Industry Case Study: Using Satellite Data to Help in Disasters

Space Universities Network & Industry Case Study

This is a UK Space Universities Network Industry case study, one of a series of case studies aimed at providing teaching exercises for UK higher education. The University of Bristol and Ordinal Space (on behalf of the UK Space Agency) developed this case study.

The International Charter: Space and Major Disasters Logo

Introduction

According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), ‘climate change is driving increased risk across all countries, and unpredictable hazards can have devastating cascading impacts on all sectors, with long-lasting, debilitating socio-economic and environmental consequences.’[1]

This case study describes a case study based on an international agreement that provides priority access to Earth Observation satellite data and works to support disaster management authorities in responding to major disasters worldwide.

Throughout this study, examples are used to illustrate the work done by this organisation and provide students with an experience of using satellite data in this context.

Tell us what you think! We’d love to hear from you to help us improve our case study, and to maximise its utility in teaching. Please comment on this resource using the feedback form below.

 

Learning Objectives

After completing this case study, you should be able to:

  1. Describe what the ‘International Charter: Space and Major Disasters’ is and how it is activated.
  2. Demonstrate the creation of a value-added product using the online Copernicus dataspace browser.
  3. Develop a data product using the software QGIS and Copernicus data.
  4. Evaluate the limitations of the data.

 

1.     What is the International Charter: Space and Major Disasters?

The “International Charter: Space and Major Disasters” (the Charter) is a worldwide collaboration between space agencies and satellite operators. It makes satellite data quickly and freely available for emergency response. The Charter responds to international disasters at the request of state emergency management authorities and the United Nations.

In a disaster, satellite images are useful to identify disaster impacts and the worst affected areas. The images are processed into shareable maps and digital information to enable emergency management to better understand the situation and coordinate their response. Earth Observation (EO) satellites are particularly useful for observing remote populated areas that may be inaccessible and very large regions that would not be practical to observe by other means.

Members and Contributors

There are currently 17 Charter members, and it has been operating since November 2000.

These are: ABAE (Agencia Bolivariana para Actividades Espacailes), CNES (Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales), CNSA (China National Space Administration), EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), ESA (European Space Agency), DLR (German Aerospace Center), ISRO (India Space Research Organisation), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), KARI (Korea Aerospace Research Institute), INPE (National Institute for Space Research), NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), ROSCOSMOS (Russian Federal Space Agency), UKSA (UK Space Agency), USGS (United States Geological Survey), CSA (Canadian Space Agency), CONAE (Argentina National Space Activities Commission) and UAESA (United Arab Emirates Space Agency). [2]

Both Charter members and satellite operators supply data from 270 contributing satellites, these are shown in Table 1 [3].

 

Table 1:  List of organisations and contributing satellites, both optical and radar (red) as of 2024

Organisation Contributing Satellites
ABAE VRSS-2
BlackSky GLOBAL
CNES Pleiades, SPOT
CNSA CBERS-4, GF-1, GF-2, GF-3, GF-4, FY-3C, Beijing-2, JILIN-01, OVS-1, OVS-2, OHS-2
CONAE Saocom-1A, Saocom-1B
CSA Radarsat-2, RCM
DLR TerrarSAR-X/ TanDEM-X
ESA Sentinel-1A, Sentinel-2A/2B
EUMETSAT Meteosat-9/10/11, Metop-B/C
ICEYE Iceye-X2, X4, X5, X7
ISRO Cartosat-2, Resourcesat-2, Resourcesat-2A
INPE CBERS-4, CBERS-4A, Amazonia-1
JAXA ALOS-2
KARI KOMPSAT-3, KOMPSAT-3A, KOMPSAT-5
NAS BKA
NOAA POES-18/19/20, SUOMI-NPP, GOES-13/16/17
Planet PlanetScope (~120 satellites)
ROSCOSMOS RESURS-DK, METEOR-M, KANOPUS-V, KANOPUS-V-IK, RESURS-P
Satellogic NewSat
UAESA DubaiSat-2, KhalifaSat
UKSA Vision-1
USGS Landsat-7, Landsat-8, WorldView-1/2/3, Geoeye

 

How does the Charter work?

