Human Security is one of the basic needs of mankind, both individually and collectively. It is the single most important prerequisite for sustainable development. Today, Europe and the rest of the world face new security challenges. Malnutrition, poverty caused by environmental degradation and/or failed governance still prevent people in many regions from working towards a better future.

The September 11 events created again a new reality; large scale non-military threats to people sharpened both collective and individual anxieties. Now the distinction is blurred between military and non-military actions as well as between state and non-state aggression. In addition to threats caused by natural hazards, terrorism and international crime have led to the globalisation of our security dependence. Nations and regions are redefining their ways of acting and responding. To analyse the threats and to monitor possible root causes, seamless and unbiased information and knowledge is needed which is preferably based on earth observation satellites with their capability to provide information about sites that are either too dangerous or too remote to monitor by any other means. Crisis management or disaster preparedness requires a reliable flow of information to enable effective decisions; disaster risk reduction builds on a common spatial platform to find the consensus between lowering the susceptibility to hazards or threats and the freedom of the individual. To satisfy the need for geoinformation the decision making process has to be understood, the existing spatial information be adequately prepared, meaningful information be derived from remotely sensed data as well as networks been built and maintained between data providers, scientists and users.