Emergency Management Service. early warning FLOOD AND FIRE ALERTS. Space

Transcription

1 Emergency Management Service early warning FLOOD AND FIRE ALERTS Space

2 1 Copernicus at a Glance Copernicus is the European Union s Earth Observation programme: a user-driven space programme under civil control. Copernicus monitors the Earth using its own dedicated constellation of satellites the Sentinels complemented by other satellites provided by Member States and other third parties, as well as utilising a range of non-space ( in situ ) data sources. The Copernicus programme supports the protection of the environment and the efforts of Civil Protection and civil security, and contributes to European participation in global initiatives. Copernicus offers six different service lines: Emergency Management, Atmosphere Monitoring, Marine Environment Monitoring, Land Monitoring, Climate Change, and services for Security applications. More information on Copernicus can be found at the following location: The Copernicus Emergency Management Service supports actors dealing with natural disasters, man-made emergency situations, and humanitarian crises as well as those involved in preparedness and recovery activities. The service improves people s safety and helps to prevent loss of lives and/ or property by improving the effectiveness of preparedness, prevention, disaster risk reduction and resilience activities, in particular through the provision of early warning services for floods and fires. The Copernicus Emergency Management Service The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) provides actors involved in the management of natural disasters, humaninduced emergency situations, and humanitarian crises with timely and accurate geo-spatial information derived from satellite-based remote sensing complemented by available in situ (non-space) or open source data. As an EU service, the EMS s first priority is responding to national or cross-border disasters in Europe and large-scale disasters outside of the EU. The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) has two main components, Early Warning and Mapping, as well as a dedicated component for the validation of the mapping products. The EMS Mapping Service is provided in two modules: Rapid Mapping, for rapid service delivery during the response phase of crises, and Risk & Recovery Mapping, which is designed for pre- or post-crisis situations in support of recovery, disaster risk reduction, prevention, and preparedness activities. The Early Warning component strengthens the preparedness of national and local authorities for floods and forest fires. In case of major floods or fires, the forecasts can be used to pre-task satellites to target hot spot areas to facilitate the timely provision of rapid mapping information for emergency response. Early Warning and Risk & RAPID MAPPING On demand Standardised Hours-days REFERENCE MAPS DELINEATION MAPS GRADING MAPS VALIDATION Recovery information help to strengthen the resilience of nations and communities by improving their capacities to be prepared for, to cope with and to recover from major natural and man-made disasters. The dedicated Validation component independently verifies a sample of service outputs produced by the Rapid Mapping or Risk & Recovery Mapping modules in regard to robustness and accuracy in order to provide recommendations for the improvement of the service. The EMS is provided under the overall political coordination and budgetary management of the European Commission s Directorate- General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) - as are all Copernicus services - and operated through the 24/7/365 Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) at the Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (DG ECHO). For the Mapping component, the Joint Research Centre (DG JRC) is in charge of technical support and management of service providers contracts for map production. It coordinates the Early Warning component and outsources technical activities. The Mapping component must be activated by an Authorised User (see p. 4). It is free of charge. RISK AND RECOVERY MAPPING On demand Tailored to user needs Weeks-months REFERENCE MAPS PRE-DISASTER SITUATION MAPS REFERENCE MAPS POST-DISASTER SITUATION MAPS VALIDATION Floods: EFAS Forest Fires: EFFIS CONTINOUS ALERTS

3 2 Early Warning The Early Warning component of the EMS aims to improve the preparedness, and therefore the responsiveness, of national authorities in relation to floods and wildfires. The Early Warning component currently provides alerts related to floods, forest fire danger predictions as well as near-real time assessment of forest fire impacts. The European Flood Awareness System (EFAS 1 ) was developed in response to the threat posed by transboundary European flood events, and is part of a strategy for improved disaster management in Europe to reduce the impact of such floods through the coordinated provision of early warning information. The aim of the system is to provide, useful, complementary and shared information on upcoming flood events to the national hydrological services. EFAS provides a unique and coherent overview on ongoing and forecasted floods across Europe, which is needed for improved coordination of international civil protection actions on European scale during severe flood events. EFAS provides flood probability forecasts for all European rivers. National authorities in Member States receive twice-daily pan- European flood forecast information up to 10 days in advance. A pan-european overview of ongoing floods is posted on the EFAS website and updated daily. An extension of the coverage of EFAS from European to global scale is currently being tested and is accessible in pre-operational mode. EFAS has been fully operational since Autumn The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS 2 ) emerged from a DG JRC research group set up in 1998 to work on the development and implementation of advanced methods for the evaluation of forest fire danger and mapping of burnt areas at European scale. A Forest Fire Experts Group was established by DG JRC and the Directorate-General for the Environment (DG ENV) to provide advisory support on the development of fire assessment methods. These activities led to the creation of the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which became operational in EFFIS is a web-based geographic information system that provides fire danger forecasts up to 10 days in advance and near real-time and historical information on forest fires and their regimes in the European, Middle East and North Africa regions. Fire monitoring in EFFIS encompasses the full fire cycle, and the service provides information both on pre-fire conditions and post-fire damages. The extension of EFFIS towards a Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS ) is underway. A prototype of GWIS already exists, providing, as within EFFIS, fire danger forecast information and active fire locations. The inclusion of burnt area maps and fire damage assessment in GWIS is anticipated as from More information on the services is available at: emergency.copernicus.eu Disaster types Flood Fire

4 3 The European Flood Awareness System The European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) is the operational pan-european system for monitoring and forecasting floods across Europe. It provides complementary flood early warning information up to 10 days in advance to its partners: national and regional hydro-meteorological services and the European Response and Coordination Centre (ERCC). The aim of EFAS is to gain time for preparedness measures before major flood events strike, in particular for trans-national river basins, both within individual countries and at a European level. This is achieved by providing complementary, added value information through, for example, probabilistic flood forecasts and river basin wide flood information. EFAS is built on the interplay of four centres, operated by different consortia of service providers: >The > EFAS Hydrological Data Collection Centre collects historical and real-time data on discharge (the amount of water flowing through a river channel) and water level of rivers across Europe >The > EFAS Meteorological Data Collection Centre collects historic and real-time meteorological data across Europe. >The > EFAS Computational Centre executes forecasts and hosts the EFAS web platform EFAS is available at: >The > EFAS Dissemination Centre summarises key information on a daily basis and disseminates it to the partners and the ERCC Every national, regional or local authority involved in flood forecasting within its country can become an EFAS partner. EFAS flood forecasts are provided via password-protected web interface and web services to ensure that the legal obligations of the partners to issue flood warnings to the public are respected. EFAS forecasts are provided for free and are not limited to EU Member States.

5 4 EFAS in Action The twice-daily udated EFAS flood forecasts are accessible through a highly customisable, password protected web platform. It provides a wide range of flood related information such as the current soil moisture and snow conditions from model simulations as well as from satellite images, the predicted meteorological and hydrological situation based on different weather forecasts, flood probabilities and flash flood specific data. In addition, users can access more detailed information such as hydrographs at specific locations. The EFAS web interface can be customised by zooming into the region of interest and selecting the layers most relevant for the individual user. EFAS forecasts are analysed on a daily basis by the EFAS Dissemination Center and flood alerts are sent to all relevant partners when a high probability of flooding in a specific river basin is predicted. The EFAS partners can then monitor the evolution of the flood forecasts via the EFAS web interface. In addition, the ERCC is informed on a daily basis by an overview report about the predicted and ongoing flood situation in Europe. Forecasted rainfall animations as available in the EFAS web platform. Screenshot of the EFAS web platform for the forecast of 9 September Triangles denote locations for which EFAS had issued alerts. The background layer represents the predicted rainfall according to the deterministic ECMWF weather forecast. Screenshot of the EFAS web platform for the forecast of 9 September Example of a flood prediction at a specific location. Flash flood forecast information as displayed in the EFAS web platform.

