Infoterra France is a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS Astrium, and part of the Infoterra Group which comprises companies in Germany and the United Kingdom. On January 1st 2006, ISTAR company and teams from EADS Astrium Earth Observation Group joined to form Infoterra France SAS, a leading provider of geo-information products and services for managing the development, the environment and the security of our changing world. ISTAR and Astrium's decades of experience and research in remote sensing technology, photogrammetry, digital mapping and information technology enable to create products, geo-information services and tools for a wide range of applications.

Infoterra France is leader of the Risk-EOS GSE Consortium and also acts as Service Provider in two French Defense Zones (South and South West) where it delivers Burn Scar Maps and Assets mapping products to local Civil Protection Services.

ADISA – Associação para o Desenvolvimento do Instituto Superior de Agronomia (Association for the Development of the Agronomy Institute/Technical University in Lisbon) is a non profit organization aimed to assist the Instituto Superior de Agronomia on its external activities, namely through the financial management of projects, consulting and training activities, as well as with cooperation projects with Portuguese speaking developing countries.

This association has established a substantial number of protocols with national and international entities, representing a wide variety of projects. Among these it can be highlighted the management of the following international activities: the organization of the International Conference on Alternatives to Methyl Bromide, sponsored by the European Commission; the CAPMEDIT FAIR3 – CT96 - 1579 project; the INOVALOC HPSE – CT –1999 – 00024 and the Leonard Pilot Project SECUPROD F/02/B/P/PP – 118033. At the national level besides a large number of consulting activities aimed to public and private entities the most relevant activity related with the project was the study commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries for a Technical Proposition for a National Plan aimed to Forest Prevention and Protection Against Fire.

ADISA has a large experience in national and international projects related to forest fires and forest management activities.

Following the public referendum in 1993, environmental controls were assigned to an articulated prevention and protection system, created by special Agencies set up at regional level, known as Arpa. ARPA Piemonte, in particular, was set up by Piedmont Region with regional law no. 60 of 13 April 1995; regional law no. 28 of 20 November 2002 also assigned the Agency competence for forecasting and preventing natural risks, making it responsible for all environment-related defence and control functions.

Arpa Piemonte is a public entity with administrative, technical-legal, financial and accounting independence. It is supervised by the President of the Regional Council to guarantee the implementation of the programmes of Piedmont Region in the field of prevision, prevention and environmental defence.

The aims and institutional duties of the Agency are established by national and regional regulations and by European Union programmes. It performs supporting and technical-scientific advisory activities for the institutional entities in Piedmont, aimed at environmental defence and control and preventing and forecasting natural risks. Arpa Piemonte cooperates at technical-scientific level with APAT (the National Agency for the Protection of the Environmental and Technical Services) and with other entities and institutions active in the environmental field.

Critical Software provides solutions for mission and business critical information systems for telecom, the public sector, industry, aerospace and defense. Founded in 1998, the company today employs over 150 people at its various national and international sites with headquarter and main technical centre in Coimbra, Portuga,l and engineering facilities in Lisbon and Porto.

The company is dynamic and outward looking with approximately 60% of the company's turnover resulting from contracts outside of Portugal. In 2000 Critical Software Inc (a subsidiary in USA, based at San Jose, California) was founded and in 2004 Critical established its second subsidiary, Critical Software Technologies Ltd, in Southampton, UK.

Critical Software, a CMMI level 3 company, operates an ISO9001:2000 Tick-IT accredited quality system and applies the ISO/IEC 15504 standard in the area of software process assessment. Annual growth has been sustained at 50% per year on average since Critical Software's foundation. In 2005, the company turnover was €6M and an estimated €9M will be reached in 2006. The company is independent and privately owned.

Since 2001 Critical Software has been developing solutions for the Emergency Management of Forest Fires. The platform Premfire (www.premfire.net) takes advantage of Earth Observation data to support fire fighting coordination and perform damage assessment.

