Between May and September this year, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service was activated more than ever, with many users needing its rapid mapping products to help respond to a range of environmental disasters.

ESA's Directorate of Technology, Engineering and Quality, equipped with a suite of specialised laboratories and expert personnel, applied their expertise to help verify Sentinel-5P's air-monitoring instrument would perform as planned.

Discover more about our planet with the Earth from Space video programme. In this special edition, senior scientist at France's Collecte Localisation Satellites, Marie-Hélène Rio, joins the show to discuss how data on ocean surface currents by the Sentinel-3 satellite mission are used by people working at sea.

Nearly 100 young scientists from 30 countries recently gathered at the Szent István University in Hungary, to attend a training course on land applications using satellite data and tools.

Accurate characterisation of snow melting enables a better understanding of hydrological conditions. The Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites can be used to provide such information in a timely fashion. They help to improve maps that show which areas are susceptible to increased water run-off, therefore contributing to flood risk management.

The European Union's Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission is providing far more images than previous generations of synthetic aperture radar satellites, bringing many significant advantages. One of them is determining the difference between naturally-occurring and polluting oil on the ocean surface.

With its unique sensor and frequent revisit cycle, the Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite can measure sea level in locations where not previously possible.

Identifying landslides rapidly and precisely enables a better understanding of landslide triggering conditions. The Copernicus Sentinel-1 and -2 missions can be used to provide such information in a timely fashion, and this can help improve maps that show which areas are susceptible to landslides, therefore contributing to risk management.

A low Earth-orbiting satellite, the Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor (Sentinel-5P) mission is dedicated to monitoring the composition of the atmosphere. Its data will be used largely by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. The mission will deliver information to monitor air quality, stratospheric ozone and will also be used for climate variables monitoring, and support European policy-making.

'Sentinel Stories' is presented by Malì Cecere. Professor Andreas Kääb of the University of Oslo describes his work with data from the Copernicus Sentinel satellites and what sort of benefits these bring to him and his team.

How can pipeline operators monitor hundreds to thousands of kilometres of pipeline in a fast and cost-effective way?

The Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites are being used to detect and better evaluate management practices of grasslands in Estonia.

Dr Marie-Hélène Rio is a scientist from CLS, a subsidiary of the French Space agency CNES. She is responsible for developing and merging new algorithms to exploit Sentinel-3 data.

Images from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 have been combined to reveal that 36,000 ha of forest has burnt in the Republic of Congo in Africa.

Steffen Dransfeld is in charge of the quality of the data from the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) and Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) instruments on Sentinel-3.

Sentinel-3 is part of the family of EU-owned satellites that are developed and operated in the context of Copernicus, the largest environmental monitoring programme in the world.

Satellites carrying synthetic aperture radar, in particular the European Union's Copernicus Sentinel-1 constellation, have become the standard instruments to measure coseismic displacements over large areas, critically contributing to improving our understanding of earthquakes. Together with high-resolution images from the Sentinel-2 mission on effects caused by earthquakes, such as landslides, floods, surface ruptures and other surface changes, the two missions offer unique possibilities to monitor disasters.

Oil spills, such as those from the Erika (1999) and the Prestige (2002) tankers, result in huge environmental and economic damage to our coastlines.

Today we are interviewing ESA's Philippe Goryl, who is responsible for leading the data quality managers of the various Sentinel missions.

Celebrated today, the International Day of Forests raises awareness on the importance of forests globally. Some 30% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests. Every minute, an area of forest equal to ten football fields is lost (FAO FRA 2015).

Feedback from the Sentinel-3 Validation Team meeting provided essential information to ESA and EUMETSAT to progress with the evolution and improvement of Sentinel-3's core data products.