignot
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
21 February 2006 -

"We think there is a lot of potential for remote sensing in [mining activities]. [...] Such activities take place across quite large areas, so with satellites we will better be able to monitor them as they take place."

Pierre Vincent
VIASAT Géo-Technolgie
07 February 2006 -

"SCIAMACHY is the first instrument that can actually measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the precise locations we live at."

Michael Buchwitz
University of Bremen's Institute of Environmental Physics
13 January 2006 -

"While traditional survey techniques and geotechnical instrumentation can provide detailed information at specific points of interest, InSAR provides continuous data coverage over large areas to sub-centimetre accuracy within a particular timeframe of interest."

Stu Anderson
AMEC's Earth & Environmental Division
03 January 2006 -

"To have these [Earth Observation] images of before and after the disaster allowed us to make a rapid evaluation of local situations, and of the damage done. We can consider in a more effective way how best to intervene."

Alice Moreira
Architects de l'Urgence (ADU)
23 December 2005 -

"It is very useful to have these remote sensing data in conjunction with our statistical information, to interpolate the two and improve our reporting."

José Romero
Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscapes
05 December 2005 -

The wide-area view from satellites "has a number of advantages and addresses a number of our needs, and it does so in a manner which I think will turn out to be cost effective. Studies in other parts of the world have shown this is a way to do it especially in cases when you do not have enough forest monitoring stations on the ground to make sure you have the appropriate accuracy, or the possibility to revisit the areas as often as you can with satellites."

Dimitris Lalas
National Observatory of Athens
05 December 2005 -

"Radar interferometry has become one of the major tools for observing glaciers and advancing the knowledge of glacier response to climate change."

Prof. Helmut Rott
Innsbruck University, Austria
02 December 2005 -

"Environmental monitoring is more important than ever before. GMES has the potential to bring together existing and new technology - helping us to better understand and protect our planet."

Lord Sainsbury
UK Science and Innovation Minister
28 November 2005 -

"The real ESA goldmine – where Kyoto-Inventory fits right into our current efforts – is the baseline 1990 data it provides, which is needed to measure subsequent changes in carbon stock."

Jaap Paasman
Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality
11 November 2005 -

"Earth Observation gives us a view of the whole extent of the flood, not only within the heavily-insured urban centres like Dresden but we can also zoom out across 400 kilometres of river to see all the affected parts of Germany. We can also trace the flood peak happening. It would take a lot of work to get the same standard of information from any other source."

Dr. Ulruich Ebel
Swiss Re's Natural Perils research department
26 October 2005 -

"ERS scatterometer data are very useful to correct position and strength of tropical cyclones in numerical weather analyses and prediction."

Ad Stoffelen
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)
24 October 2005 -

"Globwetland has presented our team with a collective opportunity to learn more about satellites [...]. Before the project began, we never realised there were so many different types of data available."

Brian Stushnoff
Canada's Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area
10 October 2005 -

"Heights of inland water can now be measured directly from space using radar altimeters [...]. This is a very exciting development which has the potential to transform the management of drought crises and water-related conflict around the world."

Philippa Berry
Earth and Planetary Remote Sensing Laboratory - De Montfort University (UK)
05 October 2005 -

"Coral bleaching needs to be mapped at the global scale. [...] We need a system that has appropriate coverage and revisit frequency, with a sufficient amount of spectral bands and sensitivity. There is no more suitable system than MERIS."

Dr. Arnold Dekker
Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
03 October 2005 -

"It is critical for weather forecasters to obtain reliable characterization of the eye wall dimension and the radii of gale- tropical storm- and hurricane-force winds in order to provide skilful forecasts and warning. Satellite based observations will facilitate better understanding of hurricane evolution and intensification."

Hans Graber
Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing - University of Miami
23 September 2005 -

"Back when we were starting out, many people thought it would be impossible to get any useful results out of the troposphere. [...] First with GOME and now much better with SCIAMACHY we are demonstrating it can be done. The success so far is an important step on the way to establishing an operational global observing system for the Earth's atmosphere. "

John Burrows
University of Bremen's Institute of Environmental Physics
01 Septempber 2005 -

"The ERS-2 scatterometer data was - besides a few pressure observations - the only surface data available in the vicinity of the typhoon, and therefore valuable. [...] From this analysis, the landfall of Matsu was correctly predicted to be a likely scenario."

