Global Flood Mapper: Democratising open EO resources for flood mapping

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pratyush Tripathy ◽  
Teja Malladi
Keyword(s):  
Disaster Response ◽  
Flood Hazard ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Anthropogenic Factors ◽  
Flood Mapping ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
The Impact

<p>Climate change has increased the frequency of flood events globally. Floods cause massive loss of life and cause the expenditure of billions of dollars. While it is important to curb floods caused by anthropogenic factors in the first place, it is equally important to reduce the impact in the aftermath of floods. The extent of past flood events is crucial for developing disaster management plans and flood hazard modelling. Due to the lack of capacity and availability of the funds with local officials, many past disasters remain unmapped and the information is just limited to total life loss and damage estimates.</p><p>Satellite data has been widely hailed as an alternative to drone and aerial surveys. And recent advances in open Earth Observation (EO) data availability, for instance, the Sentinel-1 SAR data by the European Space Agency (ESA), and cloud processing platforms such as the Google Earth Engine (GEE) have opened unprecedented opportunities for using EO data for hazard and disaster response efforts. Recent literature in the field of EO is witnessing an increasing number of the Sentinel-1 and GEE combination for flood mapping.</p><p>In the present work, we demonstrate the utility of a recently developed tool, the Global Flood Mapper (GFM), which is an open GEE application for rapid mapping of flood inundation extent using Sentinel-1 data. GFM uses a pre-flood time period to analyse numerous Sentinel-1 scenes of the same study area, this accounts for seasonal variation and has lesser noise as compared to other methods that use just one pre-flood scene. We map a couple of flood events across the globe to demonstrate the scalability and ease of using GFM. In addition, we analyse the flood hazard vulnerability of the state of Bihar in India using flood extent for the year 2018, 2019 and 2020 by delineating frequently flooding areas. This showcases yet another crucial utility of the GFM tool. GFM can support the flood extent mapping of the past events in addition to the rapid flood mapping of the current events, that could aid researchers and disaster managers for better flood preparedness and response. </p><p>We access GFM through the link available on this public repository: https://github.com/PratyushTripathy/global_flood_mapper</p>

scholarly journals Six years of total ozone column measurements from SCIAMACHY nadir observations

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Lerot ◽  
M. Van Roozendael ◽  
J. van Geffen ◽  
J. van Gent ◽  
C. Fayt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cross Sections ◽  
Total Ozone ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Ozone Data ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
German Aerospace ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Total O3 columns have been retrieved from six years of SCIAMACHY nadir UV radiance measurements using SDOAS, an adaptation of the GDOAS algorithm previously developed at BIRA-IASB for the GOME instrument. GDOAS and SDOAS have been implemented by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in the version 4 of the GOME Data Processor (GDP) and in version 3 of the SCIAMACHY Ground Processor (SGP), respectively. The processors are being run at the DLR processing centre on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA). We first focus on the description of the SDOAS algorithm with particular attention to the impact of uncertainties on the reference O3 absorption cross-sections. Second, the resulting SCIAMACHY total ozone data set is globally evaluated through large-scale comparisons with results from GOME and OMI as well as with ground-based correlative measurements. The various total ozone data sets are found to agree within 2% on average. However, a negative trend of 0.2–0.4%/year has been identified in the SCIAMACHY O3 columns; this probably originates from instrumental degradation effects that have not yet been fully characterized.

Spaceborne monitoring of CO2 emissions from large cities and the impact of aerosols

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sander Houweling ◽  
Jochen Landgraf ◽  
Friedemann Reum ◽  
Hein van Heck ◽  
Wei Tao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Co2 Emissions ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Monitoring Network ◽  
Atmospheric Measurements ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Anthropogenic Co2 ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Spatial Coverage ◽  
Spaceborne Monitoring ◽  
The Impact

