Institutions & Frameworks

The previous section has illustrated the many ways in which satellite EO can support adaptation and resilience across the stages of the adaptation cycle. However, effective use of EO data depends not only on the availability of satellite measurements but also on the international systems that coordinate, curate, and disseminate these data. This section gives examples of organisations that play a role in organising EO activities, promoting open access to data, and translating observations into usable information for adaptation and resilience decision-makers.

Three organisations are particularly important in this context: the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), the Coordination Group on Meteorological Satellites (CGMS, for weather satellites specifically), and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). Together they help coordinate the global, public EO ecosystem, linking satellite-operating space agencies, governments, research institutions, and international organisations. Through these collaborative frameworks, EO datasets, analytical tools, and thematic initiatives are made accessible to a wide range of users, from national governments and scientific institutions to development agencies and local practitioners. For readers seeking to explore the practical use of EO in support of adaptation and resilience, these organisations provide key entry points to the global community, resources, and data infrastructures that underpin many of the applications discussed throughout this Handbook.

Within the UN system, where many countries choose to coordinate on adaptation and resilience, there are entities who benefit from EO coordination such as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), as well as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction that promotes improved understanding of disaster risk, strengthened preparedness, and the expansion of multi-hazard early warning systems. Countries party to the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) seek to provide a framework for assessing collective global progress in enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change. At the national level, these objectives are operationalised through instruments such as NAPs and, increasingly, through adaptation components embedded within Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which define country-specific priorities, actions, and reporting processes.

At the national, sub-national, and local scales, last mile adaptation and resilience decisions are made daily. From sizing a drainage ditch to approving new zoning, local governments, companies, and emergency managers are required to address a broad range of hazards and tradeoffs, often assisted by technologically savvy boundary organisations. EO usage at this scale is often combined with other information to identify solutions to improve adaptation and resilience. Boundary organisations and applied science intermediaries translate EO data into actionable products, such as localised flood extent maps, drought monitoring dashboards, urban heat assessments, and land‑use change analytics, that align with local planning cycles and regulatory requirements. By integrating EO with socioeconomic, infrastructure, and hazard data, these groups help communities tailor resilience strategies to their specific vulnerabilities and long‑term development goals. Groups such as the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation or the European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT) routinely integrate satellite‑derived products for lifeline‑infrastructure monitoring, business continuity planning, and localised emergency response coordination. At the municipal scale, cities like Semarang and Surabaya in Indonesia, eThekwini/Durban in South Africa, United Kingdom county‑ and city‑level resilience hubs (e.g., in Bristol, Glasgow, and Manchester), and the Miami‑Dade County Office of Resilience use EO‑driven flood mapping, heat‑vulnerability modeling, and land‑use change monitoring to inform resilience decisions like zoning, infrastructure upgrades, and hazard‑mitigation plans. Australian resilience and emergency-management agencies (such as the New South Wales Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water) use EO for bushfire and flood-risk planning. University‑based centers, such as the University of Nebraska’s National Drought Mitigation Center, serve as applied research hubs that convert EO data into tools used by city planners, water managers, and emergency responders. These organisations bridge scientific capability and local decision processes, ensuring that satellite observations directly support resilience-building actions.

Below are further details of institutions and frameworks important to integrating EO with adaptation and resilience planning. The Case Studies in Part 2 also highlight sub-national organisations and partners who facilitate on-the-ground, last mile solutions using a wide variety of case studies.

The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS, ceos.org) was created in 1984 in response to a recommendation by a Panel of Experts on Remote Sensing from Space, under the aegis of the G-7 Economic Summit of Industrialised Nations Working Group on Growth, Technology and Employment. This Panel recognised the multidisciplinary nature of space-based EO and the value of coordinating international EO efforts to benefit society.

CEOS was established to coordinate and harmonise EO to make it easier for the user community to access and use data, recognising that no single programme, agency, or nation can hope to satisfy all of the observational requirements that are necessary for improved understanding of the Earth System. Since its establishment, CEOS has provided a broad framework for international coordination on space-borne EO missions. In 2026, CEOS membership comprises every significant civil EO programme internationally, amounting to 35 space agency Members, complemented by a further 32 Associate Members that include major data use and scientific bodies.

CEOS has three primary objectives:

CEOS coordination is implemented through a range of thematic initiatives, working groups and virtual constellations that align satellite observations from multiple agencies to address priority environmental domains. These collaborative structures support areas such as climate monitoring, disaster risk management, carbon cycle observations, land surface change, and water resources. CEOS also promotes interoperability of data systems, common calibration and validation practices, and improved access to EO data and information products. Through these mechanisms, CEOS helps ensure that observations from multiple national satellite programmes function as a coherent global observing system capable of supporting scientific understanding, operational services, and policy decision-making.