6 5 The European Forest Fire Information System The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) consists of a modular web geographic information system that provides near real-time and historical information on forest fires and forest fires regimes in the European, Middle East and North Africa regions. Fire monitoring in EFFIS comprises the full fire cycle, providing information on the pre-fire conditions and assessing post-fire damages. EFFIS uses a large variety of data in its assessments, including meteorological information for fire danger forecast, remote sensing satellite imagery for active fire and burnt area mapping as well as information on fuels, topography, soils, etc. to assess environmental damages caused by fires. Currently, under the Copernicus EMS Early Warning component, EFFIS provides fire danger predictions and the near-real time mapping of burnt areas. This information is further used to determine the damage to the land cover affected by the fires. Dissemination of information and data is channelled via the EFFIS web interface, which is open to the public. EFFIS Copernicus services include: Fire Danger Assessment Conditions of fire danger are computed using meteorological weather predictions and on the basis of the Fire Weather Index and its subindices. These indices provide information on the likelihood of a fire starting and spreading at a given location. The computation is done using meteorological numerical weather prediction data and in situ data from national meteorological services and other relevant data providers for calculating the initial conditions. The products in this service include: (1) daily fire danger forecast, 1 to 10 days in advance with a resolution of 10 to 36 km, (2) the computation of fire danger anomalies, and (3) the provision of seasonal and monthly fire weather forecasts, i.e. temperature and rainfall anomalies that are expected to prevail over European and Mediterranean areas during the next two weeks and the next two months. Burnt area mapping and monitoring The location of active fires, as detected by satellite imagery, is mapped as many as 4 times every day. Additionally, accurate mapping of fires of approximately 40 ha or larger and updated information on their perimeters is provided twice daily based on medium4 spatial resolution imagery. Furthermore, it is expected that the service will provide a seasonal high-resolution burnt area map, produced on the basis of high5 spatial resolution imagery for the European, Middle East and North-Africa regions, i.e. that covered by the current twice-daily fire mapping service. 4 5 Approximately m ground spatial resolution Approximately m ground spatial resolution EFFIS is available at:

7 6 EFFIS in Action As mentioned on the opposite page, EFFIS provides a daily fire danger forecast that is computed on the basis of one of three numerical weather prediction models, belonging to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the French (Meteofrance) and the German (DWD) weather services. Fire danger is estimated using the Fire Weather Index (FWI), a method initially developed in Canada and adopted in 2007 as a best practice for harmonised fire danger prediction in Europe. In addition to the FWI, EFFIS fire danger predictions include insights into the probability of fire ignition, based the moisture content of vegetation, the wind speed and the potential intensity of the fire. When accessing EFFIS, users can select one of the three weather models through a drop-down menu. The different FWI sub-indices are accessible in a second menu, both of which are depicted on the left-hand side of the image below. Fire danger conditions are classified into 6 categories, from very low (in green) to extreme (in maroon). These categories determine the potential likelihood of fire ignition and the probability for an active fire to spread rapidly and develop into a critical fire event. Information on the fire danger forecast from day 1 to day 10 can be shown and plotted using the web interface. Fire danger situation early in the 2015 fire season. Information is provided on the trends of fire danger for any selected location and the data on the different subindices of the Fire Weather Index. The burnt area mapping and monitoring service in EFFIS provides near-real time assessment of burnt areas, which are assessed on the basis of medium spatial resolution imagery. The image below shows a fire in Ireland that occurred in April 2015 and burnt 1138 ha of broadleaf and conifer forests. Large fire in Ireland in April 2015.

8 Both EFAS and EFFIS are being extended beyond Europe to provide global services. For EFAS, a pre-operational pilot service called GloFAS (Global Flood Awareness System) is available for testing, with the launch of a robust and operational system envisaged for The global version of EFFIS is known as GWIS (Global Wildfire Information System). A prototype of GWIS already exists, providing, as within EFFIS, fire danger forecast information and active fire locations on a global scale. The inclusion of burnt area maps and fire damage assessment in GWIS is anticipated as from The Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS) Probability [%] of exceeding 300 mm of accumulated rainfall over the forecast range of 10 days for the ensemble ECMWF forecast. Floods in Malawi. From January 2015 heavy rainfall affected parts of Mozambique and Malawi. The above figures show the anticipated probabilities of exceeding 300 mm over a 10 day forecast for the time period of 5-15 January (left) and January (right) in South-eastern Africa based on the Ensemble Prediction System from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The complete Copernicus EMS User Guide can be downloaded from: EMS Early Warning services can be accessed directly on the web portals for the respective services: European Flood Awareness System: Global Flood Awareness System: The European Forest Fire Information System: Global Wildfire Information System: Photo credits: Cover: Fires - U.S. Air Force; Floods - European Commission/ECHO. All screenshots: European Commission/DG JRC. Page 3: U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency; Page 5: European Commission/DG ECHO Map credits: All products featured in this brochure have been developed in the framework of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service during its GIO (GMES Initial Operations) phase ( ). Global Outlook