<p>International agreements to reduce CO2 emissions call for an independent mechanism for evaluating the compliance with emission reduction targets. Atmospheric measurements can provide important information in support of this goal. However, to do this globally requires a drastic expansion of the existing monitoring network, using a combination of surface measurements and satellites. CO2 sensing satellites can deliver the required spatial coverage, filling in the gaps that are difficult to cover on ground. However, to reach the accuracy that is required for monitoring CO2 from space is a challenge, and even more so for anthropogenic CO2.</p><p>The European space agency is preparing for the launch of a constellation of satellites for monitoring anthropogenic CO2 within the Copernicus program, starting in 2025. Scientific support studies have been carried out to define this mission in terms of payload and observational requirements. We report on the AeroCarb study, which investigated the impact retrieval errors due to aerosols in CO2 plumes downwind of large cities, and the potential benefit of an onboard aerosol sensor to help mitigate such errors. In this study, CO2 and aerosol plumes have been simulated at high-resolution for the cities of Berlin and Beijing. The impact of aerosol scattering on spaceborne CO2 measurements has been assessed using a combined CO2-aerosol retrieval scheme, with and without the use of an onboard multi-angular spectropolarimeter (MAP) for measuring aerosols. The results have been used to quantify the accuracy at which the CO2 emissions of Berlin and Beijing can be quantified using inverse modelling and the impact of aerosols depending on the chosen satellite payload. </p><p>In this presentation we summarize the outcome of this study, and discuss the implications for the space borne monitoring of anthropogenic CO2 emissions from large cities.</p>

The science return of the ESA Hera mission to the binary asteroid Didymos

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Michel ◽  
Michael Kueppers ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Direct Determination ◽  
Hypervelocity Impact ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Impact Speed ◽  
Asteroid Impact ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
The Impact

<p>The Hera mission has been approved for development and launch in the new ESA Space Safety Programme by the ESA Council at Ministerial Level, Space19+, in November 2019. Hera will both offer a high science return and contribute to the first deflection test of an asteroid, in the framework of the international NASA- and ESA-supported Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) collaboration.</p> <p>The impact of the NASA DART (Doube Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft on the natural satellite of Didymos in October 2022 will change its orbital period around Didymos. As Didymos is an eclipsing binary, and close to the Earth on this date, the change can be detected by Earth-based observers. ESA’s Hera spacecraft will rendezvous Didymos four years after the impact. Hera’s instruments will perform the measurements necessary to understand the effect of the DART impact on Didymos’ secondary, in particular its mass, its internal structure, the direct determination of the momentum transfer and the detailed characterization of the crater left by DART. This new knowledge will also provide unique information on many current issues in asteroid science.</p> <p>From small asteroid internal and surface structures, through rubble-pile evolution, impact cratering physics, to the long-term effects of space weathering in the inner Solar System, Hera will have a major impact on many fields. For instance, collisions play a fundamental role in our Solar System history, from planet formation by collisional accretion to cratering of solid surfaces and asteroid family formation by collisional disruption. The fully documented hypervelocity impact experiment provided by DART and Hera will feed collisional models with information obtained at actual asteroid scale and for an impact speed (~6 km/s) that is close to the average impact speed between asteroids in the main belt. Moreover, Hera will perform the first rendezvous with an asteroid binary, characterize the smallest object ever visited (165 m in diameter) and provide the first direct measurement of an asteroid interior. Additionally, studies using Hera data will in turn affect our understanding of the asteroid population as a whole. The scientific legacy of the Hera mission will extend far beyond the core aims of planetary defense.</p> <p>Acknowledgment: The authors acknowledge funding support from ESA and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870377 (project NEO-MAPP), from the European Space Agency and from the French space agency CNES.</p>

scholarly journals Reconciling Flagging Strategies for Multi-Sensor Satellite Soil Moisture Climate Data Records

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 3439
Author(s):  
Mendy van der Vliet ◽  
Robin van der Schalie ◽  
Nemesio Rodriguez-Fernandez ◽  
Andreas Colliander ◽  
Richard de Jeu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Mountainous Regions ◽  
Soil Moisture Data ◽  
Climate Records ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

