Italy
GEO Week 2022

Italy

Group on Earth Observations – GEO XVIII Plenary Conference

Accra (Ghana) & Virtual Meeting, 2-3 November 2022

The Italian public administrations, research institutions and private entities are playing an important role in supporting the evolution of GEO from its beginning in 2003 into the new mandate envisaged in the “GEO Strategic Plan 2016-2025: Implementing GEOSS”, endorsed by Nations at the 2015 Mexico City Summit.

  1. Italy is fully committed to promote GEO at the national level, through appropriate community developments. Italy is continuously reinforcing engagement of national experts and is strengthening national level coordination among the institutions that lead or are active in various GEO initiatives.
  2. Italian Government in its budget considered the Green and Circular Economy as one of the government priority in enhancing a sustainable economic development and well- being. To this end Italy is fully committed to implement the 2030 UN Agenda on SD;
  3. Italy is fully committed to support the European Regional GEO (EuroGEO) by participating to several ad-hoc expert groups, EU funded projects and to promote it at national level.
  4. At the European level, Italy is proud to contribute to several projects directly supported by the EC through the Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, Digital Europe, LIFE and Copernicus Programmes (such as ERA-PLANET, e-Shape, NewLife4Drylands, Lifewatch, LTER, eLTER, within the H2020-Infrastructures ACTRIS, EPOS, ERA4CS, EUNADICS-AV, GAIA-CLIM, H2020 E2mC – Evolution of Emergency Mapping in Copernicus and Operational Emergency Mapping Services within Copernicus Programme). Italy also supports GEO through its own space program in coordination with ESA and is member of the European Infrastructure for an Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS, GEO Participating Organization) in the frame of the ESFRI roadmap. Our national and international activities underline a strong commitment to data sharing, interoperability of data and information systems and, to international cooperation. Among major goals, GEO Italy is providing a strong support to all Institutions involved at national and international level to advance the achievement of the 17 Goals of the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development.
  5. We fully support those GEO Flagships, Initiatives and Community Activities already fully engaged in such direction, i.e., GOS4M, GEO-GSNL, GEO-Mountains, Global Urban Observation and Information, GEO-ECO, just to mention a few.
  6. We are proud of the Italian hyperspectral satellite Mission - PRISMA, launched in March 2019, which contributes to close a key gap in satellite observations. Data are open access and available to all interested parties.
  7. Italy will continue to support and maintain the GEOSS Platform as an open and public global infrastructure for data sharing and knowledge generation infrastructure and ensure a direct link with other on-going programs aiming to an efficient use of EO data.
  8. Italy will continue to support the EU High Level Working Group, the GEO Program Board activities and any other initiative that may ensure the success of GEO in the near future.
  9. Italy is contributing to the activity of the GEO Data Working Group.
  10. With reference to the EAG Report Italy comments and suggestions are briefly reported below:
    • Italy would like to thank the EAG members for their work and the valuable outcomes provided with a tight scheduling;
    • The report reflects different positions about the future of GEO and GEOSS that demonstrate the complexity of the discussion and the need of further reflection by Member States, Participating Organizations and the full GEO community;
    • Italy supports the need and value of a public global infrastructure for EO data and Earth Science knowledge sharing. Therefore, Italy would like to encourage to explore further possible solutions that may facilitate its implementation by a) considering the evolution of the technological landscape, b) leveraging the potential of the European and other regional components of GEO, and c) collecting feedbacks and requirements from the a variety of end users and stakeholders.
    • The options proposed by the EAG with their potential integration can be considered as a starting point for further elaboration taking into account the previous comments.
  11. As the last but not the least, Italy would like to thank the GEO Secretariat for its effort in coordinating the GEO multilateral and multidisciplinary community towards the use of EO data and products in supporting end-users and all interested parties in the implementation of national, regional and international policy agendas.

However, Italy would like to encourage and stimulate the GEO Secretariat to carefully consider the suggestions provided by several GEO Members on the EAG Report and develop and implement an adequate and timely strategy that can fullfil the expactations of all GEO Members and POs.

Thank you for your attention,

Nicola Pirrone GEO Principal of Italy

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