Disaster Relief and Emergency Management

A key role of the European Space Agency is to respond to the needs of its Member States, the European Union and user communities, including the institutional sector. This is especially clear in the area of Disaster Relief and Emergency Management. ESA has been leading activities in this area for more than a decade. ESA-supported activities in Disaster Relief and Emergency Management are run under different ARTES (Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems) programme elements, namely ARTES 3, 4 and 5. ESA's approach in this field is to liaise between users and industry to guarantee successful matching of different interests. Users are involved from the design phase to project completion. This is recognised as a key element for a successful project, because only users can effectively translate their demands into a working system. ESA is also working on the creation of a pan-European initiative for the development of civil protection services using satellite communications. The two lines of action are considered complementary and fundamental to understand the role satellite communication systems may play during critical events on ground.