Speaker Bio & Abstract
European Environment Agency
Denmark
BiographyStefan Jensen studied Geography in Kiel and Goettingen in Germany as well as in Santa Barbara in the US. He started working in the private sector on the marketing and application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). After being a GIS consultant for a couple of years, he moved to the Lower Saxony Ministry of Environment in Hannover, Germany in 1992. There he became responsible for developing the State’s Environmental Information System and started on European projects. He joined the European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen in 2001 where he - after projects on electronic environmental reporting – led the activities to establish a European Water Information System. Since 2010 he leads the EEA group on data governance which helps building the EEA’s spatial data infrastructure and is supporting the implementation of INSPIRE in Europe. AbstractThe European Environment Agency is a key provider of data and knowledge in support of environmental policies. We encourage systemic thinking and address climate change mitigation and adaptation as a crucial part of that. Geospatial data is been used increasingly to underpin indicators reflecting the monitoring of climate change, how and where it occurs and which dependencies it has. Examples will be provided around marine, air, atmosphere and land use changes. Data stems increasingly from a variety of sources, complementing the classical monitoring data with timely and high-resolution remote sensing data as well as citizen information and model outputs. Monitoring status and predicting developments is one challenge, taken appropriate measures on various levels another. With platforms like ClimateADAPT, European and National adaptation strategies are been communicated to a wide audience. Up-to-date map viewers e.g. on urban adaptation underpin discussions around a variety of diverse issues like heat, flooding, water scarcity, wild fires and social vulnerability. ClimateADAPT has been designed to support many different processes around Europe to take action in various policy sectors. Never have geospatial solutions been so policy relevant.