TERRAFIRMA

GMES Terrafirma Project (European Space Agency)

GSI is currently involved in one of ten projects being supported by ESA's (European Space Agency) GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) Service Element Programme.

Terrafirma aims to provide a Pan-European ground motion information service, which provides identification, assessment, understanding and monitoring of ground motions that present a hazard to citizens in the urban environment.

This service will comprise:

• Maps and time histories, from radar satellite archives showing ground movement rates in recent years at millimetric scales.
  
  
• Monitoring of specific hazard areas on request.
  
  
• Measurements integrated with geological information in a GIS/web-based delivery system to provide the understanding needed before decision-makers take action.
  
  
• Site/project-based models to provide a deeper understanding and to introduce an element of forecasting.