The United Nations Offices for Outer Space Affairs recently signed agreements with the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC), the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing (IAASARS) of the National Observatory of Athens and with the Centre for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces (ZFL) of the University of Bonn. The agreements incorporate ADPC, IAASARS and ZFL as Regional Support Offices of the UN-SPIDER programme.
Situated in Thailand, ADPC provides technical advisory support to countries in Asia and Asia Pacific on the topics of disaster risk management, disaster preparedness and climate change. In addition, it conducts training courses on a variety of topics in an annual basis.
IAASARS focuses its efforts on space-based technologies and recently established the Centre of Excellence for Earth Observation based monitoring of Natural Disasters (BEYOND), which situates IAASARS/NOA as a dynamic actor for regional and potentially European hazard management.
ZFL is an interdisciplinary centre of the University of Bonn dedicated to research and teaching in the fields of remote sensing, geo-information sciences and spatial modelling. Being located in Bonn, ZFL has interacted with the UN-SPIDER Bonn Office since it was established.
These three new RSOs will joint the other 17 in the efforts conducted by UN-SPIDER to institutionalize the use of space-based information in all phases of the disaster management cycle. The RSOs will be conducting their annual meeting on 6 June 2016 in the premises of the United Nations Office at Vienna.