Using the Charter

The Charter can be ‘activated’ by a predefined list of appointed users across the world, known as ‘Authorised Users’ (AUs). As of April 2024, there are currently 94 Authorised Users across 83 countries.

These Authorised Users can directly activate the Charter to request support for emergencies in their own country, or in a country they cooperate with, for disaster relief. Authorised Users are typically national disaster management authorities, governmental relief organisations or other authorities with a mandate related to disaster management. Cooperating Bodies such as the United Nations and Sentinel Asia are also able to activate the Charter.


Figure 1: Map showing counties (in dark blue) with direct access to the Charter as of June 2024

Charter Products

The main aim of the Charter is to provide priority access to satellite data in the event of major disasters. This data includes both new images (tasked) and existing archived data. It is common practice to compare before and after images to visualise, analyse and detect changes, for example damaged buildings. For each disaster type, the Charter identifies the satellite sensors and the options to be used to obtain the most useful data. As well as raw satellite data and images, the Charter works with organisations and individuals referred to as ‘Value Adders’ who provide Value-Added Products (VAPs), in the form of maps. Value Adders have prior experience and training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and digital processing and provide crisis mapping and impact assessment.

VAPs are created for almost every activation. They are created for the use of Authorised Users and End Users of an activation and may be used by emergency responders on the ground, or those involved in disaster and emergency management to aid in the understanding of the disaster and to inform disaster response. VAPs are also made publicly available on the Charter website.

VAPs can be a variety of products, from delineation maps to damage assessment maps. See examples in Figure 2 and Figure 3 below. These map products are produced to aid a variety of end users. As of December 2023, there have been 3,315 VAPs created across 285 activations.

Figure 2: River Spey flooding delineation map. [4]

 
Figure 3: Damage assessment in Mango Island, Mu’omu’a district, Ha’apai division, Tonga. [5]

Charter Activations

The Charter can be activated for such as earthquakes, fires, floods, landslides, storms, volcanic eruptions, and oil spills.

As of December 2023, there have been 855 Charter activations across 133 countries. It is clear from Figure 4 that the number of activations are increasing. This may be partly due to the success of the International Charter, but may also due to climate change.


Figure 4: Bar chart of number of activations of the Charter over time from 2000-2023.

Once the Charter has been activated the operational loop in Figure 5 is followed. At its most efficient, the Charter can produce data in a matter of hours.


Figure 5: Charter operational loop. The activation is triggered by the disaster, showing in orange on the bottom left.[6]

In the next section, we will see an example activation of the Charter.

Example Activations: Earthquakes in Türkiye (Activation 797)

Disaster Overview

On 6th February 2023, a series of powerful earthquakes hit parts of Türkiye and Northern Syria within the space of 12 hours, with aftershocks ongoing for the following 3 months. These destroyed over 500,000 buildings and claimed the lives of over 48,000 people [7]. The widespread damage affected an area of 350,000 km2 (about the size of Germany) – see Figure 6 – and around 16% of Türkiye’s population.


Figure 6: Evolution of the southern Türkiye earthquake sequence along with mapped active faults (blue lines). BGS © UKRI. Earthquake information: ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (USGS ComCat). Topography: Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 [7]

The Türkiye earthquakes were centred near the town of Atalar in the Gaziantep province (magnitude w 7.7) and Ekinözü in the Kahramanmaras province (magnitude Mw 7.6) at 04:17 and 13:24 local time respectively.

On 20th February 2023, another earthquake with a magnitude of Mw 6.4 occurred, with an epicentre near Uzunbağ, Hatay province [8]. The activation details and data provided are shown below.

Activation Details

Date of Charter Activation: 06/02/2023 Time of Charter Activation: 07:04 (UTC+03:00)
Charter Requestor: Disaster and Emergency Management Authority of Türkiye (AFAD)
Activation ID:
Project Management: Disaster and Emergency Management Authority of Türkiye (AFAD)
Value Adders: 18 Value Adders from UNITAR (Switzerland), IPGP (France), Geoinformation Systems (Belarus), Institute of Earthquake Forecasting (China), Copernicus EMS (Europe), BGS (UK), Palladium (UK), CENAD (Brazil), National Remote Sensing Centre (India), KARI (Korea), UAESA (United Arab Emirates), EMERCOM (Russia), Istanbul Technical University (Istanbul), Murray University (USA), AFAD (Türkiye), Middle East Technical University (Türkiye)

 

Data

Metadata 1554 Products received (COS-2 Dashboard) 1552
Value Added Products created 64

 

Figure 7 shows a map of damaged areas and the severity of the damage following this event in Nurdagi, Türkiye, with red showing the worst damage, then orange, then yellow.

