Norway

A new programme aims to prevent and countermand the loss of tropical forests by facilitating the global availability of high-resolution satellite imagery. Launched by Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment in partnership with satellite imagery providers Kongsberg Satellite Services, Planetand Airbus, the Imagery Programme makes use of space-based information to combat the devastating effects of climate change, mitigate disasters and facilitate disaster management efforts worldwide.

Trees are vital for upholding an environmental equilibrium and deforestation causes a disruption with devastating effects on our climate. Meaningfully, the positive correlation between deforestation and global warming is widely recognized. The impact of deforestation on the environment can be…

A consortium of Norwegian institutions has used Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data in combination with the Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) remote sensing technique to map ground movements in the country. The Geological Survey of Norway (NGU), the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) and the Norwegian Space Centre (NSC) make results freely accessible through InSAR Norway, a service launched in November 2018. The service aims to produce ground deformation measurements in the country and improve accessibility of InSAR results for public and commercial users.

How does InSAR imagery work?

InSAR is used in remote sensing and geodesy, the science of measuring the geometric shape of the Earth. It compares two or more…

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has signed a partnership agreement with Norway in order to help developing countries assess their forest resources and changes.

Through access to Earth observation data sources and the development of an easy-to-use platform for processing and interpreting this data, the countries will be able to better monitor and report about their forest situation.

"The new platform offers countries a set of efficient tools for monitoring changes in their forest area and carbon stocks, and for developing sustainable forest management regimes", said Eduardo Rojas-Briales, Assistant Director-General of FAO's Forestry Department.

Aware of the difficulties in internet access for some countries, FAO’s new software aims to overcome these problems by avoiding the need to download images locally and by using a "cloud-based" supercomputer instead. In addition, this project does not demand a…

The Norwegian Space Centre and the Norwegian Meteorological Service hosted the 28th plenary session of the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) in Tromsø, Norway.

The meeting took place on the 29 and 30 October 2014 and served as a forum of discussion for CEOS's annual activities and for setting the agenda for future operations. Among the issues discussed, the importance of enhancing climate services and disaster risk reduction strategies was highlighted. The session also led to the redaction of a statement (called the Tromsø statement) that acknowledges an active involvement of CEOS to create inputs in view of the United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction to be held in Sendai, Japan, as well as to other major international events.

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NOAA assumed full operational responsibility of the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite which was operated by the NASA since October, 2011. Suomi NPP is equipped with new, sophisticated Earth-observing instruments that NOAA is using to support improved medium-to-long range weather forecasts. Suomi NPP observes any given point on the Earth’s surface twice a day — once in daylight and once at night. The data is also available to users around the world via direct broadcast. Polar-orbiting, environmental satellites are critical to providing advanced warning for severe weather including tornado outbreaks, heavy snowfall, hurricanes, heat waves, floods, and wildfires.

Suomi NPP was launched on October 28, 2011. In March 2012, Suomi NPP was commissioned and operations were transferred from the NASA Suomi NPP project to the NASA/NOAA JPSS program. Since that time, the Suomi NPP flight and ground teams at the JPSS program have worked to ensure…

In Norway, avalanches pose a risk to road users every year. Since much of the country is remote, knowing exactly where avalanches have blocked roads is a challenge for the authorities. However, ESA has recently shown that satellites could help.
The Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) is responsible for the national road network. In the winter, one of their main challenges is to keep drivers safe from avalanches by closing and clearing roads. However, monitoring the country for avalanche falls from the ground and air is costly and difficult because observation stations are sparse, especially in the remote mountainous regions.NPRA have turned to space to see if satellites could offer a solution. A pilot study called Innovators II–AvalRS was launched through ESA's Earth Observation Data User Element programme to do just that.

Avalanche mapped using new algorithm
One of the best ways of ensuring that avalanches can be detected…