# Climate risk assessment for properties with satellite data Satellite data show where floods, fires and ground movement have occurred and what the terrain around an asset looks like. Combined with official hazard maps, they help rate the exposure of each property to flooding, wildfire and subsidence. Climate projections add how these hazards may change over the lifetime of the asset; past images alone cannot show that. ## Why it matters Buildings, bridges, railway lines and other infrastructure have a long life cycle, generally several decades, so most types are strongly exposed to the negative impacts of climate change. More intense heat waves, droughts, storms and floods put their structural health, and in some cases the continuity of operations, at risk [2]. Owners, investors and insurers therefore need to know which assets are exposed to which hazard. Insurers use Earth observation in risk modelling, to predict weather events and their severity [1], and ESA lists climate risk assessment and natural hazard modelling for flood, drought and wind among the applications for finance and insurance [12]. Regulation asks for the same assessment in some cases. For activities assessed under the EU Taxonomy, the Climate Delegated Act sets out a climate risk and vulnerability assessment: screen which physical climate risks may affect the activity, assess how material they are, and assess solutions that reduce them [3]. Its list of hazards includes floods, wildfire, heat waves, drought, storms, landslides and subsidence [3]. ## Which data and satellites | Hazard | Data | Service | | ------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- | | Flooding | Flood extent from Sentinel-1 radar images, archive from 2015 | Global Flood Monitoring | | Flooding | Flood hazard maps with extent and water depth for several probabilities | Authorities under the EU Floods Directive | | Wildfire | Near real-time and historical information on forest fires | EFFIS, Copernicus Emergency Management Service | | Subsidence and landslides | Ground motion measured by radar | European Ground Motion Service | | Terrain | Elevation model, 30 m worldwide | Copernicus DEM | | Future climate | Information on the past, present and future climate, in Europe and worldwide | Copernicus Climate Change Service | Sources: Global Flood Monitoring [4], EU Floods Directive [5], EFFIS [6], European Ground Motion Service [7], Copernicus DEM [10], Copernicus Climate Change Service [8]. Earth observation provides historical data on ground deformation, floods, droughts and fires and long time series that reveal trends, which help assess how vulnerable sites are to natural hazards [1]. How flood maps are made is explained in [mapping flood risk](https://leto.space/use-cases/flood-risk-mapping/); ground motion in [monitoring ground motion with InSAR](https://leto.space/use-cases/ground-motion-insar/). **Figure:** Illustrative map, not real data. Flood extent along a valley floor, with the buildings inside it marked as exposed. ## How the assessment works 1. **Locate the assets**: every property or asset gets exact coordinates and an outline. 2. **Overlay the hazards**: each hazard layer is intersected with each asset, for example whether a building lies inside a mapped flood extent. 3. **Rate the exposure**: the results become a hazard class per asset and hazard. 4. **Add the future**: climate projections show how each hazard may change over the expected lifetime of the asset. The EU Taxonomy asks for at least 10 to 30 year projections for major investments [3]. 5. **Review**: assets in high classes get a closer look, with site data and expert judgement. ## What you get - a hazard class per asset for each hazard, such as flooding, wildfire and subsidence - a portfolio map that shows where the exposed assets are - a list of assets that need a closer look on site - a documented basis for a climate risk and vulnerability assessment, with the data and projections used ## Limits **Limits** - **Images show the past:** Satellite archives show where hazards occurred. How they will change needs climate projections, which the EU Taxonomy requires across a range of scenarios for longer-lived activities \[3]. - **Resolution limits the detail:** Global data such as the 30 m Copernicus DEM describe the surroundings of a building, not its details. The DEM is a surface model that includes buildings and vegetation \[10], so it is not a bare terrain model. - **Flood maps have blind spots:** Radar is not equally sensitive to flood water on every land surface \[11], and automatic flood maps can misclassify in some settings \[4]. Official hazard maps and local knowledge complete the picture. - **Exposure is not damage:** The data show whether an asset lies in a hazard zone. How badly it would be damaged depends on the building itself, for example on its floor levels and materials, which satellites do not see. ## How we help A climate risk rating is useful when it feeds a decision: an acquisition, an insurance premium, a maintenance plan or a report. In a [strategy engagement](https://leto.space/consulting/strategy/) we check which hazards and assets matter and which free data already answer the question. If