CEOS is the Committee on Earth Observation
Satellites, created in 1984 in response to a
recommendation by a Panel of Experts on Remote
Sensing from Space, under the aegis of the G-7
Economic Summit of Industrialised Nations Working
Group on Growth, Technology and Employment.
CEOS was established to provide
coordination of the Earth observations being
provided by satellite missions, recognising that
no single programme, agency, or nation can hope to
satisfy all of the observational requirements that
are necessary for improved understanding of the
Earth System. Since its establishment, CEOS has
provided a broad framework for international
coordination on space- borne EO missions.
CEOS has three primary objectives:
– To optimize the benefits of
space-based EO through cooperation of CEOS
Agencies in mission planning and in the
development of compatible data products, formats,
services, applications and policies;
–
To serve as the focal point for international
coordination of space-based EO activities;
– To encourage complementarity and
compatibility among space-based EO systems and the
data received from them.
CEOS
membership had reached 31 space agency Members in
2015, comprising most of the world’s civil
agencies responsible for EO satellite programmes.
What Does CEOS Contribute to DRR?
CEOS is working with the user community at
local/national and regional levels, with academia,
civil protection, UN agencies, and operational
resources management agencies to demonstrate the
value of EO satellite data and to demonstrate the
necessary connections required with the users of
the information, as well as the many intermediary
bodies.
CEOS has been actively
expanding its support to all phases of DRR,
building on its original emphasis on disaster
response. This resolve is demonstrated through a
number of important initiatives:
–
Development of a CEOS DRM strategy and supporting
Disasters Working Group;
–
Establishment of three thematic pilots, covering
Floods, Seismic Hazards, and Volcanoes to
demonstrate an expanded coordination of space
agencies in support of national users of the
resulting information products;
− The
creation of a Recovery Observatory that showcases
how space agencies can improve collaboration with
all DRR stakeholders in the aftermath of a major
disaster on the scale of Typhoon Haiyan or the
Haiti Earthquake of 2010;
− Support to
the Geohazard Supersites and Natural Laboratories
initiative of GEO. This project coordinates EO
acquisitions over designated ‘supersites’ to
ensure science users have information required to
advance state-of-the-art research into EO-based
risk assessment in relation to specific hazards:
the volcanoes of Hawaii, four volcanoes in
Iceland, the Marmara region Fault Zone in Turkey,
and the volcanoes of Italy, New Zealand, and
Ecuador. Eventually, the supersites project is
expected to develop methodologies that can be used
to monitor such hazards using EO on a global
basis.
The long-term vision for the
CEOS DRM strategy is:
− Global in
scope, but building on strong partnerships at
local/national or regional levels;
−
User-driven (defined against user information
needs and based on the engagement of the diverse
user communities involved in DRM);
−
Taking account of all relevant EO-based
capabilities available or under development.
The pilots represent an important part of the CEOS
DRM strategy, with an emphasis on the development of
connections between the satellite data providers and
national users of the resulting information
products.
Flood pilot
The main goal is to demonstrate the
effective application of satellite EO to the full
cycle of flood management at global and
regional/local scales by:
– Integrating
existing near-real time global flood monitoring and
modelling systems;
– Linking global
systems to regional end-to-end pilots that produce
high-resolution flood mitigation, warning and
response products and deliver flood and flash flood
related services in: the Caribbean (with particular
focus on Haiti); Southern Africa, including Namibia,
South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and
Malawi; Southeast Asia (with particular focus on the
lower Mekong Basin and Western Java, Indonesia);
– Developing new end products and
services to better deliver flood-related information
and to validate satellite EO data and products with
end users, including retrospective products working
from archived EO flood extent data;
–
Encouraging regional in-country capacity building to
access EO data and integrate into operational
systems and flood management practices.
Seismic Hazards pilot
This pilot is characterised by three
main objectives:
– Supporting the
generation of globally self-consistent strain rate
estimates and the mapping of active faults at the
global scale by providing EO radar and optical data
and processing capacities to existing initiatives;
– Supporting and continuing the
Geohazard Supersites and Natural Laboratories
initiative for seismic hazards and volcanoes;
– Developing and demonstrating advanced
science products for rapid earthquake response
(>Magnitude 5.8).
Volcanoes pilot
The volcanoes pilot exploits the
instruments of several EO satellite missions to
achieve the following objectives:
–
Demonstrating comprehensive monitoring of Holocene-
era volcanoes in the Latin American volcanic arc;
– Developing new protocols and products
over active volcanoes where EO data collects are
already taking place (Hawaii, Iceland, and Italy);
– Demonstrating operational monitoring
over a large-scale eruption during 2014–2016.
Only CEOS offers the breadth of
membership and sensor platforms to provide the full
range of necessary data and coordination capacity to
support such a broad-ranging effort that groups end
users, practitioners, and satellite operators.
Through the above work, CEOS and its
Agencies are committed to fostering the use of EO in
support of DRR and to raising the awareness of
politicians, decision-makers, and major stakeholders
of the benefits of using satellite EO in all phases
of DRR.
The 3rd World Conference for
Disaster Risk Reduction provides an opportunity for
the DRR community to better understand the benefits
it can draw from the use of satellite EO and to work
with the data provider agencies to help realise the
full potential of this significant investment in
space infrastructure in support of DRR objectives,
including the plan of action outlined in the
post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction.
More information on many of the CEOS DRR
activities is provided in the Case Studies of Part
II.
Overview of combined EO data polygons for three
CEOS thematic pilots to be deployed over
2014–2016. Floods in blue, seismic hazards in
purple, volcanoes in sienna. Areas not to scale
and for indicative purposes only. Click to
enlarge.
The Cordon Caulle volcano, Chile, erupted in
2011–2012. This interferogram shows
post-eruptive inflation that would not otherwise
have been known without the CEOS pilot program.
