Polish public administration is among the leaders in the use of satellite data. Modern remote sensing techniques are already being used by institutions such as Statistics Poland and the Chief Inspectorate for Environmental Protection. They support environmental monitoring, climate change analysis, crop monitoring and, increasingly, crisis management. Experts say the potential of satellite data is far greater, but its effective use requires investment in storage and processing capabilities.
“Satellite data is an invaluable source of information that enables services and institutions to forecast threats, analyse their mechanisms and plan actions to address them. In environmental protection, it was used in 2022 during the ecological crisis on the Oder River, and in subsequent years it helped prevent similar threats. The potential of satellite data is so significant that we want to transfer the experience gained to the monitoring of environmental risks across the country, on all other rivers and waters,” Marek Kajs, Deputy Chief Inspector for Environmental Protection, told Newseria.
In the summer of 2022, one of Poland’s largest environmental disasters occurred on the Oder River. The mass die-off of fish and other aquatic organisms affected almost the entire length of the river and required rapid identification of the causes, assessment of the scale of the phenomenon and coordination of crisis management. Satellite techniques supported the analysis by making it possible, among other things, to determine the extent of the bloom, identify sections with elevated chlorophyll concentrations and track the dynamics of the phenomenon over time.
“Satellite data complements information from other sources at our disposal. These include environmental monitoring results and data from automatic probes installed on watercourses. The analysis of all these data, based on various applications and algorithms, can provide significant value in crisis management and help counteract threats,” Kajs explained. “For many years, we have used satellite data analyses to adjust the manual monitoring system operated by the Chief Inspectorate for Environmental Protection, so that monitoring points can be placed correctly and optimally.”
In September 2025, the Chief Inspectorate for Environmental Protection signed a cooperation agreement with the Polish Space Agency, enabling the use of satellite data in environmental protection and in combating environmental crime. Services can use images and data obtained from the Earth observation satellite network, including the Sentinel constellation.
According to the Polish Space Agency’s report “The Socio-Economic Impact of Satellite Data on Selected Areas of the Economy and Social Life”, a system based on the use of satellite data is a key tool for long-term water quality management. It has the potential to prevent environmental disasters, bringing both financial and social benefits.
“We have been using satellite data for many years. At Warsaw University of Technology, we carried out projects related to crisis management, including the development of a methodology for monitoring flood embankments and identifying where they were damaged,” said Dr hab. Eng. Katarzyna Osińska-Skotak, professor at the Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography at Warsaw University of Technology.
She emphasised that projects had also previously been carried out to develop methods for monitoring Natura 2000 natural habitats. The aerial remote sensing platform created during research and development work, together with image analysis methods using machine learning algorithms, became a professional tool for nature inventory work, not only in relation to Natura 2000 habitats.
“The key advantage of satellite techniques is that we have an almost continuous image of the Earth’s surface. Other methods most commonly used in environmental monitoring are usually either expert-based or point-based, which does not give us a complete picture of the state of the natural environment at the same moment,” said Prof. Osińska-Skotak. “We have also carried out projects related to cultural heritage, involving the development of methods using satellite, aerial and drone images for heritage inventory purposes. Such projects have been and are still being carried out, for example, in Paphos, Cyprus.”
“Poland, and especially Polish public administration, compares well with its neighbours when it comes to the use of satellite data. Statistics Poland has long used data in its analyses, especially from the Copernicus programme, meaning free satellite constellations, and is a pioneer in this area. CloudFerro cooperates with Statistics Poland, stores the data and makes it available, so we have a fairly good idea of the projects being implemented. These images are later used to monitor agricultural subsidy controls under the Common Agricultural Policy,” explained Monika Krzyżanowska, Business Development Director at CloudFerro.
Statistics Poland, together with the Institute of Geodesy and Cartography and the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, implemented the SATMIROL project. The system focuses on monitoring agricultural crops and assessing the impact of extreme events such as floods, droughts, frosts and local flooding. The development of the system provided Statistics Poland with an efficient tool for faster collection of large-scale spatial data.
“Making full use of satellite data requires investment in storage and processing capabilities. The more data we have from a given area, and the greater our processing capabilities, for example through cloud computing, the more accurate a model we can build,” Krzyżanowska noted.
“What we lack are algorithms that we can teach to analyse data and that will examine the country in real time, day by day, for a range of threats and alert us to anomalies or deviations. The goal is for information to appear quickly and for services to be able to use it. We are not able to manually analyse such enormous amounts of data, so the use of applications and machine learning is essential,” said Marek Kajs.
“We have a deficit in the effective use of the possibilities offered by new technologies, including satellite techniques, because the space sector has a great deal to offer. However, it is not always able to express this in a language that responds to the specific needs of the crisis management community. There is also no mechanism through which that community could purchase such solutions,” said Dr Jakub Ryzenko, Head of the Crisis Information Centre at the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences. “Civil Security Hub Poland is an attempt to create a bridge that translates users’ needs into a language understandable to the space sector and, on the other hand, acts as a real catalyst and aggregator of what can be offered by satellite and analytical systems. Ultimately, the goal is to deliver a relatively simple product that answers specific questions: where, when, how much, and what will happen in an hour.”
Civil Security Hub Poland is the first entity of its kind in Europe established under Space Resilience Nodes, an initiative of the European Space Agency supporting the use of satellite data in crisis management. It acts as a link between the space sector, technology providers and end users, including rescue services and public institutions. The organisations and institutions forming the hub include the Crisis Information Centre of the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw University of Technology, CloudFerro and the European Space Foundation.
“In recent years, it has become very clear that in Poland we are moving from classic response to events that have already occurred towards proactive action. I am not just talking about ordinary prevention or risk reduction. If we already know that a flood is coming, resources are moved proactively, people are prepared and various mechanisms are activated,” Dr Ryzenko explained. “For example, before the flood even began, the State Fire Service sent fire teams from northern Poland to the south so that they would be ready to act where needed. What the hub will provide in the coming years fits into this philosophy: we will deliver the maximum amount of information needed to assess the strategic situation.”
Large-scale satellite flood monitoring under CS Hub PL was launched during the 2024 floods. The Crisis Information Centre of the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences began its activities at the request of the National Headquarters of the State Fire Service. Seven threatened areas were identified, mainly in the Dolnośląskie and Opolskie voivodeships. On this basis, the Centre launched flood monitoring provided by ICEYE. Satellite data was delivered in urgent mode.