Figure 8 shows the displacement of the fault line from RADARSAT-2 image tracking.


Figure 7: Earthquake damage in Nurdagi, Türkiye [9]

 


Figure 8: RADARSAT-2 synthetic aperture radar imagery shows displacement of the fault line in Turkiye [9]

Interactive Exercise – VAP creation for Türkiye earthquake (30 minutes)

Value Added Products can be used to provide an overview of the disaster as well as indicate the most affected areas which informs response operations. VAPs and satellite imagery allow for a much quicker initial assessment of damages, as well as providing an insight into the effects of the disaster on more rural areas and communities. VAPs can be created via multiple online processing platforms. The Charter has its own processing platform called Charter Mapper. This can only be accessed by Value-Adders and Project Managers and allows them to browse images in full resolution as well as analyse and process imagery using online Earth Observation (EO) processing services and tools. Simple VAPS can be created using other services such as ESA Snap or Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem.

Using pre- and post- event satellite images and processing tools it is possible to create maps that provide more information than a single image. VAPs primarily represent mapped features, boundaries, measurements, and derived data at a moment in time. A flood impact analysis can indicate the extent of the flooded area, and a comparison of pre- and post-event optical images can be used to determine potentially damaged buildings.

Your Task

Imagine you are one of the specialists working on Activation 797 – Earthquakes in Türkiye. Türkiye’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority are concerned that there is the possibility of damage to water infrastructures along the Orontes (Al Assi) River on the Syria-Türkiye border. They have requested that you create a map that indicates whether there is flooding in this area, so that they can respond accordingly.

UNITAR/UNOSAT were one of the 18 Value Adders for this activation. Here are the instructions to coarsely recreate a VAP created by UNOSAT for the Türkiye Earthquakes. You will create a map to delineate any flooding due to the earthquakes (see Figure 9 for an example).

We can use the European Union Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem with free satellite data from European satellite Sentinel-2 if we follow the instructions below:


Figure 9: Value added product created for the Türkiye earthquake activation. This product shows the area flooded in the vicinity of a river in the Bohsin area as a result of the earthquake. [9]

Instructions

  1. Login to the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem. You will need to register if you don’t already have an account but you can sign in anonymously
  2. Under “Explore Data” go to the “Copernicus Browser”
  3. Use the top right search bar to search for “Bohsin” area, this is the area we are interested in in Türkiye. The output will look like Figure 10. You may have to change the output to be “OSM Background” selecting the layers in the top right next to the search box.


    Figure 10: Screenshot from the Copernicus portal showing the selection of the Bohsin region and of Sentinel-2 as the data source. The specific area along the Al Assi River is circled.

    1. Zoom in to find the specific area, along the Orontes (Al Assi) River on the Syria-Türkiye border (to the east of Antakya), and create similar to that in Figure 11, by clicking the polygon (⬟) on the right-hand side of the screen.
      • You can either use the pencil or rectangle icons to create your own polygon or use the file upload and copy/paste the below geometry. Note: you might have to remove a newline.

    {“type”:”Polygon”,”coordinates”:[[[36.350119,36.22734],[36.432516,36.227202],[36.435606,36.124108], 36.346685,36.12799],[36.350119,36.22734]]]}


    Figure 11: Screenshot from the Copernicus portal showing the area of interest.

    1. Using the “search” tab on the left-hand side of the screen, search for using the time range: one before the disaster and one after, e.g. 25/01/23 and 09/02/23.
    2. Select the pre-disaster image R121_T37SBA image by clicking “visualise” as circled on Figure 12.


    Figure 12: Screenshot of from the Copernicus portal showing the selection of the pre-disaster Sentinel 2 images.

