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Earth Science Satellite Applications pp 119–146Cite as

Role of Earth Observation Data in Disaster Response and Recovery: From Science to Capacity Building

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Part of the book series: Springer Remote Sensing/Photogrammetry ((SPRINGERREMO))

Abstract

Risks from natural hazards such as floods, droughts, earthquakes, and landslides are rising due to increasing populations living in more marginal areas and climatic variability, but our ability to provide warnings and mitigation strategies at short, medium, and long timescales is often challenged by the lack of ground observations in the most vulnerable areas. Satellite remote sensing offers unique global observational capabilities that can provide key insight into the multi-faceted topics of disaster hazard and risk assessment, response, and recovery in a way that ground-based systems cannot do alone. From the vantage point of space, satellite platforms can provide estimates of important hazard-related variables, but have varying degrees of accuracies and spatial resolutions. In some cases these data are used to support direct disaster response such as maps showing the spatial extent of the disaster or impact analyses from detecting pre- and post-event changes on the landscape. Examples of such direct support include the disastrous flood events in Malawi in January 2015 and in the southwestern United States in May and June 2015, and the devastating high-magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal in April 2015 (National Planning Commission 2015).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    www.ifrc.org/.

  2. 2.

    http://www.pdc.org/.

  3. 3.

    https://www.servirglobal.net/.

  4. 4.

    World Bank: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/Zambezi_MSIOA_-_Vol_1_-_Summary_Report.pdf; WWF: http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/about_freshwater/rivers/zambezi/.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Remote Sensing Solutions, Inc., Monrovia, CA, USA

    Guy Schumann

  2. School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Guy Schumann

  3. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA

    Dalia Kirschbaum

  4. University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, 35805, USA

    Eric Anderson

  5. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, 35805, USA

    Eric Anderson

  6. United Nations World Food Programme, Rome, Italy

    Kashif Rashid

Authors
  1. Guy Schumann
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  2. Dalia Kirschbaum
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  3. Eric Anderson
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  4. Kashif Rashid
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Guy Schumann , Dalia Kirschbaum or Eric Anderson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Faisal Hossain

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Schumann, G., Kirschbaum, D., Anderson, E., Rashid, K. (2016). Role of Earth Observation Data in Disaster Response and Recovery: From Science to Capacity Building. In: Hossain, F. (eds) Earth Science Satellite Applications. Springer Remote Sensing/Photogrammetry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33438-7_5

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