Dr Hans Hersbach
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)
11 August 2005 -

"Our team has been studying the use of MERIS data for fire-damage assessment - the obtaining of images from ESA in near-real time via the internet being an essential point in this kind of application."

Dr Federico González-Alonso
Madrid-based Laboratorio de Teledetección (Remote-sensing Laboratory)
04 August 2005 -

"Direct satellite measurements of carbon dioxide will have as dramatic an impact as the Hubble Space Telescope within the Earth science field. It should give us a completely new picture of something more or less completely unknown, showing us the carbon flux across tropical areas such as South America and Africa, where we basically have no data available right now."

Philippe Ciais
Laboratory for Climate Sciences and the Environment (LSCE) in France
10 June 2005 -

"Considering this frequency of field measurements, our need is to retrieve information with a higher temporal sampling. Use of satellite data allows optimal coverage in both space and time – every 35 days in the case of ERS-2 or Envisat, against once or twice a year with GPS and levelling techniques."

Sven Borgström
Vesuvius Observatory
18 May 2005 -

"Interpolated SST maps are of fundamental importance to improve marine weather forecasts. Marine forecasts are essential for many aspects of risk management related to human activities in the ocean and along the seashore. This data promises to improve both oceanic and atmospheric forecasting, as well as our understanding of oceanic processes themselves."

Rosalira Santoleri
Italian National Research Council (CNR)
13 May 2005 -

"Making use of satellite data enables us to follow week by week the development of the dust storms and the appearance of conditions favourable for an epidemic to start."

Isabelle Jeanne
Niger-based Centre de Recherche Médicale et Sanitaire (CERMES)
10 May 2005 -

Satellite-based urban maps "will be of great help to our organisation with the recent outbreak of Marburg virus."

Johan Lemarchand
World Health Organisation (WHO)
10 May 2005 -

"Changes in land cover patterns, effects of environmental pollution and loss of biodiversity often do not respect national or other artificial boundaries. An updated view of such problems - or their effects - from interpreted space imagery should offer a large boost to UNEP's effort to monitor the health of the planet and our changing environment."

Ron Witt
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
05 May 2005 -

"The GOME instrument on ERS-2 has given us more than we ever dreamed of. GOME has been a pioneer instrument. Such instruments are of great value for international negotiations on air quality and climate."

Professor Paul Crutzen
Max Planck Institute in Germany
21 April 2005 -

"CHRIS/Proba is no longer a technology demonstrator but has become a real tool for actual research and applications."

Professor Jose Moreno
University of Valencia
24 March 2005 -

"The success and stability of SCIAMACHY so far is a tribute to the instrument builders, operators and data retrievers, and an important step on the way to establishing an operational global observing system for the Earth's atmosphere."

John Burrows
University of Bremen - Institute of Environmental Physics
18 March 2005 -

"Icebergs are one of those things you really never want to see. As an Oryx Quest race meteorologist I help provide weather forecasts to the crews and work on route planning. Safety is a very high priority, and with this new satellite data analysis we can tell crews where they should steer to stay clear of ice fields."

Meteorologist Chris Bedford
Sailing Weather Services
07 March 2005 -

"The Nansen Center has been using Earth Observation data daily since 1998 to monitor Norwegian coastal waters in order to contribute to the early detection of possible harmful algae blooms in our waters."

Lasse Pettersson
Norway's Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center
04 March 2005 -

"The effectiveness of Earth Observation has been demonstrated. Early-warning systems are required to guard against future disasters".

Kusmayanto Kadiman
Indonesian State Minister for Research and Technology
17 February 2005 -

"Our environmental policies and legislation are based first and foremost on our knowledge of the state of the environment, what are the risks to it, what are the environmental trends. What we know is that we do not know enough at the moment, and satellites and space can bring something additional to our existing monitoring."

Timo Makela
Director in the EC Directorate-General for Environment
16 February 2005 -

"With ESA's support and the co-operation of the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry we carried out this aerial survey over test sites that were also measured from the ground, in order to gather a sizeable tropical radar database."

