Disasters: Targets

The 10-Year Implementation Plan sets out the following two-, six- and ten-year targets for guiding the disaster-related work on GEOSS:

2-Year Targets

• Advocate strengthening of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters and similar support activities to enable better response to and documentation of effects of disasters, such as floods, earthquakes and oil spills. Its scope may be expanded to allow for pre-event tasking where forecasting is adequate to justify the effort (wildland fires, some floods and coastal disasters, volcanic eruptions). An expanded scope may also encompass Earth Observation training and capacity building of local users in affected areas, particularly in developing countries.
• Facilitate global access to the 100-metre (C-band) and 30-metre (X-band) horizontal resolution digital terrain information produced during the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM).
• Advocate expansion of seismic monitoring networks, plus expansion of the present network of ocean-bottom pressure sensors, and upgrade existing global networks (e.g. the GSN) so that all critical instruments relay data in real time, in support of better tsunami warning worldwide.
  Facilitate focused pilot studies in under-served hazardous areas, for example Japan’s Deployment of Asia-Pacific Hazard-mitigation Network for Earthquakes and volcanoes (DAPHNE).
• Facilitate ongoing capacity building, with a focus on transferring technologies and best practices. Also essential are best practices for the dissemination of real-time information and early warnings to end users and the public. Specifically, improvements in real-time flood forecasting for developing countries should be a priority, in concert with efforts by UNESCO and WMO to expand and improve flood-related information systems.
• Facilitate effective monitoring from existing geostationary satellites, launched primarily for weather monitoring, for non-weather applications such as volcanic eruptions and volcanic ash clouds, forest fires, aerosols, and other hazards that require a high observation frequency.
• Advocate integration of InSAR technology into disaster warning and prediction systems, in particular related to floods, earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions. The ERS (European Remote Sensing) and Envisat missions of the European Space Agency have pioneered these applications and should be continued for global, long-term applications. Also, the Canadian Space Agency’s Radarsat-1 mission with its InSAR capability contributed significantly to the development of applications related to geohazard monitoring and research. In this respect, Radarsat-2 should be a data source for geohazard InSAR applications. As part of this effort, efficient exploitation of data from Japan's upcoming Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS) should also be facilitated. Its L-band SAR sensor is the first such sensor since 1998.
• Produce an inventory of existing geologic and hazards zonation maps and identify areas and types of hazards where they are most critically lacking, or where maps need to be digitized.
• Advocate further development of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) and draw on GSDI components as institutional and technical precedents.
• Produce a comprehensive gaps analysis to assess the status and regional distribution of existing disaster management capacity-building programmes and initiatives.
• Facilitate widespread use of LiDAR and InSAR technologies for topography in areas of low relief. For floods and coastal hazards, the most crucial need is for high vertical resolution (less than 1 metre) topographic data, plus good shallow-water bathymetry.

6-Year Targets

• Advocate continuity and interoperability of all satellite systems providing global positioning, such as the United States Global Positioning System (GPS), European GALILEO, Russian Global Orbiting Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) and Japanese Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS). This includes support of the global geodetic network services such as Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) and Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR), that define the orbits of the GPS satellites and thereby enable the use of GPS for precise geo-location. Applications of GPS essential to disaster response include precision topography, mapping support, and deformation monitoring, as well as geo-location for search and rescue operations.
• Advocate that the international satellite community, coordinated through the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), plan for assured continuity of critical sensing capabilities. For example, certain research systems should become operational systems and the projected lifetimes of some systems should not result in service gaps of key satellite sensor data. Longer-term actions for monitoring of geohazards include realization of an integrated observation system of SAR interferometry and GPS.
• Advocate enhancements of the automatic processing and evaluation of satellite imagery, to facilitate production of digital topography, and to support rapid detection of fires, oil spills, or other hazards.
• Advocate more rapid SAR processing for interferometry to enable strain mapping over large seismically active zones and to monitor landslides and subsidence in populated areas and along transportation corridors.
• Advocate systematic expansion of the inventory of geologic and hazards zonation maps and expansion of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a critical tool for managing spatial information for disaster management. In this context, digital maps based on distributed systems and data sources and conforming to recognized international GIS standards (e.g. International Organization for Standardization standards and Open Geospatial Consortium specifications).
• Facilitate the development and sharing of critical airborne sensors and capabilities, such as hyper-spectral sensors, high-resolution infrared sensors and LiDAR.
• Advocate the development of models to better support disaster response. One area of particular interest is the dispersion of pollution plumes in the atmosphere or in water (including the spread of oil spills in the marine environment).
• Establish a process for monitoring of capacity-building efforts in disaster management to enable building upon strong existing programmes in the continuing efforts to integrate and share resources.
• Advocate access to data from seismic and infrasound networks operated by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) that are useful and relevant for monitoring earthquakes and volcanic activity.
• Facilitate access to real-time data analyzing technology and real-time access to critical data for all hazards.
• Advocate real-time monitoring of submarine seismic and volcanic activities and tsunami propagation.

10-Year Targets

• Facilitate further expansion of real-time monitoring of submarine seismic and volcanic activity and of tsunami propagation by use of surface and subsurface sensors, including re-use of submarine telephone cables.
• Facilitate further expansion and integration of regional projects like DAPHNE 6 and Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES),7 and the development of efficient interfaces between these and other such programmes.
• Advocate meeting various unmet needs for classes of satellite sensors. Of particular importance for the area of hazards and disasters is the global need for a significant increase in SAR satellites (C-band, L-band, and X-band). The disaster management community needs an L-band system optimized for interferometry, and an expanded L-band capacity for better forest and fuel characterization. Monitoring the range of smoke and pollution plumes in the atmosphere around the globe requires expanded hyper-spectral capability, which is currently limited to airborne sensors. A passive microwave capability would help in determining soil moisture repeatedly over broad areas.
• Advocate development of systematic methods for rapid determination of shallow bathymetry, especially in turbid water. Such research is vital to characterizing nearshore bathymetry, whether for improved modelling of tsunamis and storm surges or for documenting changes produced during such events.
• Produce an evaluation of the effectiveness of its capacity-building activities for the disaster management sector, including an assessment of the effectiveness of building the needed inventory of geologic and hazards zonation maps.