• The GMES Emergency Response Service
  • Emergency Response Service presentation
  • What are the benefits of the Service ?
  • Support and partnerships
• How to access the Service
  • How to activate the Service ?
  • Who are the users ?
  • The GMES ERS Gateway
• Preparing the Future
  • Research and development
  • Validation process
• Latest news
• Public Documentation
  • Service evolution of ERCS - Entire crisis cycle
  • Prepare and qualify the ERCS
  • Service management

Home : The GMES Emergency Response Service : Emergency Response Service presentation

• Emergency Response Service features

• User-driven Services

• Quality

• 24 / 7

• The big picture

• One step closer to an European geo-information service for crisis management In the frame of the GMES initiative (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), the GMES Emergency Response Service reinforces the European capacity to respond to emergency situations: It  provides a reactive cartographic service to  the registered users involved in the management of humanitarian crisis, natural disasters and man-made emergency situations with timely and high quality products derived from Space Observation. The GMES Emergency Response Service is based on two pillars: The Emergency Response Service: The first priority is the delivery of Emergency Response products, available in rush mode, to European Civil protections and Humanitarian actors. These Emergency Response Service is on the forefront of the GMES service and therefore its most visible part. The Emergency Support Service: Sustaining and completing this service, the Emergency Support service provides reference products and situation maps. These geo-information products are specifically dedicated to the preparedness and recovery phases of the crisis.

• The two main user communities of the GMES Emergency Response Service
  are the European national civil protection agencies and the humanitarian aid organizations.

  Among these two communities the services target the following actors : Decision makers require overall assessment of crises such as information on location, area and population affected by disasters. This information needs to be synthetic and is more effective when provided in a graphical form. For receiving this information, decision makers increasingly rely on internet tools. Implementing partners are for example UN agencies or the NGO community, which plan and deliver aid. Implementers at headquarters increasingly rely on specialized Web sites for disaster alerts. NGOs increasingly provide custom-made maps to their field officers. Field officers and experts need and regularly use geographic information. This is because NGOs need to know precisely the location of crises/disasters, the affected people, the transport network and interruptions to it. Traditional paper maps remain the most common source of geographic information for field officials although maps are more and more disseminated to in-field operators  through the  Internet.     Credits: UN

  Users' involvement is a key priority of the GMES Emergency Response Service. A specific action is defined to foster their support through the three main axes: Validation and acceptance of the service definition Validation of the operational performance and training of users Validation of the new developments

• The overall  service chain is monitored  by a quality control system. New services can be integrated to the operational service as soon as they comply with the validation process.    Quality control The quality control results  in annual reports with recommendations that help the service  operators to improve continuously the quality of the full service chain. In parallel, a  Service Performance Monitoring is carried out (e.g: number of products delivered, time delay between the service triggering and the service delivery etc). Service validation The validation process follow a three step generic approach: First of all, a scientific validation which is performed at the service definition stage, and is aimed at certifying that the proposed methods and data sources are scientifically sound and state-of-the-art. Secondly, a technical validation  of the service chain verify, for each product,  the compliance of the products to the key performance parameters of initial specifications as accuracy and  reliability. For this, test campaigns are carried out, comparing the delivered products to ground truth data or reference data. The test campaign process, test results, and conclusions, are documented in the Service Validation Report. Finally, the operational validation  allows the end-users to confirm the adequacy of the general service characteristics (delivery mode, delays, support, integration in their operation workflow & context, etc.) to their needs.

  
  
  

• The Emergency Response Service is available on a 24H/7D basis Analyse  users requirements and manage activations Manage service delivery  Efficient access to the services and products through a service Gateway (web application). Geo-information delivered up to the  field, via “in-field GIS” light solutions.

  
  

  
   

• Click on the different service components for further information

Top