Date: 5 July 2021
Location: Quito, Ecuador
Credit: Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, processed by the CopernicusLAC Panama Centre
Description:
Quito, the capital of Ecuador, is visible in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image from 5 July 2021.
Ecuador is vulnerable to several hazards, with floods and landslides being the most common. To support the country in promoting disaster risk reduction, the CopernicusLAC Panama Centre is co-developing a series of Earth Observation services within the Hydrometeorological Hazards, Geological Hazards, and Exposure themes.
Ecuador has been selected as one of the demonstration site for the Hydrometeorological Hazards services on Flood Extent Mapping, Flood Depth Mapping, Flood Frequency Mapping, and Flood Hazard. These services will leverage the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS) and high-resolution flood observations from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission data to support local hazard mapping and flood forecasting, thereby increasing resilience to these events.
At the same time, Ecuador serves as the demonstration site for several advanced terrain deformation monitoring services under development within the Geological Hazards theme. These include the Interferometric Stacking, SNAPPING-PSI Medium Resolution, and PSI Geometric Decomposition services. The objective is to test them in non-urban contexts to effectively detect and monitor active faults, seismicity, volcanic activity, and landslides. In particular, they will leverage the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) capabilities of the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission.
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Background Information
The Copernicus LAC Panama Centre’s activities take place within the overall context of the EU-LAC Digital Alliance, which is a strategic framework for promoting cooperation between the EU and the LAC region on digital and space issues under the EU Global Gateway umbrella. Within this context, the European Space Agency (ESA) is coordinating the Centre’s implementation on the basis of a Contribution Agreement with the Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) of the European Commission, and in close collaboration with Panama’s government, MIRE (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Government Innovation Authority (AIG), and SENACYT (National Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation).
The CopernicusLAC Panama Centre will serve as a hub for innovation in the Latin America and Caribbean region, supporting national and local entities in leveraging Copernicus data and information to boost socio-economic benefits and resilience. In addition to providing engagement opportunities, the Centre is developing geospatial Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Pilot Services (addressing hydrometeorological hazards, geological hazards, and hazard exposure) in close collaboration with local users and stakeholders, to whom they will be handed over to ensure that the unique needs of the region are addressed in the long term.
In addition, knowledge and skills transfer is a key element of the CopernicusLAC Panama Centre, which hosts a Digital Campus with access to training modules and educational resources for technical users and citizens alike. The Centre will also organise community-building events, policy dialogues and industry matchmaking, as well as hackathons and other Earth Observation (EO) data challenges to stimulate user adoption of Copernicus data and innovation. These events will also foster cross-collaboration among EO, disaster risk reduction (DRR) and other relevant ecosystems.
Finally, the Centre will support the development of a high-power computing and data storage cloud infrastructure for the LAC region. One of the final objectives of the Centre is to promote the development of communities of practice and to strengthen the knowledge and use of tools for DRR and other application areas in the public sector, academia, the private sector, and social organisations.
