From the research stage to full operation – The Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI) is now on call around the clock. This service facility established in 2004 provides up-to-the minute satellite-based maps for activities related to natural and environmental disasters, humanitarian aid, and civil security worldwide. It is a service of DLR’s German Remote Sensing Data Center. On 22 January 2013 DLR in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) officially launched regular ZKI operations.
Up-to-date geodata is essential if rescue services are to reach the disaster-struck regions and provide help as fast as possible. After all, the regions affected need to be accessible for sufficient material and supplies to be provided in good time.
After the severe earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the International Charter ‘Space and Major Disasters’ was activated on the morning of the 11 March 2011. All participating institutions were asked to provide satellite imagery of the affected area.
Satellite imagery may serve as a source of information in all phases throughout the disaster cycle. In the preparedness phase, risk assessment is an important tool to support disaster management and spatial planning activities in order to minimize potential future impacts. Here, remote sensing can provide important information to perform risk and vulnerability assessments, such as land use information or inventories of exposed elements and facilities.
Following the devastating earthquake on Haiti, relief organisations require rapid, reliable and meaningful information on the local situation, the state of the infrastructure and the extent of the damage for their deployment in the disaster zone. In this context, scientists from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) are giving important support by providing free access to maps of the crisis region based on satellite data.
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