Earth Observation for Environmental and Health Impact Assessment - A Methodology with Synergies for European Policies

Although much progress has been made in improving the quality of the environment, it is estimated that one third of the global burden of disease, might be attributable to environmental factors. Compliance monitoring which has been till now in epidemiological studies has proved inadequate to concretely identify the, the non-linear relationship between health effects and environment needs. In addition, the peak of health effects occurs at specific locations (hot spots) during specific episodes. Hence, large area averaging and reporting over the whole year are not sufficient and result in doubtful epidemiological conclusions. ¿Effect assessment¿ has also to pay attention to the fact that both the human and environmental populations consist of individuals ¿ every one of us reacts in a unique way to a challenge or stressor. The key word is advanced individual monitoring of population susceptive to specific environmental hazards. A broader use of the Earth Observation services may be used to facilitate and harmonise a large number of monitoring and reporting demands required by the EU Environment and Health Action plan. A new methodology is proposed with this work which provides a synthesis of satellite observations together with new technologies for ground monitoring which offer new opportunities of exploiting environmental and health data with the scope to be: 1) used to facilitate the creation of the requested comparable standardised maps, 2) easing their subsequent interpretation and use across Member States, 3) exploited to increase environmental resource data bases in a more timely and cost-effective way, 4) integrated in recommendations on harmonised monitoring methods, 5) tested through the integrated health statistics, 6) integrated in the development of the Data and Information Management Systems, 7) used as support tools to other water related issues, like consequences from extreme heat waves.JRC.H-Institute for environment and sustainability (Ispra