Copernicus for urban resilience in Europe

Abstract

The urban community faces a significant obstacle in effectively utilising Earth Observation (EO) intelligence, particularly the Copernicus EO program of the European Union, to address the multifaceted aspects of urban sustainability and bolster urban resilience in the face of climate change challenges. In this context, here we present the efforts of the CURE project, which received funding under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme, to leverage the Copernicus Core Services (CCS) in supporting urban resilience. CURE provides spatially disaggregated environmental intelligence at a local scale, demonstrating that CCS can facilitate urban planning and management strategies to improve the resilience of cities. With a strong emphasis on stakeholder engagement, CURE has identified eleven cross-cutting applications between CCS that correspond to the major dimensions of urban sustainability and align with user needs. These applications have been integrated into a cloud-based platform known as DIAS (Data and Information Access Services), which is capable of delivering reliable, usable and relevant intelligence to support the development of downstream services towards enhancing resilience planning of cities throughout Europe.