Reliable soil moisture retrievals from passive microwave satellite sensors are limited during certain conditions, e.g., snow coverage, radio-frequency interference, and dense vegetation. In these cases, the retrievals can be masked using flagging algorithms. Currently available single- and multi-sensor soil moisture products utilize different flagging approaches. However, a clear overview and comparison of these approaches and their impact on soil moisture data are still lacking. For long-term climate records such as the soil moisture products of the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI), the effect of any flagging inconsistency resulting from combining multiple sensor datasets is not yet understood. Therefore, the first objective of this study is to review the data flagging system that is used within multi-sensor ESA CCI soil moisture products as well as the flagging systems of two other soil moisture datasets from sensors that are also used for the ESA CCI soil moisture products: The level 3 Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and the Soil Moisture Active/Passive (SMAP). The SMOS and SMAP soil moisture flagging systems differ substantially in number and type of conditions considered, critical flags, and data source dependencies. The impact on the data availability of the different flagging systems were compared for the SMOS and SMAP soil moisture datasets. Major differences in data availability were observed globally, especially for northern high latitudes, mountainous regions, and equatorial latitudes (up to 37%, 33%, and 32% respectively) with large seasonal variability. These results highlight the importance of a consistent and well-performing approach that is applicable to all individual products used in long-term soil moisture data records. Consequently, the second objective of the present study is to design a consistent and model-independent flagging strategy to improve soil moisture climate records such as the ESA CCI products. As snow cover, ice, and frozen conditions were demonstrated to have the biggest impact on data availability, a uniform satellite driven flagging strategy was designed for these conditions and evaluated against two ground observation networks. The new flagging strategy demonstrated to be a robust flagging alternative when compared to the individual flagging strategies adopted by the SMOS and SMAP soil moisture datasets with a similar performance, but with the applicability to the entire ESA CCI time record without the use of modelled approximations.

scholarly journals On the Impact Monitoring of Near-Earth Objects: Mathematical Tools, Algorithms, and Challenges for the Future

Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Giacomo Tommei
Keyword(s):  
European Space Agency ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Planetary Protection ◽  
Impact Monitoring ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
The Future ◽  
Operational Systems ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Near Earth Objects

The Impact Monitoring (IM) of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) is a young field of research, considering that 22 years ago precise algorithms to compute an impact probability with the Earth did not exist. On the other hand, the year 2020 just passed saw the increase of IM operational systems: in addition to the two historical systems, CLOMON2 (University of Pisa/SpaceDyS) and Sentry (JPL/NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA) started its own system AstOD. Moreover, in the last five years three systems for the detection of imminent impactors (small asteroidal objects detected a few days before the possible impact with the Earth) have been developed: SCOUT (at JPL/NASA), NEORANGER (at University of Helsinki) and NEOScan (at University of Pisa/SpaceDyS). The IM science, in addition to being useful for the planetary protection, is a very fascinating field of research because it involves astronomy, physics, mathematics and computer science. In this paper I am going to review the mathematical tools and algorithms of the IM science, highlighting the historical evolution and the challenges to be faced in the future.

Swarm Mission: instruments performance, data availability, quality and future evolutions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enkelejda Qamili ◽  
Filomena Catapano ◽  
Lars Tøffner-Clausen ◽  
Stephan Buchert ◽  
Christian Siemes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
European Space Agency ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Magnetic Disturbance ◽  
Langmuir Probes ◽  
Incoherent Scatter ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Incoherent Scatter Radars ◽  
Scalar Magnetometer ◽  
Swarm Mission

<p>The European Space Agency (ESA) Swarm mission, launched on November 2013, continue to provide very accurate measurements of the strength, direction and variation of the Earth’s magnetic field. These data together with precise navigation, accelerometer, electric field, plasma density and temperature measurements, are crucial for a better understanding of the Earth’s interior and its environment. This paper will provide a status update of the Swarm Instrument performance after seven years of operations. Moreover, we will provide full details on the new Swarm Level 1b product baseline of Magnet and Plasma data which will be generated and distributed soon to the whole Swarm Community.  Please note that the main evolutions to be introduced in the Swarm L1B Algorithm are: i) computation of the Sun induced magnetic disturbance (dB_Sun) on the Absolute Scalar Magnetometer (ASM) and Vector Field Magnetometer (VFM) data; ii) computation of systematic offset between Langmuir Probes (LP) measurements ad ground observations derived from Incoherent Scatter Radars (IRS) located at middle, low, and equatorial latitudes. These and further improvements are planned to be included in the upcoming versions of the Swarm Level 1b products, aiming at achieving the best data quality for scientific applications.</p>

