Flood

On 10 May 2022, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), the University of Energy and Natural Resources of Ghana, and the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW) inaugurated the 5th International Conference on the Use of Space Technology for Water Resources Management. The conference, held in Accra from 10 to 13 May 2022, aims to promote the use of space technology in water management in developing countries.

During the opening segment of the conference, high ranking authorities noted that there have been many success stories related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but unfortunately some of these were eroded by the COVID 19 pandemic. They remarked that Ghana is hosting this conference to see how best to foster new partnerships to address the SDGs, and to facilitate a constructive discussion on two key issues essential to sustainable development: Space technologies and sustainable use of water…

On 11.03.2022, Tropical Cyclone Gombe led to extensive flood events in northern and central Mozambique. 

More information here: https://floodlist.com/africa/mozambique-cyclone-gombe-march-2022 

Preliminary impacts reported by INGD indicate that many houses and power lines have been destroyed or damaged; twelve people have been reported killed, several have been injured, and overall more than thirty thousand people have been affected. There are also over one hundred schools damaged or destroyed, one bridge has collapsed, and several roads have been affected.

As a consequence, Copernicus EMS and the International Charter Space and Major Disasters, making use of the potential of space-based technologies for emergency mechanisms, were active. Below, you find a collection of links to the activations…

Heavy rainfalls connected to tropical storm Ana have triggered severe flooding events in eastern Africa, affecting Madagascar, Mozambique, and Malawi. Flooding began after heavy rain in Madagascar on 17 January and continued with tropical storm Ana passing over the countries from 22 January.

In an effort to support the national authorities and their disaster management agencies, several emergency mechanisms making use of space-based technologies have been activated. These mechanisms aim to provide a rapid assessment of the situation, giving information about the extent of the event, affected population, and a first damage assessment.

By utilizing and analyzing available optical and radar satellite imagery, this crucial data and information can be generated, put into maps, services, and reports, which are provided to and accessible by the authorities and other assisting organizations for more efficient disaster response.

Below, you find a selection of links…

Introduction

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Government of Ghana are jointly organizing a Conference with the support of the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW) to promote the use of space technology in water management to the benefit of developing countries.

The Conference will be held in Accra, Ghana, from 10- 13 May 2022, hosted by the University of Energy and Natural Resources on behalf of the Government of Ghana.

The Conference is the fifth international event focusing on applications of space technology for water in the series of conferences organised with financial assistance…

The aim of the training course is to introduce students to the use of the RUS platform virtual machine to generate maps of the geographical extent of burned areas due to forest fires and floods with practical examples from recent events in Europe.  It will give students enrolled in a Master´s programme an opportunity to experience working with satellite images for disaster management purposes. 

The first part of the training course will demonstrate the burned area mapping methodology on the disastrous wildfires that occurred in the northern area of the Evia Island in Greece in August 2021 and you will learn the basics of image processing using various vegetation indexes and specific band ratios such as the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR). The Sentinel-2 MSI data that will be used with 10m spatial resolution will help us assess the severity of this disastrous event.

The second part of the training course will demonstrate the flood mapping methodology on…