Copernicus for Urban Resilience in Europe: Final results from the CURE project

A major challenge for the urban community is the exploitation of Earth Observation intelligence in managing in the multidimensional nature of urban sustainability towards enhancing urban resilience, particularly in relation to the challenges of climate change. This study presents the ways in which the H2020 funded project CURE (Copernicus for Urban Resilience in Europe) synergistically exploited Copernicus Core Services to develop cross-cutting applications supporting urban resilience. CURE provided the urban planning community with spatially disaggregated environmental intelligence at a local scale, as well as a proof-of-concept that urban planning and management strategies development enhancing the resilience of cities can be supported by Copernicus Core Services. Here, we demonstrate the technical operational feasibility of an umbrella cross-cutting system on urban resilience, consisting of 11 specific applications. These use Copernicus core products from at least two services each as main input information, reflect the main urban sustainability dimensions and are relevant to user needs, which were identified based on a strong stakeholders’ engagement. As a result, CURE is built on Data and Information Access Services (DIAS), as a system integrating these cross-cutting applications, capable of supporting downstream services across Europe, enabling its incorporation into operational Copernicus products portfolio in the future and also addressing its economic feasibility. For more information on CURE: http://cure-copernicus.eu