ESA’s Wind Lidar Mission Aeolus – Instrument Performance and Stability

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kanitz ◽  
Benjamin Witschas ◽  
Uwe Marksteiner ◽  
Thomas Flament ◽  
Michael Rennie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Incidence Angle ◽  
Weather Prediction ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Positive Outcome ◽  
Doppler Lidar ◽  
Energy Redistribution ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Explorer Mission ◽  
Wind Lidar ◽  
The Impact

<p>The European Space Agency, ESA deployed the first Doppler wind lidar in space within its Earth Explorer Mission Aeolus in August 2018. After the initial commissioning of the satellite and the single payload ALADIN, the mission has started to demonstrate the capability of Doppler lidar to measure wind from space. In order to provide the best Aeolus wind product possible, detailed monitoring of the instrument is crucial for analysis of system health, but also for the assessment of measurement performance and data product calibration. Within the last 1.2 years the different instrument modes to assess instrument and laser health, as well as the nominal wind processing indicated longterm instrument drifts. The laser beam profile has been monitored and showed an energy redistribution within the beam. The line of sight has slowly drifted, resulting in a change of incidence angle at spectrometer level. The impact of these observed drifts on the wind product are compensated on demand by updates of dedicated ground processing calibration files. This contribution will provide an overview about the Aeolus instrument modes and the observed stability that are needed to provide the Aeolus wind product. The current Aeolus performance has been assessed by various Numerical Weather Prediction centers. The positive outcome is represented by ECMWF’s decision to start using Aeolus data operationally on 9<sup>th</sup> January 2020.</p>

scholarly journals The Impact of Drought on Soil Moisture Trends across Brazilian Biomes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Flavio Lopes Ribeiro ◽  
Mario Guevara ◽  
Alma Vázquez-Lule ◽  
Ana Paula Cunha ◽  
Marcelo Zeri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
The Past ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Soil Moisture Variability ◽  
Moisture Dynamics ◽  
Agriculture Water

Abstract. Over the past decade, Brazil has experienced severe droughts across its territory, with important implications for soil moisture dynamics. Soil moisture variability has a direct impact on agriculture, water security, and ecosystem services. Nevertheless, there is currently little information on how soil moisture across different biomes respond to drought. In this study, we used satellite soil moisture data from the European Space Agency, from 2009 to 2015, to analyze differences in soil moisture responses to drought for each biome of Brazil: The Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Caatinga, Cerrado, Pampas and Pantanal. We found an overall soil moisture decline of −0.5 %/year (p 

scholarly journals USE OF SPACE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN EXCURSION AND TOURISTIC ACTIVITY

2018 ◽  
pp. 79-83
Author(s):  
V. Vyshnevskyi
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Satellite Images ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Ecological State ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Volumetric Images

A large number of opportunities that are connected with achievements in space and information technologies can be used in excursion and tourist activity. The most significant among those are: visualization of territory in high quality, possibility to compare satellite images taken in different time period, designing of volumetric images, panoramic review of objects, opportunity to detect someone’s location via GPS, determination of road traffic, visualization of processes in the atmosphere, assessment of ecological state on certain area etc. The information about remote sensing and sources of satellite images, in particular, are given. This data can be found in the Google Earth program, Bing Maps, Yandex. In addition, satellite images can be found on the websites of the US Geological Service and the European Space Agency. Landsat and Sentinel satellites make the most prevalent images. Quite useful options of Google Earth program are “Search” and “Create routes” as first helps to find the objects on the surface of Earth and second to create the route from one point to another. The essence of STRM mission is analyzed. This information can be applied using Global Mapper program. It gives the possibility to create volumetric images of relief which are more realistic than geographical maps. The essence of GPS is described. This system gives the opportunity to fix on the geographic coordinates which are significant in tourism. Moreover, it allows getting similar information as to photos made on routes. Another practical program, which can be employed in excursion and tourism activity, is SAS.Planet. This platform has a functional option called Wikimapia, which helps to identify object names. Furthermore, SAS.Planet allows determining traffic congestion. This method is based on crowdsourcing. Some possible ways of ecological state assessment are described, which is also important for the tourism industry. The specific examples of how to use the resources and technologies mentioned above are depicted.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document