Pioneering H2020 project e-shape, strengthens the benefits for Europe of GEO - establishing ‘EuroGEO’

EuroGEO, as Europe’s contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, aims at bringing together Earth Observation resources in Europe. It allows Europe to position itself as global force in Earth observation through leveraging Copernicus, making use of existing European capacities and improving user uptake of the data from GEO assets.                           


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angle-left null Mountainow - success story

Success story

Mountainow - success story

Profile

Climate change is changing mountains - creating new needs for safety and adaptation. Timely geo-localized information about mountain hazards is still hard to get. Most of the time, people go to the mountains missing critical information. Public/Private actors make decisions missing critical data – impacting thousands of lives and costing the outdoor/tourism/insurance industry millions.

Proposal

MountaiNow is an interactive live-map of mountain hazards for Europe and the world. Highly innovative is the combination of real-time crowdsourcing, space/satellite insight (Copernicus Sentinel data), Big Data analytics, and guided navigation – offering a new/unique set of actionable information. One key feature of MountaiNow is to allow for the easy capture and real-time sharing of critical hazard observations such as rock-falls, landslides, snow/ice avalanches, glacial lakes, and high river-discharge. Observations of hazard precursor signs such as glacier melt or fractured snow-pack are also included. The year-round service is already fully operational - available in four languages (English, French, German, Italian) and live as mobile app (android, iOS) and web-app

Benefits

  • Social - Individuals are able to better target and manage mountain activities’ types and locations, resulting in (i) Saved lives and less accidents or situations of distress; and (ii) Less field interventions and more information on risk zones for rescue services and civil protection (over 3 million people belong to Alpine Clubs in Europe)
  • Economic - More people go to the mountains safely, resulting in higher number of clients for tourism services and lower number of claims for the insurance industry. Tourism public/private actors (e.g. national parks) are able to improve scarce and costly field monitoring (helicopter surveys can reach €5’000/hour) delivering more relevant information to visitors and maintenance providers alike - thereby encouraging visits and increasing profits.
  • • Environmental / Scientific: Operational actors and research networks get access to a new kind of observations (crowdsourcing/satellite based) – enabling advanced monitoring of mountain areas often difficult to reach (e.g. glaciers, permafrost) and related hazards (e.g. landslides, glacial lake outbursts) – further resulting in actionable information on climate change adaptation.

                                Meet the entities involved in e-shape