As in the case of other regions of the world, Latin America is exposed to various types of geological and hydro-meteorological hazards which trigger disasters.  To contribute to strengthen the skills of professionals that contribute to disaster response efforts through the generation of space-based information, UN-SPIDER, ECLAC and the International Charter Space and Major Disasters organised the training course "Project Management using the ESA Charter Mapper".   The training course brought together 15 professionals with skills in project management in case of activ

It is well-documented that there are approximately 24,000 worldwide fatalities from lightning each year, with about 10 times more being injured from lightning (NIH-NCBI). In addition, lightning strikes are one of the leading causes of wildfire ignition. During storms, lightning strikes on trees, utility poles, and infrastructure, can damage power lines resulting in power outages. Lightning flashes also generate electromagnetic fields (Sferics) that interfere with electrical devices on ground.

Introduction

In recent decades, communities in Africa have experienced disasters triggered by floods, droughts, landslides, forest fires, Ebola pandemics, and locust plagues that have eroded hard-won development gains. Taking note of advances in space technologies and other technological innovations, the African Union indicated in its 2017 African Space Policy that space represented a unique opportunity for cooperation in using and sharing enabling infrastructure and data towards the proactive management of, inter alia, responses to natural hazards and disasters.

From 12-13 June 2024, the 3rd International Conference on Natural Hazards and Risks in a Changing World: Addressing Compound and Multi-Hazard Risk will take place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The conference is organised by MYRIAD-EU, Risk KAN and NatRiskChange.

Google Earth Engine (GEE) is an example of a cloud-based image service that combines an extensive archive of satellite imagery, historical and current, with application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow analysis to be performed on this imagery without having to move it to the user’s desktop.

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The AgroInformatics Team from the Digitalization and Informatics Division (CSI) of the FAO is launching a new series of interactive trainings, on “Introduction to Google Earth Engine (GEE) for remote sensing analysis”.