    1. On the left you will see a “LAYERS” tab. Choose the NDWI (not NDVI) layer (see below for an explanation). This is illustrated in Figure 13. Click to expand the layer, and click “Add to Pins” to save for later and then “Add to Compare”. It can be a little unclear that this has had an effect, but it adds a “1” above the compare and pin symbols.


    Figure 13: Screenshot from the Copernicus portal showing the selection of the NDWI layer.

    NDWI is the Normalised Difference Water Index. This is used to monitor changes related to water content in water bodies. As water bodies strongly absorb light in the visible to infrared electromagnetic spectrum, NDWI uses green and near-infrared bands to highlight water bodies.

    Index values greater than 0.5 usually correspond to water bodies, with vegetation and build-up areas having much smaller values between 0 and 0.2.

    This index is useful when determining flooding extent. In this example, we are looking for satellite-detected water along the Orontes (Al Assi) River on the Syria-Türkiye border. Therefore, flooded areas will be indicated by a change in NDWI (from green to blue).

    1. Repeat this for the post-disaster image, e.g. 09/02/23, adding the NDWI layer to the comparison.
    2. Compare the layers by “split position” of the post-disaster image by selecting the ‘Compare Panel’ option next to Sentinel-2. The “split position” acts as a slider for the extent of a layer. As the pre- and post-disaster images are layered on top of each other, by changing the split position of the post-disaster image, you should be able to see the NDWI change (see Figure 14).


    Figure 14: Screenshot from the Copernicus portal showing the selection of the “Split Position” tool

    1. The increase of NDWI shows the flooding due to the earthquakes, possibly triggered by the opening of dams and the damage induced to certain water infrastructures along the river by tremors.

    The same visualisation can be performed by going back to “Search” and selecting Sentinel-1 C-SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) data, then “Visualise” then VV decibel gamma data. Follow the same steps as before to add this to your VAP.

    Figure 15: Screenshot of the Copernicus portal showing Sentinel-1 radar data of the area of interest.

    Optical and SAR imagery are both useful for rapid mapping and each have advantages and constraints. Optical imagery can be acquired during the day, but not at night, whereas SAR imagery can be acquired day or night in almost all weather. As well as this, SAR (depending on the band) is able to penetrate the vegetation canopy. However, it is not useful for urban flood mapping due to the density of buildings.

    Modelling gives another view, but has the potential to miscalculate due to real world changes e.g. certain areas are over saturated or certain changes are not modelled, such as failed flood defences. Optical imagery is good for urban visual work, change detection and normalised water difference.

    Differnet types of satellite imagery can be used depending on circumstances. Although their outputs may be similar, they aren’t necessarily comparable. Satellite imagery is a valuable complement and validation to modelling.

    The same process can be undertaken for Activations 837 (the cyclone in Brazil) and 841 (flooding in Scotland). You can investigate the usage of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data to create VAPs for flood mapping in these disasters outside of this exercise.

    Exercise 1: Reflective Questions:

    1. How do you think that a map of flooding could help the emergency services?

       

    2. What is the resolution of the Sentinel 1 SAR instrument?

       

    3. What are the limitations of using visual imagery for a disaster?

       

    4. How do you think that we could check that the VAP you have produced is accurate?

    Interactive Exercise – QGIS VAP Creation for Türkiye Earthquake (1 hour)

    This exercise describes the creation of a VAP, using freely available satellite data from Sentinel 2. This time, instead of using the Copernicus online portal, this exercise will use QGIS, an open-source geographic information system software. The aim of this is to create a map for the Türkiye Earthquake Activation to check the flooding due to the earthquakes.

    Instructions

    1. Head to Download QGIS, and get the latest LTR (Long Term Release) of the software – at time of writing, this is v3.34 LTR.
    2. After QGIS downloads, install it. The installation is approximately 1.3GB, and the download may take around 20 minutes.
    3. Open the software, which will look like Figure 16:


    Figure 16: Screenshot of the QGIS application.

    To interact with this software, we will add plugins to it. The first of these is “Quick Map Services”, which allows us to easily add a basemap to our project.

    1. Navigate to “Plugins” and click the option “Manage and Install Plugins…” (Figure 17) and select “All”.


    Figure 17: Screenshot of the “Manage and Install Plugins” option.

