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News  Respond consortium making maps out of satellite images to support Pakistan disaster relief
European and international aid agencies responding to the South Asia Earthquake have been supported by rapidly-produced crisis and damage maps based on satellite images. Now, with the race on to deliver food and shelter to three million people left homeless before the onset of winter, this detailed geographical information provided by the ESA's backed Respond consortium remains vital to humanitarian relief efforts. At a meeting in Geneva on Thursday held by the United Nations for Ministers of major donor countries for South Asia Earthquake relief efforts, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland both received sets of maps produced for the disaster relief agencies by Respond, a consortium of European and international organisations combined with industry that works with the humanitarian aid community to improve access to maps, satellite images and geo-information.
The earthquake that struck the Kashmir region on 8 October measured 7.6 on the Richter scale. Its epicentre was near the city of Muzaffarabad, 138 kilometres from the Pakistani capital Islamabad, but the damage done extends into northwest India as well as Afghanistan. More than ten aftershocks – their magnitudes ranging from 5.2 to 6.3 – have since rocked the mountainous region.
The task of satisfying the first two Charter activations was assigned to Respond. In the earthquake's aftermath, crisis mapping was carried out as a joint effort by Respond partners the Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information of the German Aerospace Center and the Rapid Disaster Mapping Service of SERTIT based in France, along with the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC), Infoterra UK and UNOSAT – provider of satellite data for UN agencies who oversaw mapping job management for the activations.
The first maps of the affected region were produced using archived satellite data within 24 hours of the disaster. They were made available to search and rescue teams directly in the field the following day via the NGO Télécoms Sans Frontières who were on the scene to set up a satellite-based communications infrastructure so the maps could be downloaded for printing and distribution.
To date Respond has now delivered more than 40 crisis and damage maps with various coverage and scales. The partners say this is their busiest incident since the Tsunami Disaster of December 2004. As well as pre-earthquake background maps they include before-and-after scenarios to show the extent of damage to population centres and the effects of landslides on the road network.
"Up-to-date mapping of roads and buildings, showing houses both within villages and dispersed in the countryside creates a very good product for carrying out rescue missions. Furthermore, damage maps derived from optical imagery have been very useful in charting landslide impacts. The French Civil Protection Agency has told SERTIT how useful these have been at headquarters level and in the field".
Around 54 000 people have been killed in Pakistan and India, and up to three million survivors of ruined towns and villages have been left homeless across this mountainous region, with winter due to begin by the start of December. Three weeks after the earthquake, production of crisis maps has just finished, but maps supporting relief recovery and reconstruction efforts are still being made.
"In addition, headquarters needs a way to work meaningfully with the people on the ground, and the maps are a way to do this. They may have seen pictures taken from the scene or even from a helicopter, but the maps give a bird's eye view and a greater understanding of the context in-situ: here is the football stadium that was mentioned, there is the school that has fallen down.
The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters is a joint effort by space agencies worldwide to put space technology at the service of rescue authorities in the event of a major disaster. Each member agency has demonstrated its commitment to using space technology to serve humankind when it is most in need of assistance—when disasters of both natural and human origin strike the world’s communities or wreak havoc on the environment.
Respond has been established as part of the pilot services of Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), a joint initiative between ESA and the European Union to build a global monitoring capability in support of Europe's environmental and sustainable development goals. Respond is an alliance of European and international organisations with industry working with the humanitarian aid community to improve access to geographic information.
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