ETH Zurich Opens Earth Observation Centre near Lucerne
ETH Zurich opened the ETH Swiss GeoLab, its new competence centre for Earth observation, on October 16, 2026, at the D4 Business Village in Root, near Lucerne, less than a year after the plan was announced. ETH President Joël Mesot and Lucerne Cantonal Councillor Fabian Peter welcomed the guests. Mesot recalled the landslide in Blatten and a flash flood on the Tibet-Nepal border, saying science cannot prevent such disasters but can help detect them early and improve how their consequences are managed.
GeoLab Director Verena Griess said the centre will focus on the early detection of natural hazards and on optimising agriculture and forestry with satellite data. An SI-based geoinformation platform will combine satellite and drone imagery with measuring-station data to train new models for Switzerland, working with the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre in Lugano, where about 100 petabytes of NASA Earth observation and climate data have been transferred. A pilot project in Valais studies early detection of rockfalls and landslides, and drone radar tests were flown over a glacier in the Lötschental in September. The core team is expected to reach about 10 people by the end of 2027, growing into a network of some 100 experts by around 2030.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：苏黎世联邦理工学院主楼暮色。图片来源：ETH-Bibliothek，CC BY-SA 4.0。Photo: ETH Zurich main building at dusk. Image: ETH-Bibliothek, CC BY-SA 4.0.
