A comprehensive service portfolio for forest fire risk management within the context of ESA/GMES and EC/Eurorisk: present and future of risk management services in Europe

In the frame of the European programme GMES, the EURORISK team, conducted by several National Civil Protection services in Europe, with the network of European meteorological services EUMETNET, and EADS ASTRIUM as industrial leader, is developing and validating new geoinformation services. These services take benefit of EO information in combination with other data sources and models, aiming at a better management of risks (atmospheric risks, geophysical risks, and man-made risks). The initiative started two years ago (early 2003) with a first project, RISK-EOS, for the European Space Agency (ESA), focused on floods and forest fire-related services, and is now being enlarged through a second project PREVIEW, for the European Commission. The common approach for these two complementary projects is to progressively deploy new operational services for risk management, by taking advantage of the best capacities and know-how existing across Europe. The services are delivered and validated through an iterative process based on preoperational delivery, technical and operational validation, and iterative improvement based on test campaigns results and users feedback. Regarding forest fires management, the targeted service portfolio addresses the full risk management life-cycle, and includes: in prevention: vegetation and fuel parameters mapping; in anticipation: dynamic (daily) fire risk mapping, at high resolution, through assimilation of EO data and meteorological data; during crisis: fires monitoring at large scale using medium-resolution sensors; after crisis: rapid mapping of fires, and seasonal burn scars mapping/damage assessment. This presentation will briefly introduce the EURORISK initiative, explaining the overall approach and methodology to develop the new services proposed. Then, the presentation will be focused on the forest fire management services, addressing: the services which have been already validated in the frame of EURORISK (2003-2004), and delivered widely (France, Spain, Italy); the full fire management service portfolio, as targeted for the next stage of EURORISK (2005-2008).