Our precious planet
Water, flora, fauna, soil, subsoil, air … The Earth’s natural
resources are a precious common asset – and we now appreciate that they
are susceptible to abuse and that they are not infinite. We need to
keep a close eye on them if we want to learn how they are changing,
protect them, and ensure sustainable exploitation. From an Earthbound
perspective, it is difficult to get the whole picture, or to track
developments and collect the data we need fast enough to make a
difference.
Surveying the globe in ever more minute detail, satellite
observation systems have provided us with an extraordinarily enriched
picture of the state of health of our planet. The use of this valuable
tool has become essential in making diagnoses, understanding and
predicting changes in the Earth’s dynamic processes and acting to take
protective, corrective and security measures wherever imbalances may
occur.
