Group on Earth Observations presentation during the Risk-informed Early Action Partnership (REAP) session at Understanding Risk 2020

1. Earth observations
for informed risk
decision making
Steven Ramage, GEO Secretariat
@steven_ramage / sramage@geosec.org

2. Earth observations are data and
information collected about our
planet, whether our our atmosphere,
oceans and on land.
This includes satellite imagery, space-
based or remotely-sensed data, as
well as ground-based or in situ data.
Earth observations

3. G E O I N N U M B E R SGroup on Earth Observations
GEO in numbers
The GEO Work Programme is the primary
instrument to plan and implement GEO activities.
It contains almost 70 Earth observation (EO)
activities relating to environmental and
socioeconomic development:
http://www.earthobservations.org/geoss_wp.php
This is across agriculture, biodiversity, climate,
disasters, energy, forestry, health, land, ocean,
urban and (fresh) water.
GEO Indigenous Summit 7-9 Dec 2020
http://earthobservations.org/indigenoussummit2020.php
UNFCCC Climate Dialogues and Earth Info Day
http://earthobservations.org/geo_blog_obs.php?id=481

4. Climate Action WG
Subgroup 1: Coordination with GEO Work Programme)
and Synergies (co-chair: Virginia Burkett, USA)
Subgroup 2: Engagement with UNFCCC and IPCC
(co-chair: Mark Dowell, European Commission)
Subgroup 3: Enhancing the use of EO for Mitigation
(co-chair: Lucia Perugini, Italy)
Subgroup 4: Enhancing the use of EO for Adaptation and
Loss & Damage (co-chair: Angel Valdiviezo, Ecuador)

5. Disaster Risk Reduction WG
Subgroup 1: Coordination w/GEO Work Programme
(co-chair: Dave Borges, NASA United States)
Subgroup 2: UNDRR Sendai Framework Monitoring and
Global Assessments - GAR and GRAF (co-chair: Janet
Edwards, MSB Sweden)
Subgroup 3: Climate Change and SDG coordination
(co-chair: Kene Onukwube, DEAR Africa)

6. Urban Resilience and Human Settlements
Engagement Priority
GEO engagement with UN-Habitat and EO4SDG
Work on SDG11 and New Urban Agenda
Developing EO Toolkit for Safe and Sustainable Cities

7. Private sector engagement
Big satellite data
(2PB per day)
Data cubes
(consistent observations)
Products and
services
images: NASA, Swiss Data Cube, ECMWF
How to share risks between public and private actions?
Small Medium and Micro Sized Enterprises

8. Capacity
Digital literacy, policy & technology translation,
co-design and co-production of knowledge
Communications
Awareness raising, free resources,
training schedules and venue
Collaboration
Community, human interoperability & regions
Commercial
Public Private Partnerships, platform & pricing
The 4Cs
Discover, access and use open data

9. OPEN DATA FOR THE
BENEFIT OF HUMANKIND

10. Contact
@steven_ramage
sramage@geosec.org
Collaborate and communicate with GEO: