Report on Status of ESO Public Surveys and Current Activities

This report on the status of the ESO Public Surveys includes a brief overview of their legacy value and scientific impact. Their legacy is ensured by their homogeneity, sensitivity, large sky coverage in multiple filters, large number of targets, wavelength coverage and spectral resolution, which make them useful for the community at large, extending beyond the scientific goals identified by the survey teams. In May 2019, as almost all first-generation imaging and spectroscopic surveys completed their observations and second- generation imaging surveys got well underway, the Public Survey Panel reviewed the scientific impact of these projects. The review was based on a quantitative assessment of the number of refereed publications from the survey teams and archive users. It included the number of citations, the number of data releases and statistics on access to archive data by the user community. The ESO Users Committee also discussed the availability and usage of ESO Public Survey data by the community during their yearly meeting in April 2019. We describe the status of these projects with respect to their observing plans, highlight the most recent data releases and provide links to the resulting science data products.