A beta version of EODC´s flagship project Global Flood Monitoring (GFM) is being released during the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) week, 25-29 October 2021, as integrated part of Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS).

CEMS’ novel component GFM is designed to provide a continuous global, systematic monitoring of flood events, with significantly enhanced timeliness of flood maps for emergency response and improved effectiveness of Rapid Mapping activation requests through a better identification of the area of interest.

GFM is a complex, highly scalable system enabling fast and diverse product access and dissemination. Its service fully exploits the unique capabilities of the Sentinel-1 mission in order to realize a continuous global and automated monitoring of all land surface areas.

Through monitoring of ongoing floods using satellite data, GFM complements the flood forecasts of EFAS and GloFAS that are calculated using weather predictions and a hydrological model. The combination of both tools within one interface enables its users to better support the preparedness of an upcoming flood (forecasts) as well as the response to an ongoing flood event (monitoring). This constant, global, high-resolution monitoring represents a significant progress in the EU’s disaster awareness and prevention program.

The GFM service is funded by JRC and developed by EODC (lead), GeoVille, TU Wien, DLR, LIST, and CIMA.