The European Union has launched CLEAR-EO, an ambitious research and innovation project that will leverage newly available satellite missions – including Meteosat Third Generation  and the EUMETSAT Polar System Second Generation  – alongside European cloud infrastructures such as the European Weather Cloud, to provide new critical services to communities around Europe.

CLEAR-EO will build an analysis and geo-spatial notification system on top of a federated data space, transforming satellite information into actionable insights for decision-makers, businesses, and citizens. The project will focus on three pressing challenges where better information can mean the difference between disruption and resilience:

  • Urban flash floods:Extreme rainfall events are becoming more frequent and intense across Europe, often overwhelming cities within hours. CLEAR-EO will harness satellite data to provide earlier and more precise warnings, giving municipalities the ability to mobilize emergency services faster, protect vulnerable communities, and reduce costly damage to infrastructure.
  • Agricultural adaptation:Farmers are on the frontline of climate change. With shifting weather patterns, droughts, and unexpected shocks threatening harvests, timely and reliable information is vital. CLEAR-EO will deliver tools that help farmers and policymakers alike manage both immediate risks and long-term adaptation strategies, supporting sustainable food production and strengthening Europe’s food security.
  • Air quality forecasting:Millions of Europeans are exposed to harmful air pollutants every year, with direct consequences for health and quality of life. By delivering high-resolution forecasts, CLEAR-EO will enable city planners to design healthier urban environments, healthcare providers to anticipate risks for vulnerable groups, and citizens to make informed daily choices — from when to exercise outdoors to how to protect children and the elderly.

Together, these applications showcase how Europe’s investment in next-generation satellites can be translated into services that protect lives, safeguard livelihoods, and improve well-being.

CLEAR-EO brings together a multidisciplinary consortium spanning research organizations, national weather forecasting centres, Earth observation  data providers, cloud and platform specialists, SMEs, and contributors to global initiatives such as the Group on Earth Observations and Destination Earth  Together, they will develop, demonstrate, and promote new applications that enable the early exploitation of Europe’s new generation of weather satellite data.

Paolo Viviani, Project Co-coordinator at LINKS, said:
“CLEAR-EO represents a unique opportunity to bring together Europe’s excellence in Earth Observation, cloud infrastructures, and applied climate services. By combining satellite data with innovative digital technologies, we will co-create solutions that help citizens, policymakers, and businesses better respond to floods, adapt agriculture to a changing climate, and improve the quality of the air we breathe . In short, CLEAR-EO is about turning space data and compute capabilities into impact on society.”

With a budget of EUR 4 million, CLEAR-EO has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101182722.

For more information about the project: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101182722