An Ocean in Distress
March 13, 2024
The Earth’s True Shape
March 13, 2024

Defying Sea
Level Rise

Ebro Delta in Spain

Image of the Ebro Delta in Spain after Storm Gloria in January 2020. Satellite imagery can help measure the impact of storms on the shoreline and other erosion processes.

© Sentinel-2, Copernicus Data, processed by Planetek Italia © Copernicus/ ESA

THREATS

Coastal areas are home to 40% of the world's population and face multiple hazards from erosion, flooding, storms, and tsunamis. Satellites map coastal changes, assess vulnerability, and support monitoring, forecasting, adaptation management, and early warning.

Flooding, rising sea-levels and extreme temperatures, exacerbated by the urban heat island effect, are the most common climate change-related threats to the city of Barcelona.

© Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Carme Puig

Geologist, deputy director

Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya
Barcelona, Spain

More than 3 million people live on the Catalan coast, an area that concentrates 43% of the population into only 6.7% of the region. Consequently, the coast is being significantly affected by climate change and the rise in sea level is a huge threat to inhabitants and their infrastructures. The Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalonia has developed its coastal Dynamic Information System project, a unique system that, under the same interface, collates climate projection and coastal map observation data to produce risk assessments and predictive analyses.
Massimo Zotti

Head of Government & Security Strategic Business Unit

Planetek Italia
Bari, Italy

Earth observation greatly helps to preserve and monitor coastal areas to assess land resilience and the impact of human activities. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, data analysis can be automated to monitor several areas of marine activity, such as aquaculture, sea quality, and other geophysical parameters.
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