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The role of Airbus Defence & Space
The environment, climate change and REDD are core Airbus Defence & Space missions. Technologies developed by the company are contributing to the chain of systems helping to manage the effects of climate change, enabling us to measure, analyse, understand, plan, mitigate and verify.
Satellite imagery is a vital tool for providing up-to-date mapping services and precise basemaps to monitor and gauge the effectiveness of REDD programmes and carbon cycle models. SPOT satellite imagery, combining wide-area coverage with resolutions of 20 to 2.5 metres, is the ideal solution for monitoring forest cover.
The agreement between AFD and Airbus Defence & Space marks the start of a wide-ranging initiative designed to map the entire Congo Basin, the second-largest forest basin in the world.
This initiative will make SPOT imagery available to administrations, public bodies and NGOs working to sustain the forests of the Congo Basin. Archive imagery from 1990 to 2010 will serve as a baseline, while newly acquired data will be used to track changes in forest cover over time and gauge compliance with future REDD+ commitments.
Astrium has also invested in the future to ensure data continuity with the launch of four new satellites over the next three years. Of these, SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 will offer capabilities ideally suited to forest management, with a resolution of 1.5 metres and an imaging swath of 60 kilometres.