    1. Search for “QuickMapsServices” and click the Install button. Then close the window. This will add the following icons to the Web toolbar. Click the 2nd of these () to show the option to add a limited number of maps, as well as to open Settings.
    2. To allow inclusion of e.g. Google Maps, we open the “Settings” in this plugin and navigate to “More Services” and select “Get contributed pack”. Close the settings window.
    3. We can now add in many other maps, for this example we will add “Google Road” as our base map. Click on the same icon .
    4. . Navigate to “Google” and across to “Google Road” and click on this. This is shown in Figure 18.


    Figure 18: Screenshot from QGIS showing the “Google Road” base-map.

    1. To retrieve Sentinel data, we will add another plugin. It should be noted that there are many different options for doing this; these instructions present just one option: the “SentinelHub” plugin. To install this, navigate back to “Plugins” and click the option “Manage and Install Plugins…” and select “All” . Then scroll down to “SentinelHub” and install. The window in Figure 19 should be added to the QGIS interface, if it isn’t, navigate to “Web”, “SentinelHub” and select “<b> SentinelHub <\b>” or click the


    Figure 19: Screenshot from QGIS showing the SentinelHub window.


    Figure 20: Screenshot from QGIS showing how to add the SentinelHub window.

    1. Create an account with the (if you did it for exercise 1 you won’t need to repeat this). Don’t sign up for the Contributing Missions, it will slow down the approvals process! This account needs to be linked to the plugin using a Client ID and Client Secret key. Navigate to the Copernicus Dashboard website: https://shapps.dataspace.copernicus.eu/dashboard/#/ (or click “Create OAuth”) and select “User settings” bottom left. Then on the right select “+ Create”, give the OAuth client your name and follow steps 1-6 in Figure 21. Make sure you keep a copy of your secret key locally!


    Figure 21: Screenshot from the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem showing how to create a OAuth Client ID.

    1. Return to QGIS and ensure the “Service URL” is set to https://sh.dataspace.copernicus.eu. Then copy in the Client Secret Key and Client ID, and Click “Login” (you may need to scroll down for this option to be visible) and when successful, a “Logged in” prompt will appear below this button.
    2. Returning to the Copernicus dashboard, we need to create a “Configuration Utility”. Select this, and select “New Configuration”.


    Figure 22: Configuration Utility creation in the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem.

    1. Input a name for the configuration, e.g.: “VAP1”. This is how we tell QGIS what images we are looking for – so we will add the source template as “Simple Sentinel-2 L1C template” and the data processing as “NDWI (Normalized Difference Water Index) – INDEX”. If you don’t find NDWI on the data list, go to ‘+ New Layer’, give your layer a name, e.g., “NDWI”, then click on the “pen” sign and scroll down looking for “NDWI – INDEX”. You may need to search for it using the magnifying glass. Then click “SET PRODUCT”. Then “Save” your new layer.


    Figure 23: Configuration utility screenshot showing the creation of the NDWI layer.

    1. Returning to QGIS, we can now select the “Create” tab in the SentinelHub plugin (see Figure 24), choose the configuration and layer we just created (you might need to “login” to SentinelHub again). In the “Service type” box select “WMS” to indicate retrieving data as images (jpg/png).


    Figure 24: Screenshot from QGIS showing adding the layer to the SentinelHub plugin.

    1. Ticking the “Use exact date” box, we can create WMS layers for the before and after images, by selecting the dates 25/01/2023 and 09/02/2023  separately, as “use exact dates”. Then click “Create” to create the layer.


    Figure 25: QGIS screenshot having imported the “Before” image. You may have to zoom in (a lot) and wait for it to load.

     
    Figure 26: QGIS screenshot having imported the “After” image.

      1. This lets us preview the data, but downloading the data is more flexible. Ensure the exact date is selected in the “Create” tab, then go to the “Download” tab, set the image format to ‘TIFF’, the resolution to 20m in both x and y, tick “Bounding box” and use the following coordinates to image for each day (see Table 2). [Don’t click “Take window coordinates”!] Select your download folder to find the images later.

    Table 2: Screenshot from the SentinelHub plugin “Create” tab showing the latitude/longitude crop limits in the Download tab.

