ESA - Observing the Earth - Earth Observation essential for geohazard mitigation

About Observing the Earth

How does Earth Observation work?How to get Earth observation data Integrating Earth Observation in your job Earth Observation users speak

EO programmes

The Living Planet GMES

ESA's Earth Observing missions

Envisat overview ERS overview Earth Explorers overview Sentinels overview MSG overview MetOp overview Proba-1 overview Third Party Missions overview

Opportunities with us

Education & training International cooperation Milestones & announcements EO conferences organised by ESA

Multimedia

Image Gallery Video Gallery Online resources RSS feeds

Services

Calendar Subscribe

Article Images

Earth Observation essential for geohazard mitigation

12 November 2007

Back to article

Every year geohazards – such as volcanoes, earthquakes, landslide and tsunamis – claim thousands of lives, devastate homes and destroy livelihoods.

Volcanoes

Back to article

Download:

HI-RES JPG (Size: 347 Kb)

Averaged ground displacements measured on the Etna volcano, using an advanced technique of satellite aperture radar interferometry, using data from ESA's ERS-1 and -2.

Credits: TRE, ESA

Earthquakes

Back to article

Download:

HI-RES JPG (Size: 543 kb)

This interferogram shows ground motion associated with the 26 December 2003 earthquake at Bam in Iran. The interferogram was created by combining an Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) Wide Swath Mode (WSM) image with an Image Mode (IM) image. Typically IM is the sole ASAR mode exploited for interferography; making use of WSM in this way has the potential to broaden Envisat's InSAR coverage in future. Processed by Politecnico of Milano.

Credits: Polimi/Poliba

Landslides

Back to article

Landslide Monitoring Survey Product for Arno Basin, Italy

Download:

HI RES JPG (Size: 2082 kb)

Sample DUE SLAM (Service for Landslide Monitoring) Landslide Motion Survey Product for part of the Arno Basin, Italy. The image shows an aerial photo overlaid by permanent scatterers derived from processing of ERS SAR data and coloured landslide polygons depicting the status of activity of landslides. Such polygons are defined by incorporating Permanent Scatterer-derived information (the average velocity along the Line of Sight) within conventional geomorphologic analysis.

Credits: ESA/TRE/Universitá di Firenze

Observing the Earth