A number of CEOS initiatives and strategies are of special relevance to adaptation and resilience:

The Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (CGMS, https://cgms-info.org) is the international forum that coordinates the activities of space agencies operating meteorological satellite systems. Established in 1972, CGMS brings together agencies responsible for both geostationary and polar-orbiting weather satellites to exchange technical information, harmonise operational practices, and ensure continuity of critical meteorological observations. Through this coordination, CGMS helps maintain the global network of weather satellites that underpin modern weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and environmental services. These satellites provide continuous observations of atmospheric conditions, cloud systems, precipitation, water- and land-surface temperature, and other variables essential for understanding and predicting weather and climate dynamics.

The operational observations coordinated through CGMS play a crucial role in disaster preparedness and early warning systems. Continuous satellite monitoring enables the detection and tracking of severe weather systems such as tropical cyclones, storms, and heavy rainfall events. Data from meteorological satellites also contribute to drought monitoring, flood forecasting, and wildfire risk assessment. In this way, the global meteorological satellite constellation coordinated through CGMS forms a key component of the international infrastructure supporting hazard monitoring, early warning, and disaster risk reduction efforts aligned with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) is an intergovernmental partnership that connects governments, space agencies, scientific bodies, and user communities to improve the availability and use of EO for decision-making. In practice, GEO’s value lies in turning satellite, in situ, and modelled data into coordinated services, guidance, and capacity support that countries can apply in policy and implementation.

For adaptation and resilience, GEO has moved beyond general coordination into more targeted support for the NAP process. A notable example is its supplement to the UNFCCC NAP technical guidelines on agriculture and food security, launched in 2022. This guidance draws on GEO’s agricultural community, especially GEOGLAM, and shows how EO can support crop and drought monitoring, land and water assessment, seasonal outlooks, and other information needs relevant to climate-resilient agriculture and food systems.

At the UNFCCC NAP Expo, GEO highlighted new sectoral guidance for coastal and ocean adaptation/coastal zone management, and GEO partners later developed a dedicated supplement in this area through GEO Blue Planet. GEO has also identified water resources management as a further priority for support.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) plays a central coordinating role in the global meteorological enterprise, ensuring that satellite observations from international space agencies are transformed into actionable weather and climate services. WMO helps member states access the continuous, global EO coverage required to monitor rapidly evolving hazards, including tropical cyclones, floods, drought, wildfires, landslides, heatwaves, and coastal storm events.

A focus of WMO’s current work is the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative, a United Nations effort to ensure that every person on the planet is protected by life‑saving early‑warning systems by 2027. Satellite data form the observational backbone of this initiative and is showcased through a comprehensive satellite data product dashboard. Space‑based sensors provide consistent global monitoring across the atmosphere, land, and oceans, offering critical inputs for hazard detection, impact‑based forecasting, and real‑time risk assessment. WMO collaborates closely with CEOS, CGMS, and national space agencies to refine satellite‑derived products and expand delivery systems that reduce vulnerability to emerging climate threats. This partnership framework, including from CEOS member agencies and working groups, emphasises the need to strengthen the satellite observing system, improve analysis‑ready data standards, and align space‑based products with EW4All priority hazards.

In addition to improving observational systems, WMO is engaged in capacity development, ensuring that national meteorological and hydrological services can transform satellite data into operational early warnings. Regional expert teams, such as the WMO Expert Team for Satellite Utilization in the West Pacific, are prioritising EW4All by training forecasters, expanding access to satellite‑based hazard monitoring, and strengthening national forecasting chains in high‑risk regions. CEOS and WMO are also jointly exploring ways to better coordinate product development and capacity-building activities that support EW4All and longer‑term adaptation and resilience goals.

Together, these efforts illustrate how WMO and its partners are weaving satellite EO, ground-based observations, and modeling into a globally coordinated early‑warning architecture. By aligning advanced space‑based monitoring, national forecasting capabilities, and community‑scale dissemination systems, the EW4All initiative aims to deliver more timely, accurate, and accessible warnings, strengthening resilience and adaptation around the globe.

A central element of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement (2015) is the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), which aims to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience, and reduce vulnerability to climate change in the context of sustainable development by driving UNFCCC member country ambition. While mitigation progress can be assessed through greenhouse gas emissions inventories, measuring progress on adaptation presents a more complex challenge. Adaptation outcomes are often context-specific, vary across sectors and regions, and involve both physical and socio-economic dimensions of risk reduction. For this reason, the GGA seeks to establish a framework through which collective progress on adaptation can be assessed at the global level while recognising national circumstances and diverse adaptation pathways.

A key challenge in this effort is the availability of reliable, comparable data across countries and regions. Adaptation outcomes often emerge over long timescales and may be influenced by multiple interacting factors, including socio-economic development, governance arrangements, and ecosystem conditions. For this reason, the GGA process places increasing emphasis on strengthening the information base that supports adaptation planning and reporting. This includes improving national monitoring systems, enhancing the integration of climate risk information into decision-making, and expanding access to environmental observations that allow hazards, exposure, and environmental change to be tracked consistently.

