Projects and cooperation agreements

Copernicus is the EU's Earth observation programme that looks at our planet and its environment and how it can benefit all European citizens. It offers information services based on satellite and in-situ (non-space) data.

The EEA has a key role in Copernicus, implementing its Land Monitoring Service jointly with the Joint Research Centre (JRC), and managing the cross-cutting coordination of Copernicus' access to in-situ data. The EEA is also part of the WEkEO partnership, actively contributing to the development of tools and products and to facilitating access and use of Copernicus data.

Arrangement between the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Mercator Ocean International (MOi) and the European Environment Agency (EEA) for cooperation on WEkEO.

The 4-partite agreement with other entrusted entities aims to ensure cooperation across the Copernicus services for the development of WEkEO, which is the EU Copernicus DIAS reference service for environmental data, virtual processing environments and skilled user support.

The Energy Community is an international organisation which brings together the European Union and its neighbours to create an integrated pan-European energy market. The key objective of the Energy Community is to extend the EU internal energy market rules and principles to countries in South East Europe, the Black Sea region and beyond on the basis of a legally binding framework. 

The EEA is supporting nine Contracting Parties (CPs) of the Energy Community to report their climate and energy data to the Energy Community Secretariat. This is achieved through providing an IT reporting infrastructure, data quality control and targeted technical assistance to fill identified gaps.

EuroGEO is Europe’s contribution to the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), a global network working to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

Supported by Horizon 2020 funds, the EEA is contributing to this activity by improving access to in-situ data relevant to climate adaptation and promoting good data sharing and management practices.

On behalf of the Copernicus programme, and given its role of responsible for the cross-cutting coordination of Copernicus' access to in-situ data, the EEA has entered into partnership agreements with key European networks of data providers such as EuroGeographics, representing European national mapping, land registry and cadastral agencies (NMCAs), and Eumetnet, representing European National Meteorological Services.

The EEA is managing the European Climate and Health Observatory in partnership with the Directorate-General for Health and and Food Safety (DG SANTE) and Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA) of the European Commission.

This platform is providing relevant information and tools that support Europe in preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change on human health. 

Jointly led by the Directorate-General for Climate Action of the European Commission (DG CLIMA) and the European Environment Agency (EEA), the European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA) aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of current and future climate change impacts and risks relating to the environment, economy and wider society in Europe.

It is implemented by the EEA, the consortium partners of the European Topic Centre on Climate Change Adaptation and LULUCF (ETC/CA), the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

The EEA has a service level agreement with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to deliver work developing the content of the Global Resources Outlook 2023 under the auspices of the International Resource Panel.

The EEA Executive Director is lead coordination author of The Global Resources Outlook from the International Resource Panel, and the report is scheduled for the UN Environment Assembly 2024.

Human biomonitoring for Europe (HBM4EU) was a joint initiative of the EU-27 Member States, the EEA and the European Commission that measured Europeans’ exposure to chemicals and their health effects.

Its follow-up project 'Partnership for the Assessment of Risks in Chemicals (PARC)' takes the HBM4EU work forward by strengthening the scientific basis for chemical risk assessment and facilitating the EU's transition to next generation evidence-based risk assessment.

This project is funded by the European Commission (DG NEAR) to support the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans and to make sure that the Western Balkans partners are an integral part of the Eionet network.

The cross-agency One Health task force is a joint initiative of five EU agencies: the European Environment Agency (EEA), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). 

Building on existing joint activities, the task force aims to strengthen transdisciplinary cooperation among these agencies in the areas of environmental sustainability, food safety and public health. This will enable the agencies to better address challenges to human, animal, plant and environmental health and successfully contribute to the implementation of the One Health approach in Europe.