Servir Viz’s Disasters mapper
Disasters
Different kinds of disasters, which may be natural or technological, can have hazardous effects on life of people. Some of these disasters are hurricanes and similar weather events, volcanic eruptions or activities, earthquakes, debris flows, landslides, urban interface or wild land fires, oil spills, floods, space weather storms, etc.
Within the United States itself, a large number of disasters causes severe damage of lie property. The damage totals up to about $20 billion every year. Therefore, it is important to have an earth observation system, which is able to detect and forecast disasters. Moreover, this system should be capable enough to the different kinds of disasters mentioned above.
The committee working on the natural resources subcommittee on disaster reduction and environment believes that the “Reducing Disaster Vulnerability through Science and Technology” means forming integrated and international partnerships. These partnerships should be involved in different cooperative programs for the purpose of protecting American commu7nities form all hazards.
The subcommittee working on Disaster Recovery has found several such partnerships dealing with one of more of the hazards mentioned above. For example, let us consider flood monitoring and response. Different institutes like USGS, NWS, FEMA, and USACE. Similarly, there are partnerships working volcanic ash clouds. There is one-ore partnership, involving the USAF, NOAA (including both NWS and NESDIS), the USGS and FAA.
Disasters can also span beyond the country borders. Therefore, in such cases international partnerships will play a very important role, if we want to ensure the safety of public. Some of the international organizations and bodies working for disaster management are,
The WMO and the Metrological Watch Offices those are associated with it,
The nine centers which function as the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers,
The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Organization having several monitory systems,
The International Charter for Space and Major Disasters, and
The International Space Environment Service
SERVIR-VIZ has been observing the uses of forming partnerships of institutions and organizations involved in global observations. Some examples of this success are the National Ice Center that has international collaborations through WHO and ICO.
The International Ice Chart Working Group was established in the year 1999 the program provides a operational cooperation for the national ice services. Along with the regional North American collaboration handled by the US-Canadian Joint Ice Working Group, one more category is the one dealing with the programs like USGS Volcano.
Fires
The Civil Military Emergency Preparedness program of USACE and Disaster Assistance Program is cosponsored by the USGS and USAID/ OFDA.
Fires in Mesoamerica
The SERVIR VIZ project can provide you data products from different satellites. It also has products, which deal with fires in Mesoamerica. These products are useful for monitoring the locations and extent to which the fires have spread. In this way, you can know about condition at the affected region.
Among the different products, tow products are of particular important with respect to land management communities and regional disaster management. These are the Mesoamerican Web Fire Mapper, and MODIS Rapid Response Fire Mapper.
Technorati Tags: other satellite programs, Servir-Viz, Disasters
Tags: Other Satellite Programs
