Epidemic

On 14 May, UNOOSA will be hosting two sessions of a webinar on space applications to support global health, including to fight coronavirus. The two sessions will take place at 10-11.30am and 4-5.30pm Vienna, Austria time (UTC+2).

During the 90-minute sessions, experts from UNOOSA, as well as from other international organisations, governments and private sector companies operating in the space sector will discuss how space applications can strengthen the capacity of all countries, in particular developing countries, for early warning, risk reduction and management of epidemics and other health risks. Particular attention will be paid to the current coronavirus pandemic.

The webinar will also cover what UNOOSA is doing to help all countries access the potential of space science and applications for better health and integrate these tools in national policies and practices. 

Visit the United Nations Coronavirus Portal for more information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease

Space technologies and geospatial data can support governments in improving situational awareness and responding to the COVID-19 outbreak. Several institutions have published information products, such as web maps of confirmed infections and deaths, that are making use of the advantages of GIS. Others have used space technologies to track pollution levels across the world, highlighting a drop due to the restrictions imposed as a result of the pandemic. Yet others are using a combination of global navigation satellite systems technologies to map the position of critical infrastructure in geographical areas where there are reported cases.

The…

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The European Space Agency (ESA), in coordination with the European Commission, is launching a special edition of the Custom Script Contest, focused on the support of space assets during the COVID-19 crisis, managed by Euro Data Cube group. The contest is looking for remote sensing experts, machine learning scientists and interested public to make proposals on how satellite data can help with observation of changes in economic operators, changes in human activity distribution and changes in agriculture activity, among other applications. The aim of the contest is to help mitigate the COVID-19 situation in the upcoming months.

Participants can produce scripts using data from various sources, such as the European Sentinel satellites, Airbus and Planet data, as well as data from Pleiades and PlanetScope. Different tools…

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Dengue fever is a viral infection transmitted by mosquitoes. “Today the disease is endemic in 141 countries, affecting 390 million people and with a global annual cost estimated at almost US$9 billion. Since 2000, there has been an increase of over 100% in the number of cases of dengue fever in Vietnam, and there is currently no system for forecasting future dengue outbreaks.” according to a Space for Development article. Through their ability to capture important insights about rainfall, temperature, humidity, and soil moisture, among other factors,  Earth observation satellites could offer a way to detect early warning signs of the disease.

In an attempt to help reduce the…

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To meet the global challenges, the United Nations adopted several framework agreements, including the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction at the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030). The framework builds the international reference point for disaster preparedness and focuses on reducing existing and future disaster risks as well as enhancing disaster resilience. In the Sendai framework, seven global targets have been agreed to measure global progress in implementing the framework through quantifiable indicators and to present, compare and evaluate the status and progress uniformly worldwide. The recording of the status and degree of target achievement using the agreed indicators requires the use of various data sources, which must be consistent and comparable in time and space in order to ensure global monitoring.

ESA's Earth Observation Thematic Exploitation Platform (TEP) is a browser for satellite imagery and specific products on an environmental topic. The TEP platforms are divided into 7 categories: Coastal; Forstry; Geohazards; Hydrology; Polar; Urban; and Food Security. Each platform is a collaborative, virtual work environment providing access to EO data and the tools, processors and Information and Communication Technology resources required to work with them. TEP aims to bridge the gap between the users and the data and tools.

Pleidas, TerraSar-X, SPOT and Elevation data available commercially from airbus, certain sample data sets at various locations available for free.

The website: https://www.radiant.earth
Help and Tutorials: https://help.radiant.earth/
Demos & Use Cases: https://demos.radiant.earth/

NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) is a program for archiving and distributing Earth science data from multiple missions to users.