ESA TIGER Initiative: Managing our water resources from space

Satellite data-derived land cover of the Nile Basin based on ESA’s 2009 GlobCover map.

Credits: Nile Basin Initiative

Today is UN World Water Day, and satellite observations are indispensible for monitoring our water resources. ESA’s TIGER initiative is supporting Africa in monitoring precious water assets by exploiting satellite information.

The demand for water is growing inexorably. Access to water is vital – not only for drinking, but also for agriculture, energy and sanitation.

In certain regions of the world, water scarcity is caused by population growth, climate conditions and increasing climate variability, economic development or urbanisation.

At the sixth World Water Forum held last week in Marseille, France, experts from over 170 countries met to discuss solutions for sustainable water management.

Satellite observations of our planet were widely acknowledged as an indispensable tool for collecting information on available water resources.

This is especially true for areas like cross-boundary river basins, such as the Nile basin and its 11 countries.

Responding to this need for information on water, ESA’s TIGER initiative is running projects and building capacity to use space technology for managing water resources in direct partnership with several African and international organisations, such as the African Ministers’ Council on Water, UNESCO-IHP, African Water Facility, UN-ECA and the Canadian Space Agency.

ESA Envisat image: UK under snow

The varied landscapes of the island nations of Great Britain (right) and Ireland (left) are featured in this Envisat image.

Within Great Britain, the sprawling rugged Scottish coastline (north) stands in contrast to the green plains of southern England (central and southern two-thirds).

The island boasts mountainous landscapes, as seen in Scotland, England (mostly cloud covered) and Wales (peninsula, west of England).

Some 800 lakes are found on the island of Ireland, made up of the Republic of Ireland (covering five-sixths of the island to the south) and Northern Ireland (top eastern corner). The largest lake in the region is Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland.

Brown rugged cliffs along the island’s west coast frame its plush green interior.

The Isles of Man (left of centre) is located between the two islands in the Irish Sea. The English Channel (lower right) flows between southern England and western France. The islands of Jersey and Guernsey are visible in the channel off the coast of Normandy.

The green and tan-tinted swirls in the Irish Sea and English Channel are due to sediments being transported in the water.

This image was acquired by Envisat’s Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer on 11 October 2010 at a resolution of 300 m.

ESA Observing the Earth: UN Climate Change Conference 2010

The Climate Change Initiative (COP16) will combine data from satellites going back three decades with observations from new missions to produce consistent, long-term records for a wide range of essential climate variables such as sea level rise, ice extent and thickness, sea-surface temperature, and vegetation cover.
 
Climate research and modelling communities worldwide will have free access to these data.
 
The information is required by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) to support the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the scientific work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

ESA will maintain an exhibit throughout COP16 (the 16th Conference of the Parties) and host a special side event on the Climate Change Initiative on 2 December, where top climate scientists will show examples of essential climate variables – such as sea level trends and forest fires) explaining how they are used to develop and validate climate models.

The coordinated efforts of space agencies worldwide to provide climate data will also be outlined.

The event will highlight the contribution of ESA’s Living Planet Programme, including two decades of observations from ERS and Enivsat, the recent Earth Explorer scientific missions and the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) operational programme, which will maintain a constellation of satellites continuously monitoring 24 of the 44 essential climate variables for the next three decades.

ESA GlobCorine map

This GlobCorine map is a pan-European land cover and use map, providing a resolution of 300 m.

The map, based on ESA’s Envisat satellite data from 1 January to 31 December 2009, is the first of its kind to be produced in such a short time – nine months as opposed to years.

ESA’s GlobCorine shows how an automated service can generate and regularly update such maps, which are essential for environmental agencies.

Credits: ESA 2010 & Université Catholique de Louvain

ESA - Observing the Earth from Space: Iran's Neyriz Lakes

ESA - Observing the Earth from Space: Iran's Neyriz Lakes - images

Lakes Bakhtegan (centre) and Tashk (top), together known as the Neyriz Lakes, in the Fars Province in southern Iran are featured in this image acquired by ALOS, Japan's four-tonne Earth observation satellite, on 6 March 2009 with its Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type-2 (AVNIR-2) instrument, which is designed to chart land cover and vegetation in visible and near infrared spectral bands with a resolution of 10 m. ESA is supporting ALOS as a Third Party Mission, which means ESA utilises its multi-mission European ground infrastructure and expertise to acquire, process and distribute data from the satellite to its wide user community.

Credits: JAXA, ESA