CRP-GL

The Public Research Centre Gabriel Lippmann is a public research establishment devoted to applied scientific research, technological development, technology transfer and permanent high-level training. Its activities aim to reinforce the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’s economic fabric through the creation of new technological skills within the CRP – Gabriel Lippmann and by transferring this know-how to companies. To succeed with these tasks the CRP-GL relies on more than 130 researchers, teacher-researchers, 3rd cycle trainees and members of the administrative and technological departments. All work related to the GMES RISK-EOS project is done at the Département Environnement et Agro-biotechnologies (EVA). The EVA department at CRP-GL has members with backgrounds in virtually all earth science disciplines with a wide range of methodological backgrounds. Thus a major strength of the group that is going to work in the context of the RISK-EOS project is its diversity and the synergies that evolve from this. This expresses itself e.g. in the data synthesis approaches (combination of multi-scale observational data with numerical modelling approaches) that are common to many of EVA’s research projects. For many years the CRP-GL has been working on the development of hydrological and hydraulic models with a special focus on the integration of radar remote sensing observations and flood models. With respect to the RISK-EOS project, the CRP-GL provides services with respect to flood risk analysis and flood rapid mapping.

DLR is the German Aerospace Center.The German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD), as part of DLR, has been active in the field of crisis analysis for several years and has formerly set up the Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI). It serves as interface and front-end for the comprehensive satellite data acquisition, processing and analysis capacities available within DFD and other DLR institutions in order to serve the operational civil protection and humanitarian relief communities. Besides response and assessment activities, ZKI focuses on geo-information about medium term rehabilitation, reconstruction and preventive activities. ZKI staff will be operating and coordinating the service provision in RISK-EOS.

DDSC

EUROSENSE is probably one of the most prominent commercial remote sensing organizations, existing since 1964.All services offered by EUROSENSE are fully integrated within the company: aerial photography, photo interpretation, processing and interpretation of digital satellite images, production of photogrammetric and topographic maps, airborne laser scanning (LIDAR) for height measurements, GIS/LIS and AM/FM database development and consultancy, city and landscape planning, inventory of forests and natural resources, digital orthophotography, cartography, hydrography, environmental studies, and lots of other activities. In all of these disciplines, EUROSENSE offers highly accurate and technologically high-grade solutions.

GEOMER, a full-service provider for GIS technology was founded in 1999 and we have since been delivering comprehensive support in geographic information technology and resources management to our clients. Our activities focus on the development of GIS solutions for flood management, natural hazards and geo-marketing. Geomer offers the complete range of necessary services, software and data products as well as experienced training for your successful project implementation. Through our close cooperation with numerous universities and research institutes, it is guaranteed that always the most recent findings and cutting-edge methods are in use. The Geomer team develops solutions for numerous German and international companies and institutions.

GMV S.A. is a subsidiary of the holding group Grupo Tecnológico e Industrial GMV S.A. (Grupo GMV). Grupo GMV is a fully Spanish, privately owned company established in 1984. It provides engineering and expert support services to the aerospace, defense, transportation and telecommunications markets. Grupo GMV is involved in consultancy, design, development and integration of turn-key systems for advanced applications in these markets.

GMV S.A. has an international projection, orientation towards projects with a high R+D content and high profile in the aerospace and defense markets. It also acts as an incubator of diversification initiatives in technologically advanced markets.

Infoterra GmbH, Germany, is a 100% subsidiary of EADS Astrium GmbH, employs a workforce of 30 in Friedrichshafen, Germany, and is part of the Infoterra Global Group.

Infoterra GmbH holds the exclusive commercial exploitation rights for the new German radar satellite TerraSAR-X, and will supply „new-quality data“ as well as a variety of radar-based geo-information products after the satellites´ launch in the second quarter of 2006. Currently, the company is preparing the distribution of TerraSAR-X data by establishing a global partner network.

