Users in defence and security work in the field of military, emergency and social protection and define, collect, analyse information to provide intelligence & safety. Some examples are activities under humanitarian response such as border control organisations, police and rescue forces, coast guards, civil protection, military services, and intelligence services which can use EO services to detect and monitor high risk areas produced naturally or by humans, monitor border incursions or maritime movements.
Users in defense, security and military are border control organisations, police and rescue forces, military services, and intelligence services. Use of EO/GI data can be made in the field of detecting and monitoring high risk areas (natural and humanitarian), monitoring border incursions, or monitoring maritime movements.
The community of users in education includes instructors (1) who are teaching or conducting research in some aspect of GIScience, such as coding, remote sensing, field methods, geodetic control, web mapping, spatial analysis, or related topics, or (2) who are using GIS as a teaching tool in a discipline, such as business, biology, economics, or health sciences. By extension, this community includes students and supportive deans and other educational administrators. The benefits that these users gain from EO information includes a set of best practices vetted by experts in the field that they can use to teach modern GIS workflows more effectively.
The goals of this user community are focused on a deeper and a broader implementation of geotechnology, methods, and spatial data throughout the educational system—primary, secondary, university, and lifelong learning (libraries, museums, and other informal settings). Deeper implementation implies embracing GIS as a platform, including its field data gathering tools and citizen science workflows, spatial analysis, building web maps and apps, communicating with multimedia maps derived from web GIS, systems configuration work, and the coding that is behind modern GIS infrastructure. Broader implementation implies the use of GIS in a multitude of disciplines at all levels of education, formal and informal; occurring wherever changes over space and time are being examined.
At all levels of education the challenge of sufficient bandwidth and the use of a professional systems-based tool such as GIS, along with devices capable of running web GIS tools, are barriers in many areas throughout the world. However, educational and societal forces represent a stronger challenge than technological ones. These educational and societal challenges that this user community faces include the lack of educational content standards at the primary and secondary level that support the use of geotechnologies in education, and at the university level, a lack of awareness of and access to modern SaaS GIS tools and open data portals.
The risks that the community faces in not facing the challenge of the use of GIS in the education sector is a lack of geographic and spatial literacy among students and faculty. This will translate to research that does not consider spatiotemporal implications of 21st Century challenges, a workforce ill-equipped to deal with them, and consequently an increasingly unstable and dysfunctional world. To build a workforce that can meet global challenges in energy, biodiversity, climate, natural resources, natural hazards, human health, economic inequality, and others, a deep and wide implementation of GIS technology and methods must take place throughout the educational system. The actions that society can take to face that challenge is to provide professional development opportunities for faculty, curricular resources, assessment instruments, relevant spatial data and open data portals, examples of best practices, and a network for educators and researchers in which to interact. EO can provide all of these elements in partnership with educational institutions, government, nonprofits, and industry to meet this challenge. In so doing, an increasingly sustainable, healthier, resilient world can be achieved from the community to the global level.
EO provides timely, continuous and independent data for monitoring indicators of the progress of the society in various societal challenges.
EO monitoring supports activities that address societal & environmental challenges. This happens indirectly along a chain: e.g. a regularly provided EO information product derived from EO data of a satellite is integrated as a parameter in a climate model / Earth system model. This climate model enables the development of regulations (and their enforcement through constant monitoring) to implement climate change mitigation measures. Thereby, the chain is characterized by seveal connected nodes: from societal challenges to use cases of users to EO applications to EO products to specific satellites and their sensors.
[Communities that promote collaboration among diverse stakeholders from academia, industry, public administration as well as local residents]
Scientific agendas address societal challenges and the EO/GI community can contribute to them. Consortia usually include experts from academia (researchers, developers, scientists), EO companies, and members from the user community such as public authorities.
There is a rising geostrategic competition and power pilitics challenging rule-based multilateralism. Further, there are armed confilct, civil wars and instability in the EU's broader neighbourhood.
Further, natural disasters pose a threat to society, where the Sendai Framework of disaster risk reduction focuses on.
Monitor security and safety describes the collection and analysis of information to provide intelligence services & safety. The task is to give early warnings in case of emergencies, to monitor infrasturcture, transport routes (land and water) and borders, to surveil security and sovereignty.
The EO/GI users in humanitarian operations correspond to humanitarian aid organisations, humanitarian support organisations and overall humanitarian response such as border control organisations, police and rescue forces, coast guards, civil protection, military services, and intelligence services. They can use EO services to detect and monitor high risk areas produced naturally or by humans, monitor border incursions or maritime movements. They provide support to local populations that have experienced a crisis, e.g. they fled from a conflict or are affected by a natural disaster. The organisations therefore support the population's needs for sustenance. Consequently, any related risks are relevant as well. The users benefit from the EO capability to identify and monitor people in need, i.e. to assess pressures on populations and migration, and to monitor humanitarian movement and camps. They additionally benefit from EO through mapping disaster areas for situation awareness and detecting sensitive risk areas. Some examples of users at European level are DG RELEX, DG ECHO, DG ENV/ MIC. At UN, the users include OCHA, UNHCR, UNDPKO, UNDP, UNOPS, UNITAR, UNICEF, UNESCO, WFP. Further, international users include IFRC, WHO, WB, and donor organizations. At the national level, the users include Civil Protection Agencies, Ministries of Internal Affairs / Civil Protection Department, Development and Aid agencies.
Monitor critical information about offensive and defensive systems. This deserves a category in its own right since the nature of observations is quite different from many others.