EUFAR: European Facility for Airborne Research in environmental and geoscience

EUFAR is the Integrating Activity for airborne research in Geo-science. It will integrate the airborne community, to ensure that researchers may have access to the most suited infrastructure they need, irrespective of the location of the infrastructure. The EUFAR consortium comprises 32 legal entities. 14 operators of airborne facilities, and 18 experts in airborne research. They contribute to 9 Networking Activities, Trans-national Access to 26 installations, and 3 Joint Research Activities. A Scientific Advisory Committee, constituted of eminent scientists, contributes to a better integration of the users with the  operators to tackle new user driven developments. Transnational Access coordination aims at providing a wider and more efficient access to the infrastructures. The working group for the Future of the Fleet fosters the joint development of airborne infrastructures in terms of capacity and performance. The Expert Working Groups facilitate a wider sharing of knowledge and technologies across fields. The activity for Education and Training provides training courses to new users. The working group on Standards and Protocols contributes to better structure the way research infrastructures operate. The development of a distributed data base for airborne activities improves the access to the data collected by the aircraft. All these activities rely on an unique web portal to airborne research in Europe. The working group on the Sustainable Structure aims at promoting solutions for the long term sustainability of EUFAR. Among the JRA, one will develop and characterize airborne hygrometers, the second one will develop and implement quality layers in the processing chains of hyperspectral imagery, and the third one will develop an airborne drop spectrometer based on a new principle.