Dirk Hoekman
INDREX-II team member - University of Wageningen
01 February 2005 -

"For satisfactory results, we must achieve very good coupling of both the vibration source and the receivers with the ground. But, until we started using satellite imagery, we could only guess at the coupling and data quality in advance of an actual survey."

Andreas Laake
Seismic surveyor WesternGeco
28 January 2005 -

"What excites us is the huge scope of what we can study even with quite small satellites. By making magnetic measurements in space we get new information about the Earth, from the molten core deep under our feet, through the mantle, to the crust on which we live."

Nils Olsen
Danish National Space Center
24 January 2005 -

"Ocean colour satellite imagery has been of great help when planning the cruise, and throughout the field campaign. The information allowed the course of the ship to be adjusted according to the desired chlorophyll concentration".

Project scientist Hervé Claustre
Observatoire Océanologique de Villefranche
23 December 2004 -

"Envisat's ASAR identifies roads well, shows land relief and is sensitive to the presence of water. Backed up with optical data from satellites such as SPOT-5 we could use ASAR data to show which roads were most likely to still be passable."

Kader Fellah
SERTIT
6 December 2004 -

"Fragmentation of land is a time bomb. Each year only a small fraction of the landscape will change its function. This is not enough for you to really feel the change as dramatic. But if you use satellite data over a span of ten years you can really see a difference."

Chris Steenmans
Project Manager for Land and Remote Sensing at the European Environment Agency (EEA)
12 November 2004 -

"The use of space-based mapping technologies allows us to carry out a more efficient situation analysis of the Chagas disease on a house by house basis. It will also help us to implement effective control and monitoring programmes on the ground."

Rémi Carrier
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) logistics director
28 September 2004 -

"Coastal changes occur very rapidly but satellites make possible the easy updating of charts in a way that ships and aircraft cannot."

Jean-Paul Rudant
Université de Marne La Vallée in Paris
22 September 2004 -

"With MERIS and ASAR, Envisat can image both the ocean and atmosphere pretty much simultaneously, which is a very useful capability during hurricane season."

Hans Graber
University of Miami's Centre for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS)
03 September 2004 -

"InSAR from Envisat has proved an extremely powerful tool for us, because it provides a very high density of information across the entire volcano. With new eruptions taking place so often our ground campaigns could not keep pace but interferometry gives us data on each eruption."

Pierre Briole
Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP)
06 August 2004 -

"The altimetry data has been very useful to our work because we have been able to check the turtles' trajectory against ocean currents."

Philippe Gaspar
Head of the Satellite Oceanography Division of CLS
03 August 2004 -

"For the future I think near-real time fire and hot spot mapping would obviously be extremely useful. With these products those managing the situation could see where the fire is, as well as the hot spots inside it. They can then deploy ground and aerial resources with maximum efficiency."

Nicolas Raffalli
Centre D'Essais Et De Recherce de l'Entente (CEREN)
27 July 2004 -

"Only radar satellites can provide the truly global data sampling needed for statistical analysis of the oceans, because they can see through clouds and darkness, unlike their optical counterparts. In stormy weather, radar images are thus the only relevant information available."

Susanne Lehner
Division of Applied Marine Physics at the University of Miami
21 July 2004 -

"These are maps we have wanted to create previously, but we simply haven’t had the tools to create them. Remote sensing is providing useful assets for our work."

Dennis Babasa
Uganda’s Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation
29 June 2004 -

"The AATSR results show the appearance of the squid was connected with changes in the water mass conditions off the coast of Southern Chile in recent weeks."

Cristina Rodríguez-Benito
Mariscope Chilena
22 March 2004 -

"The maps are easy to interpret, and extremely useful. Ice edge conditions can change extremely rapidly, but the maps give an indication which areas are stable."

David Qamaniq
Citizen of Pond Inlet in Lancaster Sound
17 february 2004 -

"Surface movements assessed over wide areas are one of the best indicators of landslide activity, and can be employed for risk forecasting."

Nicola Casagli
Italy's National Group for Hydro-geological Disaster Prevention (GNDCI)
4 February 2004 -

"EO could be used in combination with ground-based malaria surveillance information for malaria early warning on a wider geographical scale, including those areas without any ground meteorological data."

