GMES, the European Earth Monitoring programme, has published a user guide to its new, free of charge emergency mapping service, the GMES Initial Operations Emergency Management Service (GIO EMS-Mapping). The guide will be made available on the GIO Portal.
A two day conference held in Bucharest, Romania last week showed the immense benefits and economic potential of Europe's Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme (GMES) for the region. The conference "GMES: News Opportunities for Eastern Europe" showcased how the GMES emergency response service (SAFER) had supported Romania in responding to the 2010 floods providing flood extent maps in near-real time.
Second UN-SPIDER International Expert Meeting: Crowdsource Mapping for Preparedness and Emergency Response which took place in Geneva, Switzerland on 16 November 2011
UN-SPIDER conducted a Technical Advisory Mission to the Dominican Republic
UN-SPIDER’s RSO in the Islamic Republic of Iran supports APSCO Training Course
UN-SPIDER participated in SAFER EUAC meeting and final SAFER User Conference
On April 14, 2010 the Southern Quinghai region in the north-west of China experienced a 6.9 magnitude earthquake which left hundreds of people dead and the majority of population injured. The immediate reports from China indicated more than 15,000 houses destroyed with a high risk of people being trapped by the destroyed infrastructure. The importance of high resolution satellite imagery was highlighted by the fact that the affected area of Yushu County is located 500 miles from the nearest major airport, which raised logistical challenges for relief operations on the ground.