The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS)

The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) supports all actors involved in the management of natural or manmade disasters by providing geospatial data and images for informed decision making. CEMS constantly monitors Europe and the globe for signals of an impending disaster or evidence of one happening in real time. The service immediately notifies national authorities of their findings or can be activated on-demand and offers to provide them with maps, time-series or other relevant information to better manage disaster risk. CEMS products are created using satellite, in-situ (non-space) and model data.

CEMS products show information about a disaster event on a scale, timeline, and perspective that only geospatial information can provide. CEMS products can examine changes to an area of Earth over a series of days, weeks, months or years. This can help authorities pinpoint affected areas by identifying changes e.g. from one day to the next. The high level of detail allows actors to visualise the extent of an event without travelling to each area of a region, saving time and resources. The products can be quickly shared among all agencies involved in an incident to enable timely and consistent response actions.

Protecting lives and assets

Copernicus EMS produces pan-European and global forecasting and monitoring systems for floods, and forest fires and droughts that support supporting a wide range of end users. It boasts the only fully operational emergency mapping service in the world, which supplies standard information products derived from satellite data in rapid mode to disaster first responders and humanitarian actors worldwide.

Most components of CEMS operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year round. In addition, it offers a Risk & Recovery Mapping component that delivers information and analysis in support of activities for disaster risk reduction, prevention, preparedness, recovery, and reconstruction.

The Copernicus EMS represents a key asset for the global emergency and disaster management community. The service continues to increase the number of observed disaster events analysed via satellite imagery every year and continuously improves its forecasting and monitoring systems.