The National Observatory of Athens (NOA) has been historically nominated by the Greek government as the sole institution in charge of natural disasters monitoring, with a clear mandate to conduct innovative research for the benefit of the Greek citizens. At global level it hosts, a) the UNESCO Chair for Natural Disasters, established within the framework of UNESCO-BRESCE, b) the Secretariat of the South Eastern European (SEE) Disasters Risk Assessment and Mitigation Network, and c) the Focal Point on the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS), one of the four national GEO Offices in the World. NOA is also acting under a special agreement as Regional Support Office of UN-SPIDER. NOA is a regional EO hub for data, products and services in south-eastern Europe, Middle East and North Africa, through its BEYOND Center of Excellence for EO-based monitoring of natural disasters and the coordination of the H2020 project GEO-CRADLE for integrating EO-capacities and consolidating the needs for EO services in the region-of-interest.
At global level it hosts, a) the UNESCO Chair for Natural Disasters, established within the framework of UNESCO-BRESCE, b) the Secretariat of the South Eastern European (SEE) Disasters Risk Assessment and Mitigation Network, and c) the Focal Point on the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS), one of the four national GEO Offices in the World.
NOA is a key Copernicus player providing ICT and infrastructures for storing, managing and disseminating big data from the Sentinel family of satellites that are maintained by Copernicus, towards establishing NOA as a central node in the European federated Copernicus Sentinel Ground Segment. In addition, NOA brings in unique expertise in space data retrievals and state-of-the-art applications development of innovative tools and algorithms for satellite data processing from advanced Space sensors, aiming to monitor physical parameters critical to Earth Finally, it contributes with significant links with GEOSS and other regional initiatives (e.g., BEYOND, PANACEA), while at the same time it has long tradition in organization of summer schools and regional workshops. Dr. Haris Kontoes is the PI of NOA in the EXCELSIOR project.
