In 2021, disasters triggered by different types of hazards impacted developed and developing countries around the world. Different regions of the United States were impacted by tornados, hurricanes, heatwaves, oils spills, and forest fires.  Germany, Belgium, and Luxemburg saw unprecedented floods and other countries like India, Sudan, Togo, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Bolivia, and China also experienced floods.

Global warming has been impacting the planet in recent decades and is leading to more frequent and intense hydrometeorological events such as storms, floods, heatwaves, and droughts. Eastern Canada experienced a very strong heatwave in the spring, California, Greece, Algeria, Russia and other countries saw extreme forest fires while other countries like Germany faced the challenges of responding to floods and debris flows with an estimated period of return of nearly 800 years.

As the year 2021 comes to an end, the team at UN-SPIDER wants to take this chance to look back at some of our highlight activities during the year. Dominated by challenges provoked by the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis and its consequences, the world faced many challenges and will continue to do so in the next year and more years to come.

The Global Development Assistance Programme (GDA) of the European Space Agency (ESA) was started by ESA Member States at Space 19+ and has now officially kicked off its first action on Earth observation information development in the context of ‘Disaster Resilience’. The programme aims to improve the systematic integration of Earth observation data in development projects and has reach its first milestone by kicking of this action.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) from the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) invite partners and stakeholder to share good practices on lessons learned on Multi-hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS).

Fires continue to destroy thousands to hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests and wildlands around the world every year.  As a first step to address the challenges of wildfires, it is important to assess their geographical location and their severity. This information can be useful to implement restrictions on land use and to identify measures to ensure the recovery of such wild areas.  

To facilitate the activation of the International Charter Space and Major Disasters in Central America, Mexico and Dominican Republic, UN-SPIDER, the Central American Coordination Centre for Natural Disaster Prevention (CEPREDENAC) and the International Charter Space and Major Disasters organized a regional training course in Guatemala City, Guatemala, from 30 November to 02 December 2021.   Experts from the National Commission on Space Activities of Argentina (CONAE), National Space Research Institute of Brazil (INPE), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) made participa