Earth observation

Satellite Remote Sensing belongs to the high-tech methods that are collecting, assembling and processing information and which allow the monitoring of atmospherical, terrestrial and marine phenomena, natural as well as human-induced: climate, land and sea temperature, seismic and volcanic activities, floods, vegetation growth, pollution of rivers and oceans, urban development, ozone concentration...

TELSAT, the National Research Programme on Remote Sensing by Satellite, was launched in 1985, to complement Belgium's participation in multilateral Space Programmes (ESA membership and SPOT participation).

The STEREO and VEGETATION programmes have succeeded the Telsat programme and fits within the framework of the overall Belgian research strategy for remote sensing which aims at:

Generalising use of satellite data as a source of information
Contributing simultaneously to infrastructure, to data support and data use
Introducing of remote sensing in operational services
Regroup the researchers into expertise pools of international reputation

Belgian platform on Remote Sensing: Belgian Earth Observation Platform
Educational website on Earth Observation by satellite: EOEdu

GMES Pages
Official GMES website
Remote Sensing and GIS in support of World Heritage Conservation
Belgian Research Programmes on Earth Observation via FEDRA:
Scientific support for the exploitation of the 'Vegetation' instrument - Research Programme for Earth Observation 'STEREO' - Telsat 4