Landsat's Role in Responding to Disasters
In 2022, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) reported 387 natural hazards and disasters worldwide, resulting in the loss of over 30,000 lives and affecting more than 185 million individuals. Economic losses totaled around US$223.8 billion. Fires, floods, heat waves, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters can be particularly tragic and costly when critical facilities such as power plants, airports, roads, and hospitals are threatened. When a disaster strikes, remote sensing is often the only way to get a big-picture view of what is happening on the ground. With its consistent, reliable, repeated observations of Earth’s changing surface, Landsat keeps a record of Earth’s land surfaces before and after disasters, serving as an essential tool for assessing risk, mapping the extent of damage, and planning post-disaster recovery. Landsat produces 185-kilometer-wide images with 30-meter resolution in visible and infrared wavelengths of light, making it possible to map impacts on the landscape in ways otherwise not visible to human sight. For example, Landsat sensors enable us to see the heat from fires both during and after the burns, and the lava flows from volcanic eruptions even when gaseous substances obscure the view to human eyes.
56 Landsat Images Provided to International Charter, Jan. 2016
The Charter as a one-stop-shop for impact maps—an essential resource, since in many cases satellite data are the only practical method to assess current ground conditions after a disaster.
Monitoring Small Surface Water Bodies in Africa
Naga Manohar Velpuri, works with the USGS Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). The project has recently initiated a large-scale project to monitor surface water bodies in the pastoral regions of Africa using multi-source satellite data and hydrologic modeling techniques. Currently, a total of 293 water points are being monitored in 10 countries. Velpuri shared some of the projects findings he presented at #AGU15.
Detecting Landslides in Nepal with Landsat
Justin Roberts-Pierel from the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, uses Landsat 8 to detect landslides in the Himalayas. He provided information about his studies at #AGU15. We talked with him about his work.
How Hurricane Sandy Affected New Jersey Coastal Marshes
Alex Riter, a graduate student at the University of Maryland College Park, presented her finding on how Hurricane Sandy affected New Jersey coastal marches at #AGU15. We talked to Riter about her research.
How the 2010 Haitian Earthquake & Resulting Human Migration Affected Landslide Occurrences
At #AGU15 Yurika Kato, a Geosciences graduate student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, presented his research about how the 2010 Haitian earthquake and resulting human migration affected landslide occurrences in the Port-au-Prince province. We spoke with Kato about his research.
Survival of a Tropical Glacier
William Kochtitzky, a student from Dickinson College, presented a poster on glacial changes on Peru’s Nevado Coropuna volcano at #AGU15.
