Earth Observation Technologies for Mitigating Urban Climate Changes

Since 2010 United Nations declared that for the first time in history up to 50% of mankind is living in urban areas, implying that challenges connected with global changes need to be evaluated primarily within urban systems, using the most advanced available technologies. Earth observation is nowadays the most promising field of research assisting urban planners, city managers, and building designers in their work of improving urban resilience to cope with climate change effects, and the long-term changes connected with extreme climatic events. Even though the deep understanding of the functioning of urban systems is a key factor for improving the quality of life at all levels, urban development is still poorly monitored globally, and reliable and comparable satellite urban data across countries is still limited, slowing down international comparative research. The Copernicus UE program, replacing the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program, recognizes the strategic importance of Earth observation for emergency management. Copernicus program provides global, continuous, autonomous, high quality, wide-area Earth and Atmosphere observation. Copernicus links Space observations to ground-based and atmospheric data collection and processing, providing operational services in the fields of environment, ground infrastructures, civil protection, and security, supporting the implementation of a large number of sectorial and transversal public policies. Of the six thematic macro-areas of the present program Observation and ground monitoring of the European urban systems lies in the first thematic area of the Land monitoring service. The enormous and continuous data generation from the Copernicus program is allowing the construction of an accurate and up-to-date database to the state of health of our cities and surrounding environments, providing research materials simply inconceivable only a few decades ago.