Tarekegn Abeku
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
23 December 2003 -

"Characterising the ecological parameters of the whole area of study just can’t be done just by ground-based means. But remote sensing and GIS can do it at low cost, and with regular updating a possibility."

Ghislain Moussavou
International Centre for Medical Research (CIRMF) – Gabon
22 December 2003 -

"Combined with other flood information sources, satellite data can definitely be effective,"
"Flanders is not a big place, so a few satellite images have the potential to provide us with objective knowledge of the whole area."

Ingrid Boey, Engineer
Flemish Water Authority
27 November 2003 -

"We also hope to make use of other Envisat instruments to simultaneously measure important variables like sea surface temperature and ocean currents. Knowing these will be necessary to make forecasting the drift of algae blooms a reality."

Dr Cristina Rodríguez-Benito
Mariscope Chilena (Chile-based oceanographic company)
17 November 2003 -

"The new radar altimeter product (from Envisat) is a great leap forward for hydrologists. It gives them a new tool to study both the historical changes in water table levels and critically important data to use in forecasting models of water availability, hydroelectric power production, flood and drought events and overall climate changes."

Professor Philippa Berry
De Montfort University (UK)
25 September 2003 -

"Satellite data can give us global maps of UV levels, and we can use them to work out realistic doses, as well as fine-tune the doses simulated in laboratory tests."

François Christiaens
L’Oreal
14 August 2003 -

"Immediate action to control fire occurrence has to be taken. ESA’s Envisat has shown it could play an important role in this task and support European activities in this field."

Florian Siegert
University of Munich/Remote Sensing Solutions GmbH
6 August 2003 -

"Ultimately our system depends on ground-gathered data, but remote sensing could be a useful addition."

Jean-Pierre Meert
WHO
16 July 2003 -

"By comparison with known infected sites, remote sensing will help determine other suspect sites."

Ghislain Moussavou
CIRMF
16 July 2003 -

"It's often true that maps of remote areas are outdated and unreliable so that led us to take an interest in the potential of EO data."

Alain Retiere
UNOSAT
9 July 2003 -

"The advantages of Earth Observation are that it has global coverage, is scalable from big to small areas with time periodicity, and above all it is cost effective."

José Romero
Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape
24 June 2003 -

"Under the right circumstances, Earth Observation can help in all key areas… This goes from preparedness – providing early warning of disasters – to assessing their extent, planning response operations and monitoring the scene of the disaster to see we leave the scene as we found it."

Mark Jones
Reuters
24 June 2003 -

"Satellites contribute to research into global climate change by observing globally, with continuity… Only satellites can provide the coverage, continuity, and consistency that climate change research requires."

David Llewellyn-Jones
Space Research Centre at the University of Leicester
24 June 2003 -

"It is very useful because there have been no new maps made of this area since the 1970s, despite the fact that African cities change so fast – new suburbs can spring up rapidly as populations move. Satellite pictures represent the best way of seeing how the city has evolved."

Rémi Carrier
MSF Belgium
13 June 2003 -

"The many scientific instruments aboard Envisat have already provided a wealth of environmental data to scientists studying our planet…. It is hoped that over the next five years this and additional data will give us a clear picture of the problem of global warming."

UK Science Minister Lord Sainsbury
Department of Trade and Industry
12 March 2003 -

"We are looking to ESA for the scientific tools for monitoring the sites and warning national authorities about risks to the sites."

Mario Hernandez
UNESCO
14 February 2003 -

"The advantages of remote sensing is that it allows us to monitor extensive areas and monitor remote regions with difficult access."

Maryke Gray
International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCO)
14 February 2003 -

"Satellite imagery is vital to understanding these oceanic processes. It gives us a chance to know the blooms and to map them with increased accuracy,” Tyrrell adds. “We hardly knew anything about the distribution of this (algal) species before satellites came on the scene."

Dr. Toby Tyrrell
Southampton Oceanography Centre (SOC),
13 November 2002 -

"The combination of our biological knowledge of species, GIS systems, and the training in using satellite data will help us assess, map and monitor the wildlife habitat of the (Royal Bardia National) park."

Tej Bahadur Thapa
Tribhuvan University of Nepal in Kathmandu
24 October 2002 -

"Using the satellite data, the study was able to document both vertical and horizontal terrain displacements of several millimetres to several centimetres across kilometre-wide zones centred on faults. The findings became possible due to highly successful satellite missions of the European Space Agency."