INOV-Inesc Inovação (INOV) is a system integrator and solutions provider. INOV carries an important accumulated experience, knowledge, cultural organisation and industrial experience in the last 22 years, based on the INESC legacy, a research institute part of the Technical University in Lisbon .

INOV has proprietary products, systems and platforms, performing activities of consultancy and services for Telecom Operators and hardware and software development for the rest of the partners and clients.

The accumulated know-how and industrial expertise gained in the institution since 1980, together with a structure and culture that preserve knowledge, allow INOV to develop and manage projects of large dimension with a strong component of innovation.

INOV has developed its own products already in the market, and has participated in several EC projects and ESA projects, such as EGNOS Navigation Terminals, GALILEO Early Trials, GALA, VBBS, ARMAS, DAVINCI, OLYMPIC, MONICAP™, GALEWAT, MultiSERV ™ and, the most important for this purpose, the CICLOPE system, a forest fires semi-automatic surveillance tower that will be used to validate the different products along the project.

Ingeniería y Servicios Aeroespaciales, S.A., INSA, is a state owned company approved by the government of Spain in 1992.

INSA’s expertise is based on the heritage of more than 30 years of experience in the implementation and operation of ground segments, space missions and space projects definition and design.

In the field of emergency management, and in particular oriented to forest fires, based on the use of space systems, INSA has been especially active as FUEGO programme leader. In CDMC-ETIV, INSA was the prime contractor of an international consortium defining the Crisis Data Management Centre, a dedicated infrastructure for the provision of operational fire information services at European scale in the context of ESA-GMES. INSA has also been part of the RISK-EOS STEP1 consortium taking part in the forest fire activities within the Mediterranean arc. The company has been involved in service specification, validation and provision in Spain, infrastructure and data analysis in support to service portfolio.INSA was also prime contractor in: FOC (1996-1998), FFEW (1998-1999) FORFAIT (2000-2002),  FUEGOSYST (2001-2002), REMFIRESAT (2002-2003). DEMOBIRD (2004), NOD (2004-2005) and participated in: MiniFuegoSat (2000), FOCAS (1998-2000), EMERGSAT (1998-2002), FUEGOSAT (2003-2004).

The Remote Sensing Laboratory of the University of Valladolid , LATUV, was created in 1989 and since then it has been a Research, Development and Innovation Centre in the field of spatial monitoring. The LATUV’s activities includes every field that can be studied from space

A pioneering field in the LATUV is the elaboration of forest fire reports. Such task has been carried out every day and in real time for the past eleven years. Day by day during the fire seasons, the LATUV communicates through the Internet the risk for each point in Spain . In this way, the fire-fighting organisations in different Autonomous Regions and the Central Government are informed daily on the vegetation state, the fire risk, the ground temperature and other factors which affect the starting and the size of fires. This information is geo-referenciated and ready to be used in the corresponding SIG. This information is generated an hour after the crossing of the NOAA and Feng Yun satellites. Also, with the recent purchase of a MODIS receptor, the LATUV will be able to improve the quality of these reports.

Likewise, during the summer season, the LATUV offers information to channels 1 and 2 of Spanish Televisión (Public Television), about the forest fire risk index in the Spanish provinces or the active fires as well as about the erithematic radiation index forecast in beaches and tourist resorts. This information appears in pages 540 and 309 of the “Teletext” and is updated twice a day.

Some of the most important projects developed by the LATUV in the past years concerning forest fires have been done for different Spanish Regional Governments, for the European Space Agency, the EU or large firms such as TRAGSATEC, INSA or SCOT. Can be mentioned: Fire risk evaluation in Mediterranean environment (FIREMEN), from 95-97, funded by DG XII, FFEW "Fuego". Algorithm suitability review and development, from 99-00, funded by ESA, Eau et Feu , 2000, funded by SCOT-ESA, Appui à la Promotion et au Développement de la Télédétection au Maroc: FORMA, from 01-03, funded by SCOT-ESA, REMFIRESAT, from 02-03 funded by INSA-ESA, Demobird. Estec contract nº 17192/03/nl/gs and Subcontract of works in the framework of the CDMC (Crisis Data Management Centre) both funded by ESA, NOD (Near Operational Demonstration on Forest Fire Risk management), from 04-05, funded by ESA, DRAGON Programme, 05-07, funded by ESA-CMOST, ETIV, 2005, funded by ESA and PREVIEW, 05-08, funded by UE in the VI FW

