Germany continues to support GEO and its objectives with manifold contributions. The German National GEO encourages engagement of German institutions in the GEO Work Programme through national collaboration and information exchange. Germany also strongly supports Copernicus, the European Union’s civil Earth Observation programme, which forms an important pillar of the free and open world of Earth Observation with its Sentinel satellites and EO-based thematic services. Germany supports significantly the national use of Copernicus data and services. These activities are guided by the national User Uptake Strategy of the Federal Government on satellite data for a connected and sustainable society which also makes refence to GEO. The strong involvement of German public institutions and the private sector in Copernicus provides diverse opportunities for international cooperation.

In 2025/2026, remarkable developments include:

The GEO Land Degradation Neutrality Flagship (GEO-LDN) Secretariat is hosted by Germany through its International Cooperation Agency GIZ, commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Germany has announced its further support for GEO-LDN for another two years, until October 2028. GEO-LDN facilitates access to Earth observation data, empowering countries in their monitoring and planning processes to halt the further loss of healthy soils. As a close partner of the UNCCD, GEO-LDN actively fulfils its mandate from previous Conferences of the Parties (COP). Through its working groups, GEO-LDN delivers customized support for specific use cases in up to 20 countries in the global South affected by land degradation. GEO-LDN does not only provide methods to fulfil reporting obligations for SDG Indicator 15.3.1, but also supports countries to use geodata for evidence-based land use planning and decision-making. Current initiatives include the development of higher resolution, multi-decadal satellite data time series for the next SDG Indicator 15.3.1 reporting cycle and contributions to a planned OGC Standard for geospatial reporting indicators, benefiting broader SDG reporting efforts. GEO-LDN will further enhance its efforts to leverage synergies across the three Rio Conventions and foster collaboration and exchange with GEO activities supporting those conventions.

The German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig hosts the GEO BON Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBV) Data Portal, a core platform of GEO’s Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) to provide open access and standardised sharing of multidimensional biodiversity data. The portal uses structured formats with rich metadata to harmonise diverse geospatial datasets, including information on global ecosystem changes from remote sensing and spatio-temporal species distribution models under future scenarios. As a GEO Flagship, GEO BON enhances high-quality biodiversity data availability, supporting national governments and policy bodies like the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework in meeting reporting and decision-making needs.

The German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) hosts the International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change (ICWRGC), a UNESCO Category 2 centre. In line with the UN 2030 Agenda, the ICWRGC emphasizes open data and science, policy advice, and the enhancement of global data services for UNESCO, UNEP and WMO. The ICWRGC coordinates the Global Terrestrial Network of Hydrology (GTN-H), which federates all relevant global in situ hydrological data centers and reports to the WMO and the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). Three of these data centres are hosted by the BfG in collaboration with the ICWRGC. Since its establishment in 1988, the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) has successfully served as a facilitator between the producers of hydrological data and the international research community for more than 35 years. The GRDC is part of the WMO Catalogue for Climate Data. The International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) provides the most comprehensive collection of quality-controlled in situ soil moisture observations to its users free of charge. It acts as a reference database for the calibration and validation of satellite remote sensing and environmental modelling. Both the GRDC and the ISMN have been recently recognized as affiliated networks of the GCOS. The UNEP GEMS/Water Data Centre (GWDC) actively contributes to the GEO AquaWatch initiative, supporting the standardization and harmonization of the exchange of water quality data from in situ and remote sensing observations through the OGC and the WMO. The GWDC aims to develop the reporting capacities of Member States and integrate their data into the global observing systems of UNEP (GEMS/Water), WMO (WHOS), GCOS and GEO (GEOSS). Products of the data centres are regularly used in international assessments, e.g. the WMO State of the Global Water Resources report series, WMO HydroSOS and SDG reporting for the ambient water quality indicator 6.3.2.

Germany’s national meteorological service (DWD) also contributes to the systematic monitoring of the global water and energy cycles. Since 1989, DWD operates the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). GPCC comprises by far the largest collection worldwide of station-based precipitation measurements. The observations are obtained from different sources, primarily from national meteorological services. They are quality-controlled, as far as possible corrected, archived and used to derive various gridded precipitation products for the Earth's land-surface, as e.g. monthly totals. DWD also hosts the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF), a European consortium of national meteorological services led by DWD. CM SAF develops, generates, archives and distributes high-quality satellite-derived products of the energy and water cycle, e.g. surface radiation, cloudiness, precipitation. An application example of the datasets are solar radiation atlases, which are a frequently used product in the renewable energy sector. Products of both, GPCC and CM SAF, are regularly used in international assessments of the state of climate or of the state of water resources.

The Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) carries out several development cooperation projects with African, Latin American and Asian partner countries. Many different, mainly freely available satellite data (e.g. Copernicus, Landsat), digital elevation models and geological survey data are used in these projects. In several projects EO data provided information on surface movements. Using Sentinel-1 InSAR, it has been possible to successfully identify areas of groundwater-induced land subsidence in project areas in Morocco, Tunisia and Vietnam. Thanks to the collaboration with the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK), GIZ and BGR, the first remote sensing data on land subsidence for the entire Mekong Delta are now available. Sentinel-1 InSAR was also used to detect movements prior to a dam breach at a mine tailings pond in Zambia, and a current study in a former underground mining area in Mongolia focusses on identifying land subsidence caused by abandoned mine structures.

In the Lake Chad Basin, the spatial and temporal dynamics of surface water were mapped using Sentinel-1 products from Copernicus Global Flood Monitoring, thereby enabling an assessment of groundwater recharge through infiltrating surface water. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, remote sensing methods are used both in studies of tailings storage facilities and to detect small-scale mining activities in eastern Congo, thereby helping to improve the monitoring of artisanal supply chains.

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) provides free and open Earth observation services to assess global urban development and the health risks associated with climate change and air pollution, notably through the ‘World Settlement Footprint (WSF®)’ and ‘Global Atmospheric Monitoring’ as part of the Geoservices of the DLR Earth Observation Center (DLR-EOC). The WSF® product suite delivers unique information on the spatio-temporal dynamics (WSF® Evolution), extent, height, and volume (WSF® 2019, WSF® 3D) of built-up areas worldwide. Combined with urban climate models such as PALM, these satellite-based services support the assessment of urban environments under current and future climate and mobility scenarios. Through a rigorous co-design process, DLR develops user-driven services that help identify climate-health risk hotspots and support adaptation planning, emergency preparedness, resilient health services, and the development of climate-resilient and livable urban environments.

Germany's hyperspectral satellite mission EnMAP monitors the Earth's terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems through the extraction of geochemical, biochemical and biophysical parameters. The mission was successfully launched in 2022. Today, the scientific user community has widely adopted EnMAP's excellent data for various applications, and the transition towards commercial services has started. The German Space Agency at DLR, responsible for the mission management, together with the Science PI at the Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) and the DLR Ground Segment are working in close collaborating to meet the user requirements. In addition to the tasking by users, a foreground mission was introduced in 2024 to improve the acquisition strategy, while the background mission uses mission capabilities to cover international Cal/Val targets. Part of the science program are the open science tools EnMAP-Box for visualization and processing of hyperspectral imaging spectroscopy data and the online learning initiative HYPERedu on EO-College. EnMAP data together with the EnMAP-Box empower the GEO community to use hyperspectral imaging spectroscopy for tackling local environmental challenges and driving global collaboration. Further information on the mission, including news, data access and publications are available on https://www.enmap.org/.

EO College makes Earth observation knowledge accessible to a broad community of users – from schools to adult education – and supports the sustainable development of capabilities in working with remote sensing data. The platform is operated by EO College e.V. and Ruhr University Bochum and funded by the German Space Agency at DLR. It offers open educational resources such as online courses, tutorials, and teaching materials under open licenses. This enables school students, university students, and professionals to acquire skills in EO and data analysis regardless of location or time, irrespective of financial or institutional barriers. EO College combines didactically structured online courses, open educational resources and community-based exchange formats into an integrated learning environment. Learners are empowered to use satellite data competently, analyze environmental changes, and critically reflect on data-driven decisions. EO College strengthens worldwide Earth observation education and the transfer of research into practical applications and society.

Through the active engagement of EO College in the Earth observation Training, Education and Capacity Development Network (EOTEC DevNet), Germany contributes to strengthening international EO capacity development. EOTEC DevNet is a global network dedicated to improving coordination and collaboration across training, education, and capacity development, involving key international actors including GEO, CEOS, UNOOSA, and WMO. EO College serves as a member of the Global Task Team, a lead organisation within the network, and part of the Secretariat.