Peter Shearer
Scripps
19 September 2002 -

"MSG will make a real difference and give us a real advantage - because of the breadth of its data gathering and the frequency of its images - it will give us a fantastic advantage in the battle against malaria."

Dr. David Rogers
University of Oxford
12 August 2002 -

"Satellite images are a most useful tool for ice services to provide ice information to their users. Modern (satellite) radar tools can provide data day and night, independent of cloud cover."

Klaus Struebing
German Maritime Agency
2 August 2002 -

"From our perspective, Earth observation data could be a very useful tool in our meeting the Convention’s needs for assessment, monitoring and reporting. Parties to the UNFCC have agreed to a set of duties where such data could be valuable."

Claudio Forner
Officer for the MIS programme at the climate-change Secretariat
24 June 2002 -

"Parties to the UNCCD recognize that strategies to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought will be most effective if they are based on sound, systematic observation and rigorous scientific knowledge. Earth observation can contribute to this global bank of technical knowledge, especially when the Parties [treaty signatories] are identifying strategies to reduce the vulnerability of affected populations."

Jan Sheltinga
Secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
24 June 2002 -

"In Afghanistan, accurate satellite maps of the Almar/Qaysar Districts showing the terrain and the situation of roads, towns and villages. These maps helped us choose the best routes for displaced people, to estimate the amount of time it would take to reach them, and to plan emergency evacuation routes for our staff."

Koen Van de Cauter
Médecins Sans Frontières
29 May 2002 -

"All epidemiologists are looking forward to the greater information content of Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) data. Satellite sensor data hold out hope for the development of early-warning systems for diseases such as malaria, which kills between 1 and 2 million people each year."

David Rogers
Oxford University's Department of Zoology
20 February 2002 -

"It is now possible to forecast some major events such as El Niño, but smaller-scale phenomena such as the North Atlantic oscillation pose much more of a problem. Before the advent of satellites, forecasting of this type would have been unthinkable."

Philippe Gaspar
Head of satellite oceanography at CLS
11 February 2002 -

"Envisat will also be useful when it comes to things like algal blooms and detecting waves and monitoring pollution and oil spills. In these real time scenarios ENVISAT will make a real difference to people."

Dr. Bryan Lawrence
Head of the British Atmospheric Data Centre at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories
24 January 2002 -

"Satellites and shrimps are a strange combination but one that is contributing to increasing food security, alleviating poverty and safeguarding our environment."

Carlo Travaglia
FAO’s Environment and Natural Resources Service
3 January 2002 -

"This is the rationale behind all climate research - to be able to make accurate predictions about what will happen in the future. This would not be possible without observations from satellites such as Envisat and ever more sophisticated computer models."

Professor David Llewellyn-Jones
Head of Earth Observation Science at the University of Leicester, UK
10 December 2001 -

"Radar echoes from the ice sheets enable us to estimate their elevations. By measuring changes in the elevations of the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, we can determine whether they are growing or shrinking, and whether global sea levels will be affected."

Dr. Seymour Laxon
University College, London
10 December 2001 -

"ERS showed us that it is possible to use global space measurements to support global change studies, leading to political decisions on international agreements and treaties, and changes in the behaviour of society - companies adopting green labelling, for example."

Ankie Pieters
KNMI
17 July 2001 -

"ERS-SAR provided a unique data source, which enabled national organisations to prototype and validate the operational infrastructure for oil spill detection and sea ice mapping services."

Jan-Petter Pedersen
Tromsoe Satellite Station
17 July 2001 -

"Using REMSAT (Real Time Emergency Management using Satellite) we can map the perimeter of the fire more accurately than ever before."

John Flanagan
British Columbia Forest Service
21 February 2001 -

"With seven years of historical data about sea states, wind speeds, temperatures, wave heights and directions, we can create a useful tool."

Pierre Lasnier
MétéoMer
15 January 2001 -

"An evaluation of the flood areas using remote sensing data and GIS is the most important problem facing Chernobyl zone researchers."

Alexey Ischuk
ECOMM (Kiev)
23 October 2000 -