PanGeo: A GMES-Copernicus service enabling access to geological information

Country / Region: Europe

Begin of project: January 1, 2011

End of project: December 31, 2014

Status of project: December 31, 2014

PanGeo Coverage Map with 52 PanGeo towns Source: BGR

PanGeo is a 3 year project (2011 to 2014) funded in the framework of the European Earth Observation Program Copernicus (previously known as GMES – Global Monitoring for Environment and Security).

The objective of PanGeo is to provide Local Authorities, planners, national geological surveys, policy-makers and also the general public with an INSPIRE-compliant, free, online geohazard information service for 52 of the largest towns in Europe (figure 1).

All 27 national Geological Surveys of the EU collaborated in this project to create a Geohazard Stability Layer (GSL) and a Geohazard Description (GHD) (geological interpretation report) for each town, which can be visualized either through the PanGeo portal or Google Earth™ or it can be downloaded from the project website and integrated into a user’s own system.

The geohazard information is based on Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) processing, providing measurements of terrain-motion, and geological information already held by national Geological Surveys and their partners. For Germany, the BGR researchers of the remote sensing unit carried out a geological interpretation of PSI-based ground motion data for the larger Berlin and Hanover areas.

Project contributions: