The Copernicus Sentinel missions provide data support to federal, national and local studies and activities, and are pivotal in helping address a variety of policy areas.
In terms of EO services requirements, the needs of the downstream security services that utilise Sentinel data are broadly similar to those of the emergency service, but differ in that information relating to security issues beyond European borders are acquired when judged necessary. In addition, the data is used to support monitoring of illegal activities such as unregulated logging and mining.
Sentinel-1 supports land-based food security and crop monitoring, with the objective of providing EO related services to global food security and associated environmental processes. It also supports the needs of the maritime community in sea-ice and iceberg monitoring, vessel tracking and monitoring of fisheries.
Sentinel-2 contributes to existing food security services and monitoring programmes, and enables the continuation of monitoring (under cloud-free conditions) of vegetation in Africa by analysing long-term Earth observation time-series data, and supplying detailed information on major food crops, such as planting dates and the extent of cultivation.
Sentinel-3 supports food security programmes involved in crop management and yield estimation, and maritime security programmes supporting monitoring of ice shipping lanes and coastal areas.
