European Environment Agency set to join WEkEO as a new implementing partner
The European Environment Agency (EEA) will soon join WEkEO as the fourth implementing partner, adding Copernicus Land Monitoring Service data and expert user support to the pre-existing marine, climate and atmosphere data from the relevant Copernicus Services and satellites.
WEkEO boasts first-hand data from the Copernicus Atmosphere, Climate, Ocean, and now Landservices, making it the centralised hub to access data coming from the world’s leading earth observation programme. The data is combined with powerful processing tools, a distributed infrastructure connected by an ultra-highspeed backbone, and a harmonised data access API to allow uniform access to the entire WEkEO database.
“Working with WEkEO quickly became an obvious choice for the EEA: WEkEO enables us to facilitate cross-service cooperation in a broad environment as well as in a climate change domain. There is substantial added value in bringing all environment and climate related Copernicus services together, for which WEkEO can definitely be seen as the facilitating asset,” says Hans Dufourmont, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service Project Manager at the EEA.
The European Union agency, whose task is to provide sound, independent information on the environment, also implements components of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service. The EEA recently added to the WEkEO catalogue the Copernicus Land products: the High Resolution Snow and Ice Monitoring Product. It provides high resolution data on fractional snow cover, persistent snow area, river and lake ice extent and aggregated river and lake ice extent for the EEA39 which is essential for assessing natural hazards such as floods, avalanches, river ice jams and managing the associated risks.
All four datasets are available through WEkEO here.