you need a provider, we write the requirements and compare the offers. [More on requirements and procurement](https://leto.space/consulting/procurement/) The marketplace on [Spacegraph](https://leto.space/spacegraph/), our discovery platform, has a use-case category for hazard and risk assessment and an industry category for real estate and property. ## Related use cases - [Mapping flood risk and early warning](https://leto.space/use-cases/flood-risk-mapping/): How radar and models map flood hazard, and how warnings work. - [Verifying insurance claims after natural hazards](https://leto.space/use-cases/claims-verification/): What satellite data show after a flood or a storm. - [Construction and real estate](https://leto.space/industries/construction-and-real-estate/): All use cases for construction, infrastructure and real estate. - [Insurance and finance](https://leto.space/industries/insurance-and-finance/): Use cases for insurers, banks and investors. ## Frequently asked questions ### Which data do we need for a climate risk assessment of our properties? The locations of your assets, and hazard data for each location: flood extent from radar archives such as the Global Flood Monitoring product, which goes back to 2015 [4], official flood hazard maps [5], fire records from EFFIS [6], ground motion from the European Ground Motion Service [7] and information on the future climate from the Copernicus Climate Change Service [8]. The Copernicus services among them provide their data free of charge [9]. ### Do satellite images show future climate risk? No. Images record the past and the present. Historical satellite data on ground deformation, floods, droughts and fires help assess how vulnerable a site is to natural hazards [1], but the future comes from climate projections. The EU Taxonomy, for example, asks for state-of-the-art projections across a range of scenarios for activities with an expected lifespan of ten years or more [3]. ### How do we start? Start with one hazard and one part of the portfolio, for example flooding for the properties in one region. Check the result against what you know about past events at those sites before you extend it. Our [consulting overview](https://leto.space/consulting/) shows the path from the problem to operation. ## Sources 1. [EU Space Market Report 2026, Issue 1, EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), 2026-05-26](https://www.euspa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/EU_Space_Market_Report_2026.pdf) 2. [EUSPA EO and GNSS Market Report, Issue 2, 2024, EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), 2024](https://www.euspa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/external/publications/euspa_market_report_2024.pdf) 3. [Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2139 (EU Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act), Appendix A: generic criteria for DNSH to climate change adaptation, European Union, EUR-Lex, 2021-06-04](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2021/2139/oj/eng) 4. [Estimating Ensemble Likelihoods for the Sentinel-1-Based Global Flood Monitoring Product of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, Krullikowski et al., IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, vol. 16, pp. 6917-6930, 2023](https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2023.3292350) 5. [Directive 2007/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on the assessment and management of flood risks, European Union, EUR-Lex, 2007-10-23](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2007/60/oj/eng) 6. [About EFFIS (European Forest Fire Information System), Copernicus Emergency Management Service, European Commission, accessed 2026-10-06](https://forest-fire.emergency.copernicus.eu/about-effis) 7. [Tap into Europe in motion (European Ground Motion Service), European Space Agency (ESA), 2022-07-26](https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-1/Tap_into_Europe_in_motion) 8. [Copernicus Climate Change Service: About us, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), ECMWF, accessed 2026-10-06](https://climate.copernicus.eu/about-us) 9. [Regulation (EU) 2021/696 of 28 April 2021 establishing the Union Space Programme and the European Union Agency for the Space Programme, European Union, EUR-Lex, 2021-05-12](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/696/oj/eng) 10. [Copernicus DEM: Global and European Digital Elevation Model, Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem, accessed 2026-10-06](https://dataspace.copernicus.eu/explore-data/data-collections/copernicus-contributing-missions/collections-description/COP-DEM) 11. [Recommended Practice: Flood Mapping with Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Imagery and Digital Terrain Models, UN-SPIDER (United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs), accessed 2026-10-06](https://un-spider.org/advisory-support/recommended-practices/recommended-practice-flood-mapping-sentinel-1-and-sentinel-2) 12. [ESA Space Solutions: Space for finance and insurance, European Space Agency (ESA), ESA Space Solutions, accessed 2026-10-06](https://business.esa.int/finance-and-insurance) Page: