CERGOP-2/environment, completion and future aspects

The project "CERGOP-2, a multipurpose and interdisciplinary sensor array for environmental research in Central Europe" was approved by EC within the 5th Framework Program and started ApriI 1st, 2003. It was officially terminated October 31, 2006 (amendment 3 and 4) and financially closed end of 2007. The results of 17 work packages were published in the Reports of Geodesy, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland comprising altogether more than 3600 pages. On behalf of 14 contractors I give a summary of the current results which concern, for the area of investigation (15 % of Europe), a high quality GPS network operational for the next decade, velocity field and strain maps for geodynamical investigations and hazard mitigation, data for climate research and weather forecast, data for real time navigation and a seamless data bank for scientific and public access. The results are based on partly continuous GPS measurements at up to 80 permanent stations carried out during the last 14 years. In addition, I try to give a future perspective for the investigations to be done during the next decades which aim at the understanding of the internal forces being the reason for plate kinematics which formed the present shape of the earth surface during the last billion of years. Hopefully next generations will be able to forecast sudden changes of the earth surface including the necessary energy transfer leading to earth quakes and to give valuable support for risk management and mitigation procedures.