From initial ideas to a European plan: GMES as an exemplar of European space strategy

Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) is an idea which originated during a meeting in Baveno, Italy, in May 1998, which generated a call for Europe to get its act together in the field of environmental monitoring from space, to define a well articulated strategy in this area and to build upon its excellent scientific research community, its proven technical prowess in Earth observation from space and its nascent political will to express its objectives in international fora related to climate change and other global environment topics. While Europe was already active in the most advanced areas of global monitoring, its rather uncoordinated efforts (even within the European Commission) lacked visibility and did not appear to fit into a clearly established strategy. The 'Baveno initiative' was an attempt to remedy this situation and find a place within a developing 'European Strategy for Space', which requires ESA and the European, Union to work more closely together. GMES was extended to include the 'security' (in its wider sense) aspects of,global monitoring, a move that produced a number of questions and misunderstandings, but which allowed many in Europe to realize that monitoring the activities of the Earth' land masses, oceans and atmosphere do include a security dimension. GMES will eventually incorporate an implementation plan which will call upon various monitoring techniques, ambitious modelling projects and connections with society's more urgent requirements with respect to environmental protection and prevention or reduction of risks related to natural hazards. This will entail significant efforts to inform the user communities and to convince them of the relevance and usefulness of-this initiative. It will also provide a sound basis for the European contribution to the new initiative for improved coordination of strategies and systems for Earth observations called for by the July 2003 Earth Observation Summit. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.