Munich, November 12th, 2010: GAF AG provides its industrial project management competence to the Fire Disturbance project (“Fire_cci”) as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative.
The Climate Change Initiative (CCI) set up by ESA is aiming at realization of the full potential of the long-term global Earth observation archives of ESAs and other agencies satellite missions. CCI shall provide a significant and timely contribution to the “Essential Climate Variables” (ECV) databases as required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. One of the ECVs is on the detection of burned areas. Burned biomass is considered to contribute to a large amount to the release of greenhouse gases and CO2 in the atmosphere and thus is an important factor in climate change.
The project team consists of 10 European partners with University of Alcalá (Spain) being the scientific lead and GAF responsible for project management. The project is designed to strengthen cooperation between international earth observation, climate research and modelling communities. The following activities are foreseen:
- User requirements definition and analysis
- Development and validation of burned area algorithms
- Production of multi-sensor global burned area data layers and time series
- Specification for a future operational production system
GAF AG is responsible for project management and contributes to the validation of information products and promotion of the project and its products. GAF Project Manager Richard Theis observes: “We are excited to be part of this outstanding team. We are looking forward to providing GAF`s 25 experience in operational application of satellite remote sensing to the Climate Change Initiative.”
The project is funded by ESA in the frame of the Climate Change Initiative (CCI) programme. More on the Fire_cci project can be found here: www.esa-fire-cci.org
About GAF AG – Germany
GAF AG, an e-GEOS-Telespazio company, is globally active and has an international reputation as a competent provider of project design, management and implementation services in the fields of geo-information, satellite remote sensing and spatial IT consultancy to private and public clients. Within the past 25 years, GAF has been active in more than 100 countries throughout Europe, Africa, South-America and Asia. More on GAF: www.gaf.de
About UAH (University of Alcala de Henares) – Spain
The UAH department of Geography is well known in the field of remote sensing of fire events, fuel type mapping, fire risks and global changes. UAH is in charge of scientific coordination and project prime.
About ESA / ESRIN – Italy
European Space Research Institute (ESRIN) is ESA's centre for Earth Observation.
To obtain more information, please contact:
GAF AG | Tel. +49 (0) 89 12 15 28 0 | www.gaf.de | Email Contact