Satellite EO can play an important supporting role in this context. Many of the environmental variables relevant to climate risk – such as land cover change, vegetation condition, surface water extent, sea level, and surface temperature patterns – can be observed systematically from space. These observations provide globally consistent datasets that complement national monitoring systems and help establish shared reference points for assessing environmental change and emerging risks. As the GGA framework evolves, EO data are expected to contribute increasingly to the evidence base used to assess adaptation needs, monitor environmental trends, and inform indicators related to climate hazards and ecosystem conditions.

Progress on adaptation is also linked to the Global Stocktake established under the Paris Agreement. The Global Stocktake is conducted every five years to assess collective progress toward the long-term goals of the Agreement, including mitigation, adaptation, and means of implementation. The development of the GGA framework provides an important foundation for ensuring that adaptation progress can be assessed as part of this global review process. Over time, improved indicators, monitoring systems and observational datasets will help strengthen the ability of the Global Stocktake to evaluate how effectively the international community is reducing climate risks and building resilience.

Continued development of the GGA will depend on strengthening the links between observation systems, national adaptation planning processes, and international reporting mechanisms. As countries expand their NAPs and integrate climate resilience into development strategies, the demand for reliable environmental information is likely to grow. In this evolving landscape, coordinated EO systems and international collaboration on climate data will play an increasingly important role in supporting evidence-based adaptation and resilience planning worldwide.

NAPs are a key mechanism through which UNFCCC member countries identify medium- and long-term climate risks and integrate adaptation into national development planning. The NAP process generally follows a structured cycle that closely mirrors the broader adaptation framework. It begins with the assessment of climate hazards, exposure, and vulnerability, followed by the development of adaptation priorities and strategies. Governments then move to implementation through sectoral policies, investment programmes, and institutional reforms, while monitoring and evaluation systems are developed to track progress and inform future updates. Through this iterative process, NAPs aim to embed climate risk considerations within national planning systems, infrastructure, water management, agriculture, urban planning, and ecosystem conservation.

A key feature of NAPs is their emphasis on coordination across government ministries and levels of governance. Climate risks often span sectors and administrative boundaries, requiring collaboration between agencies responsible for environment, infrastructure, agriculture, health, and disaster management. NAPs therefore help align adaptation measures with broader development goals and improve the coherence of national climate policies.

Reliable climate and environmental information is essential for effective NAP development and implementation. Satellite EO data can support many aspects of the process, including risk assessment, spatial planning, monitoring environmental change, and evaluating adaptation outcomes. By providing consistent observations of key environmental variables across national territories, EO datasets help strengthen the evidence base for adaptation priorities and investment decisions.

As of early 2026, approximately 75 developing countries had submitted NAPs to the UNFCCC, while more than 140 countries had initiated the process. This reflects the growing global effort to integrate adaptation into national development planning. These plans play an increasingly important role in informing international assessment of adaptation progress, providing national-level evidence and experience that contribute to the evolving framework for the GGA.

Climate adaptation is closely linked with disaster risk reduction, particularly in relation to extreme events whose frequency and intensity may be changing under a warming climate. A key international framework guiding these efforts is the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, adopted by United Nations member states in 2015. The Sendai Framework seeks to substantially reduce disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods, and infrastructure by strengthening risk understanding, improving governance arrangements, investing in resilience, and enhancing preparedness for effective response and recovery. Many of these priorities overlap directly with the objectives of climate adaptation, particularly where countries seek to anticipate and manage climate-related hazards such as floods, storms, droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires.

A central pillar of the Sendai Framework is the development of multi-hazard early warning systems that can provide timely information about emerging hazards and enable authorities and communities to take preventive action. Early warning systems typically integrate observations, forecasting models, risk information, and communication mechanisms to translate scientific data into actionable warnings. Satellite EO plays a key role in many of these systems by providing continuous monitoring of atmospheric and environmental conditions at regional and global scales. In addition to providing key observations for routine weather forecasting, meteorological satellites support the detection and tracking of severe weather systems such as tropical cyclones and major storm systems, while other EO systems monitor indicators relevant to drought, wildfire risk, flood conditions, and coastal hazards.

The same satellite observations that support early warning also contribute to longer-term understanding of hazard patterns and environmental change. By providing consistent observations across large areas and long time periods, EO datasets help identify emerging trends in climate extremes, assess the spatial extent of disasters and support post-event damage assessments. These capabilities allow governments and international organisations to better understand how risks are evolving and to refine both adaptation strategies and disaster preparedness measures. In this way, EOsystems form an important component of the global information infrastructure supporting disaster risk reduction, early warning, and resilience-building efforts aligned with the Sendai Framework.