    Latitude 35.966799 36.270016
    Longitude 36.112972 36.61308
    1. Use the browser to load both data products, and alter the “Properties” “Symbology” to “Singleband gray”. We also rename the layers at this point
      • This will make two layers in QGIS, with two different scalings


    Figure 27: Screenshot from QGIS showing the imported Before and After images greyscale rasters.

    1. To see the difference between the two images, we can use “Raster Calculator” to create a new layer. Select “Raster” and then “Raster Calculator” to bring up this tool:


    Figure 28: Screenshot from QGIS showing the “Raster Calculator”.

      • We will create a formula for the layer. Double click on “After@1” to add it to the expression and subtract “Before@1” from it. This will create a map of the difference, but for ease, layer we want to make this a binary. From the scaling of the data, we know that the difference between the two maxima is 87, so we will use “>87”, to capture only the areas where the water level has changed from the before image. We also need to input a name for the layer and select the location for this file to be saved.
    1. To allow us to extract the area, we first vectorise the raster map using the “Polygonize” function. Select the appropriate layer and click “Run”.


    Figure 29: Screenshot from QGIS showing the location of the “Polygonize” tool.


    Figure 30: Screenshot from QGIS showing the vectorised product of the raster map.

    1. This gives each part as a vector, but this isn’t a finished product yet. For that, we need to “Extract by attribute”. This option is found in the extended toolbox, activated by selecting “Processing” and then “Toolbox” (or pressing “Ctrl+Alt+T”).
    2. We then scroll to “Vector Selection” and pick the “Extract by attribute” option. Selecting the vectorised layer, and the selection attribute of “DN” equal to 1, we can extract the area flooded between the images.


    Figure 31: Screenshot from QGIS showing the “Extract by Attribute” tool.

    1. The product is almost finished, we can choose to refine it further to remove spurious holes, using the “Processing Toolbox” again, and navigating to “Vector Geometry” and selecting “Delete holes”. Leaving this as default, select “Run”.
    2. The final step before we can find the area is to dissolve the vector to ‘assemble’ it into one object. This is done with “Vector”, “Geoprocessing Tools” and “Dissolve”.


    Figure 32: Screenshot from QGIS showing the “Dissolve” tool location.

    1. Select the “Identify Features” tool () and then select the vector area. In “Derived” there is a field “Area (Ellipsoidal …)”, which gives us a value of 11.2 km2. Note this also includes a small area of the lake to the west of the river of interest.


    Figure 33: Finished VAP in QGIS showing the vector of flooded area (in orange) against the Google Rapid base-map.

    Well done, you have hopefully produced your very own VAP. Now let’s reflect on what we have done…

    1. What might be the reason for the difference between our own value of 11.2 km2 and the official VAP produced for this activation which gave an area of 18 km2?

       

    2. How can we improve the quality of our map?

       

    3. Can we use QGIS to calculate the NDWI directly from the raw Sentinel 2A bands?

       

    4. What are the limitations of this method of producing data?


       

    5. What do you think might be the limitations of this data for a first responders, e.g. a boat rescue service for residents?

    Interested? Here are some further tasks to challenge yourself with:

    Below are some examples of different activations and their data products. Use the methods earlier to create similar maps to aid in response to the disaster. Sample maps are included, but more can be found on Home – International Disasters Charter.

    Extratropical Cyclone in southern Brazil (Activation 837)

    At the start of September 2023, torrential rain and winds caused by an extratropical cyclone left 27 people dead in southern Brazil. The death toll is the highest recorded in the state for a climate event.

    Several municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul were affected by more than 300mm of rain hit the state in less than 24 hours, triggering floods and landslides as rivers overflowed their banks. A total of 60 cities were hit by the storm with at least 1,650 people made homeless.

    In the days following the disaster, rescuers searched for people in flooded areas and the police and military deployed aircraft, helicopters, and boats to aid the search and rescue operation.