Luxspace S.à.r.l., created under Luxembourg Law in 2004 as a 100% daughter company of OHB Technology AG, Bremen ( Germany ), is a small sized company specialised in Space Technology and Applications. LuxSpace is based on the campus of SES ASTRA S.A. at Chateau de Betzdorf in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg . The company currently employs 10 staff and had a turnover of 1 M€ in 2006, expected to be doubled in 2007. LuxSpace is acting in two principle domains:

Space Systems focusing on satellites and probes for payloads and selected critical technologies

• Space related applications and services:

• Earth Observation
• Satellite Communication
• Navigation and Positioning

The strategic cooperation with SES and OHB in projects permits LuxSpace to assume various responsibilities in complex projects and to act as system integrator for national and international space related activities, including studies, system engineering, design, development and manufacturing for space, environment and telecommunication.

Major projects in space technology are currently the “Development of Small Geostationary Satellites (SGEO)”, an “Advanced Low Earth Orbit Communication Payload (ALOA-Payload)” as well as conceptual work for lunar exploration. Regarding applications, LuxSpace works on the “D evelopment of a tracking and communication system for HIV medicine in Africa (SpaceDREAM), participates in a large scale EU FP6 project for “Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) with focus on future space based communication systems” (SISTER). In the role of system integrator, LuxSpace coordinates the integrated approach for GSE projects in Luxembourg , i.e. on forest monitoring, land and flood risk information. Here, LuxSpace provides services with regards to assets mapping in addition to the project management.

METRIA is one of three divisions of Lantmäteriet, the National Land Survey of Sweden. Metria carries out all its services on contract and operates on national and international markets. Metria has a total staff of 420, of which more then 100 are working with EO- and GIS-related tasks. The annual turnover is 45 million Euro.

Metria has at its disposal a wide range of resources for geographic data capture, data processing and refinement and for system development within geographic IT. Metria's data capturing services include satellite imagery from all the commercially available sensors and digital aerial photography.

Metria Miljöanalys is a service provider, whose focus is on the operational use of remote sensing and GIS techniques for environmental and forestry applications as well as security-related aspects. Metria Miljöanalys is presently involved in several projects, from local to international level, of relevance to GMES. We participate in four GMES Service Element; RISK-EOS, Forest Monitoring, SAGE, and RESPOND. We have the responsibility of one of the six Observatories in the EU 6FP GMES project Geoland, and we are a partner in the PREVIEW integrated project to the same program. We are also a partner in the ASTRO+ project within EU:s security programme.

NOA/ISARS, the Institute for Space Applications and Remote Sensing of the National Observatory of Athens develops systems and runs application projects in the domain of Remote Sensing, providing support to decision makers, environmentalists and public domain security organisations. Parallel supporting activities cover the modelling and algorithmic requirements of the service/product delivery chain. The Institute facilities permit the real time acquisition and archiving of satellite data.

Several institutional organisations in Greece and Europe profit from the scientific expertise and service level provided by NOA/ISARS in the domains of wildfires management, land cover change mapping, ecosystems monitoring and protection, biodiversity assessment, sea and air environment protection, geophysical phenomena monitoring via SAR data and sea borders surveillance via SAR and very high resolution optical imagery.

TELESPAZIO, a Finmeccanica company, is a “Leading innovator” in the design, planning and management of space systems and in the development of satellite technology based services and solutions for the business and institutional market. Telespazio is one of the first operators to offer all satellite applications: space, telecommunications, multimedia, television, infomobility and Earth observation.