Terrestrial and marine ecosystems provide essential services to human societies. Anthropogenic pressures, however, cause serious threat to ecosystems, leading to habitat degradation and increased risk of collapse, with related loss of ecosystem services. Knowledge-based conservation, management and restoration policies are needed to improve ecosystem benefits in face of increasing pressures. ECOPOTENTIAL will make significant progress beyond the state-of-the-art and create a new unified framework for ecosystem studies and management of protected areas (PA). ECOPOTENTIAL will focus on internationally recognized PAs in Europe and beyond; most PAs are UNESCO World Natural Heritage Sites, Biosphere Reserves, national parks and Natura 2000 sites. LTER sites and Large Marine Ecosystems are included. Best use of Earth Observation (EO) and monitoring data will be made possible by new EO open-access ecosystem data services (ECOPERNICUS).

New modeling approaches including information from EO data will be developed, ecosystem services in current and future conditions will be assessed and the requirements of future protected areas will be defined. Open and interoperable access to data and knowledge will be assured by a GEO Ecosystem Virtual Laboratory Platform, fully integrated in GEOSS. Support to transparent and knowledge-based conservation and management policies, able to include information from EO data, will be given. Knowledge gained in the PAs will be upscaled to pan-European conditions and used for planning and management of future PAs.

A permanent stakeholder consultancy group (GEO Ecosystem Community of Practice) will be created. Capacity building will be pursued at all levels. SMEs will be involved to create expertise leading to new job opportunities, ensuring commercial uptake and long-term continuation of services. In summary, ECOPOTENTIAL will use the most advanced technologies to improve future ecosystem benefits for humankind.

NEREIDS brought innovate capabilities based on EO to make a best exploitation of available space technologies. NEREIDS brought enhanced EO capabilities by combining different sensors with innovative data fusion techniques.

NEREIDS deployed a toolbox approach enabling share data and capabilities and support a common maritime picture. NEREIDS made an analysis of maritime surveillance in a cross-sector approach and brought best capabilities using best use of available space assets.

Socioeconomic activities such as supply and distribution of gas or electricity and the Infrastructures that generate it or transport it (power plants, gas pipes), are vital to the day-to-day functioning of any country. How those Critical Infrastructures can anticipate any threat with the view of avoiding potential disruptions is the main goal of ARGOS project that will enhance the capacity of those Infrastructures in order to monitor, detect, and respond to a potential threat using ‘Early Warning Technologies’.

The market of EO services is rapidly growing and becoming one of the main driving forces of innovative development both in Europe and Russia. At the same time, still the exchange of EO data available in both regions is a technical challenge.

The consortium composed of the developers of an only Russian civil EO satellite system Resurs-DK and representatives of European EO research community and EO service industry aimed at reducing technical barriers for the joint use of EO data available both in the EU and Russia.

The goal of SEOCA was to promote European GEO-technologies in the region of Central Asia as a platform solution for the regional development challenges. As a result the consortium managed via SEOCA to radically increase acceptance of GEOSS technologies by regional governments for national environmental services, meteorology, natural hazards prevention, geological explorations, etc.

THETIS was a National Project regarding ship identification and monitoring system based on satellite data. The aim of the project was to develop a system to monitor closed sea areas such as the Gulf of Patras, which would improve the management capacity and safety of maritime transport, acting, when required, in addition to the existing ground surveillance systems.

The implementation of the THETIS system was based on the use of polarization SAR data from satellites of the European Space Agency (ESA) for all possible weather conditions, day and night.

Project’s objectives were: To design a prototype service for civil protection departments to be used in the case of natural hazards and specifically in the case of major earthquake incidents. To demonstrate benefits of innovative technologies (Satcom, wireless) for field operators, decision makers and end-users, to design an integrated service which will be based on EO data, GIS technologies and satellite telecommunications.

This project acted as a start-up for similar service provision in the case of other natural or man-made hazards or for telemedicine applications, direct and rapid data distribution from value-added services and experts to on-field operators and local decision makers, collaborative working sessions between experts, decision makers and on-field operators.

SafeCity dealt with smart Public safety and security in cities. The main objective was to enhance the role of Future Internet in ensuring people feel safe in their surroundings at time that their surroundings are protected. SafeCity was the result of the elaboration of a vertical Use Case Scenario based on Public Safety in European cities.

The main goal of this project was to collect specific requirements driven by relevant users on the Future of Internet versus to the generic ones that will be collected through other objectives.