Services Segment Evolution
Overview
The implementation of GMES is primarily through a series of services addressing environmental and security policy needs at European and national level. The architecture of the overall GMES system and in particular of its EO Component must hence be driven by the capacity to provide such services. A number of initial services have been implemented through the ESA GMES Service Element, EC FP6 Integrated Projects and national initiatives. These services will form the basis for the attempt to outline the scenario(s) for the delivery of space EO-based information to service providers.
The evolving capability of the GMES initiative to deliver relevant services is the critical element in ensuring its success. Initial services are being implemented and will provide the basis for the development of services over the next five to ten years. These services are based on combinations of data from ground-based and spaceborne sources; the overall GMES architecture will need to take both into account. The initial services being implemented have successfully given clear indications of the requirements in terms of architecture and infrastructure for service evolution over the coming period. These need to be co-coordinated and elaborated in terms of requirements for the implementation of GMES. In particular it is necessary to define a scenario for service delivery, which focuses on these aspects related to the EO component.
Therefore, the Services Segment Evolution shall arrive at a set of harmonized and consistent requirements on both the space and ground elements of the GMES EO component in order to provide the required services on an operational basis.
The main objectives of this work are to :
Review and analyze the status of the main geo-information service developments on-going in Europe of relevance to the GMES initiative. Define initial implementation designs of operational service production, delivery and use for a few selected GMES services, based on the current capabilities and results achieved to date.
Rapidly explore dimensions of GMES (beyond the environment) to document additional future perspectives that may have significant impact on the evolution of GMES services in the mid-term (2008 – 2015) and beyond.
Formulate a complete, coherent and consolidated future vision of how the full range of GMES services will evolve to operational status on a sustainable basis in the timeframe of 2008–2015, taking into account the capabilities that exist in Europe, the additional future perspectives and the probable developments foreseen.
Services Review
The following 10 candidate services have been identified:
- Marine and coastal environment (including pollution, oil spills)
- Risk management (floods & fires)
- Risk management (monitoring of subsidence & landslides)
- Air pollution (local to regional scales)
- European water quality
- European land use/land cover state and changes (including soil sealing)
- Forest monitoring
- Food security – Early warning systems
- Global change issues
- Maritime security (maritime transport and coastal surveillance, including ice monitoring aspect)
These candidate services are ambitious in scale, scope and breadth of implementation. Specific developments are currently being undertaken by both ESA and the EC in direct support of a sub-set of these initial services. The focus on these current and firmly planned services developments are directly associated with the GMES initiative.
In addition, the main geo-information service initiatives (at pan-European and national levels) are being taken within Europe which are of relevance to the complete list of all GMES initial services above. Examples of such main services initiatives include EOINET of the EEA, the CORINNE land cover initiative, the MARS programme in support of agricultural subsidies, and the INSPIRE initiative in support of spatial data infrastructure and standards.
Services Segment
The focus of the analysis and design within the review is towards the infrastructure and architecture that support the service segment. Separate actions within the suite of the ESA GMES preparatory activities are addressing space and ground segment architectures.
The design of the service segment requires a detailed and practical knowledge of the operational organisation, processes and working practices associated with the user segment. This is to ensure that the service segment is implemented in a manner that different user organizations receive the appropriate information services that deliver most benefit to their current operational needs.
In addition, the design of the service segment specifies the interfaces required for external data acquisition;
- EO data (from the ground segment);
- Non-EO data (e.g. in-situ monitoring networks, data required for modelling/assimilation). In many cases, the owners and operators of such in-situ information are themselves organizations within the user segment.
Both of the above constraints suggest that the design approach to the service segment will be based on a network of geographically distributed, co-operating service providers operating together to serve the diverse needs of the user segment.