Monitoring deformation in active volcanic areas has always been of great interest, but remote sensing data has significantly increased the capability of acquiring more measurements at larger spatial scale and at relatively low cost.
Stromboli, one of the three active volcanoes in Italy, is around 3 km high with at least 2 km to be below the sea level and showing an eruptive persistent activity since almost 200,000 years. As a stratovolcano, the relatively high pressure of the gases ejects basaltic lava and its products from a few tens to hundreds of meters into the air. Many significant explosions and lava flows have been recorded in the last 50 years, the most recent events occurring on November 10 and 16, 2020. From the last one, a dense ash cloud was produced around 1 km high above the volcano’s summit and the pyroclastic current reached rapidly the coastline, expanding on the sea surface for about 200 m.
In this...
read moreThe European Space Agency is organising the 11th International Workshop on “Advances in the Science and Applications of SAR Interferometry and Sentinel-1 InSAR”, Fringe 2021.
Format
Fringe 2021 is organised around:
The event will take place from 31 May - June 4 2021. No participation fees will be charged.
Objectives
In recent years, the frequency and severity of natural hazards has increased dramatically. This development has escalated the risk of disasters and their devastating impact on the environment and communities around the world. Earth observation (EO) data has the potential to mitigate the risks of disasters and support all phases of the disaster management cycle. The international community has created various mechanisms to facilitate the use of EO data for disaster management, such as the International Charter Space and Major Disasters. The Algerian Space Agency (ASAL) has provided EO data to the International Charter for almost two decades.
The International Charter refers to a consortium of space agencies, national and regional disaster monitoring organizations that utilize EO data for...
read moreThe United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States Government (NASA) signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 17 December 2020 pledging cooperation in areas of science and technology to support the peaceful uses of outer space.
The MoU brings together NASA's wealth of open-source spacecraft data, tools, and expertise and UNOOSA's unique position as the only UN entity dedicated to outer space affairs, to expand global opportunities to leverage the benefits of space. The partners will design capacity-building programmes, particularly for institutions in countries that do not yet have or that are developing space capabilities, to help them access space.
Together, UNOOSA and NASA will develop ways to leverage the Artemis programme as part of UNOOSA's Access to Space 4 All Initiative, which offers opportunities for international researchers and institutions, especially in...
read moreRecently, two volcanoes in the Caribbean indicated increased activity: Mount Pelée on Martinique and the La Soufrière volcano on Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Mount Pelée has been experiencing seismic activity and the La Soufrière volcano has been releasing gas. In light of this increased activity and the risk that a potential volcanic eruption poses to the environment and human life, a programme at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was activated earlier this year to monitor the region.
A volcanic eruption can have a highly destructive impact on the environment and human life. For this reason, satellite-based radar instruments can be used to monitor volcanic activity and support disaster management efforts. Following an increased activity manifested by these two volcanoes in the Caribbean, the Earth Applied Sciences Disasters programme at NASA is actively monitoring the region and analysing Earth observation (EO) data to monitor this volcanic...
read moreThe European Commission plans to rapidly expand its environmental monitoring programme Copernicus. For this purpose, the European Space Agency (ESA) recently pledged 2.55 billion Euros towards contracts to advance the production of six new Copernicus satellite missions. The final of the six contracts was signed last Thursday between ESA and Thales Alenia Space for a mission that will provide new and important information to climate research and disaster management.
The high-priority Copernicus Radar Observation System for Europe in L-band (ROSE-L) mission is planned to launch in 2028 for a period of 7.5 years. The ROSE-L mission will orbit Earth every few days at an altitude of 690km and will carry a L-Band synthetic aperture radar (SAR). With a wavelength of approximately 23cm, an...
read moreThe Disasters programme unit at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently joined a newly launched online platform aimed at placing anticipatory action on the humanitarian agenda. NASA’s involvement in the Anticipation Hub and the subsequent incorporation of Earth observation (EO) tools, serves to improve the capabilities of anticipatory action globally and demonstrates the potential of utilizing satellite-driven data for anticipatory action in disaster management.
Anticipatory action in the humanitarian context describes disaster mitigation activities based on in-depth forecast information and risk analysis. This approach has gained traction amongst the humanitarian community in recent years as it is viewed as a more efficient and affordable alternative to...
read moreA new report outlines the impact of Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) data on various policy areas. The 2020 edition of the “Atlas of the Human Planet”, recently published and launched virtually by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission as a deliverable to the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Human Planet Initiative, explores the impact of GHSL data on various policy areas, including disaster risk management.
GHSL data refers to “global spatial information, evidence-based analytics and knowledge describing the human presence on the planet”. This data relies on spatial information from Landsat 8, Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2. It is mainly cost-free and...
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