In 2014 ESA started the Thematic Exploitation Platform (EP) R&D initiative (https://tep.eo.esa.int/)  in order to facilitate the exploitation of Earth Observation satellite data by scientists and commercial players. The TEPs combine Earth observation data (satellite, airborne, in-situ) with elastic processing capability in the cloud, freeing up time and resources for users so they can focus on creating innovative information products and services. For the scientific community the TEPs offer also a collaboration environment which allow to share results and ideas.

Currently there are 6 TEPs available which cover the following thematic areas: Coastal (CTEP), Forestry (FTEP), Hydrology (HTEP) , Urban (UTEP), Polar region (PTEP) and Geo-Hazard (GEP). Other TEPs are coming in the near future (e.g. Food Security) in which ESA plans also to set-up an European network of Exploitation Platform involving public and private players.

After about one year from the start, in the following months the TEP projects are going to provide relevant results in the fields of disaster management and support to decision making to local and national authorities.

GEP provides already a visualization service of interferograms of Europe tectonic area (three million square kilometres) using Sentinel-1 data (200m resolution images) which allows to detect ground movement and other changes which may have occurred between satellites acquisitions. At operating speed it will provide 60 interferometric pairs every days.

GEP, for e-GEOS and National Observatory of Athens (NOA), will also monitor a selection of 22 volcanoes part of the CEOS Volcano Pilot. It will run on a time window of three months (mid-September to mid-December 2016) and provide the following information:

• coherence mapping, using DLR InSAR Sentinel-1 Browse at 50m resolution
• Surface Temperature mapping, using the  INGV thermal signals service
• Lava flow and vegetation stress mapping, using the NOVELTIS vegetation damage service

This service will help, among the others, to identify the magnitude, nature and extent of a volcanic event, measure post-seismic deformation and examine the fault mechanics

In September, UTEP  will provide the Global Urban Footprint, a 75 meter resolution map of all urban settlement on the Earth. The map is generated with radar data from TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X satellites. It allows to quantitatively and qualitatively analyse and compare settlement patterns, at the metropolitan, national, and global scales. This service will have as main user the World Bank and will be a valuable input into the design of urban and regional development projects, and can also help to understand of how urbanization is related to economic growth, poverty reduction, and carbon emissions and improve the accuracy of population distribution mapping. It is expected that this will greatly contribute to climate change mitigation and disaster risk management.

Still from September, HTEP will provide to AGRHYMET user community a service to monitor the Niger basin with a technique based on a combination of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data, which will provide Flood forecasting from a hydrological model. This service will also allow to monitor floods if an event occurs providing a fundamental support for risk reduction and disaster management.