Disaster Response

In recent decades, both the frequency and impact of great natural disasters has been increasing. Great disasters are those that overtax the ability of regional authorities to respond, requiring international assistance. The increase in the worlds population, increased development in coastal areas and increased vulnerability of modern societies have all contributed to the greater impact of disasters, particularly hydrological events such as typhoons and hurricanes, which are the most frequent hazards and, after earthquakes, the most costly in terms of loss of life.

 

 

Scope: The GEOSS AIP-2 Disaster Management Scenario describes the integration and utilization of GEOSS standard components and services to supply forecasts, a stream of satellite and in-situ observations, and derived maps integrated with local and regional data sets to support all phases of the disaster cycle.  The scenario is applied to flooding disasters caused by tropical storms, hurricanes, cyclones, and tsunamis in particular, but can be easily re-cast to cover other disaster types such as earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, volcanoes, tornadoes, and many more.  The user roles and their contributions to the scenario are defined at the several levels of the GEOSS architecture.  The components and services implemented as part of this scenario are in on-going use supporting disaster management activities on a global scale.  For example, evaluation of the utilization by local and regional disaster, meteorology, and hydrology agencies in Africa and the Caribbean will be developed in Nov-Dec 2009 and plans for 2010 refined accordingly.

Point of Contact Editor:  Didier Giacobbo, SpotImage

Contributing Editors: Stuart Frye, NASA;  Hervé Caumont, ERDAS/OGC: Ron Lowther, Northrop Grumman 

 

The final document is now available. (pdf)