    Activation Overview
    Date of Charter Activation: 06/09/2023 Time of Charter Activation: 19:54 (UTC-03:00)
    Charter Requestor: National Center of Risk and Disaster Management – Brazil

    (CENAD)

    Activation ID: 837
    Project Management: National Center of Risk and Disaster Management – Brazil

    (CENAD)

    Value Adders: 19 Value Adders from INPE (Brazil), SGB (Brazil), UFRGS (Brazil), CPRM (Brazil), CEMADEN (Brazil) and NOAA (USA)
    Data
    Metadata 757 Products received (COS-2 Dashboard) 757
    Value Added Products created 60

     

    Figure 35: Example flooding extent from Rio Grande do Sul in the activation. [10]
     

    Figure 36: Post-disaster Pleiades image showing flooding in Montenegro from this activation. [10]

    Flooding in Scotland (Activation 841)

    Disaster Overview

    Significant rainfall was forecast with significant flooding predicted in central Scotland covering a large geographical area with potential economic and environmental damage and danger to life.

    The disaster started on the 7th of October 2023 with gauges recording over a month’s worth of rain falling over the weekend in some areas. The extent of the floods was from Glasgow to Aviemore, an extent of 5300km2. Two severe weather warnings were in place for parts of Perth and Aviemore, with 51 flood warnings and 8 flood alerts still in place on the 9th of October.

    No casualties or injuries were reported, but the hours of heavy and persistent rain caused major disruption around the country with the West and North particularly affected. Landslips on the A38 in Argyll and Bute led to 10 people being airlifted from their vehicles. About 2,000 tonnes of debris fell on the road.

    Activation Overview

    This was a pre-emptive activation, this meant that satellites could be tasked prior to the disaster occurring.

    Date of Charter Activation: 06/10/2023 Time of Charter Activation: 17:53 (UTC+01:00)
    Charter Requestor: Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
    Activation ID: 841
    Project Management: Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
    Value Adders: 4 Value Adders from SEPA, BGS and University of Stirling (all UK)

    Copernicus EMS was also activated which allowed for the use of Sentinel-1 and Cosmo Skymed derived products.

    Data
    Metadata 91 Products received (COS-2 Dashboard) 91
    Value Added Products created 2


    Figure 37: Flood extent mapping for the River Spey from this activation. [4]
     

    Figure 38: Flood extent mapping for the River Forth from this activation. [4]

    [1]          UNDRR, ‘UNDRR Strategic Framework 2022-2025’. May 21, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.undrr.org/publication/undrr-strategic-framework-2022-2025

    [2]        International Charter Space and Major Disasters, ‘Membership History’, History. 2024. [Online]. Available: https://disasterscharter.org/web/guest/history

    [3]          International Charter Space and Major Disasters, ‘European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT)’. 2024. doi: 10.1163/1570-6664_iyb_SIM_org_38974.

    [4]          International Charter Space and Major Disasters, ‘Flooding in Scotland’, Charter Activations. [Online]. Available: https://disasterscharter.org/web/guest/activations/-/article/flood-large-in-united-kingdom-activation-790-

    [5]          International Charter Space and Major Disasters, ‘Volcanic eruption in Tonga and the Pacific’, Charter Activations. [Online]. Available: https://disasterscharter.org/web/guest/activations/-/article/ocean-wave-in-tonga-activation-744-

    [6]          International Charter Space and Major Disasters, ‘Activating the Charter’, How the Charter Works. [Online]. Available: https://disasterscharter.org/web/guest/how-the-charter-works

    [7]          B. Baptie and M. Segou, ‘The Kahraman Maraş earthquake sequence, Turkey/Syria, 2023’, British Geological Survey News. Accessed: Jun. 18, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.bgs.ac.uk/news/the-kahraman-maras-earthquake-sequence-turkey-syria/

    [8]          Govt. Türkiye, ‘Türki̇ye earthquakes recovery and reconstruction assessment – Türkiye | ReliefWeb’. Accessed: Jun. 18, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://reliefweb.int/report/turkiye/turkiye-earthquakes-recovery-and-reconstruction-assessment

    [9]          International Charter Space and Major Disasters, ‘Kahramanmaras earthquakes in Türkiye’, Charter Activations. [Online]. Available: https://disasterscharter.org/web/guest/activations/-/article/earthquake-in-turkey-activation-797-

    [10]        International Charter Space and Major Disasters, ‘Extratropical Cyclone in southern Brazil’, Charter Activations. [Online]. Available: https://disasterscharter.org/web/guest/activations/-/article/flood-flash-in-brazil-activation-837-

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