Transcript UNOSAT Ellie Rusack Pints of Science 20-21 May 2014 What is UNOSAT? Operational Satellite Applications Programme of the United Nations Institute for Training.

UNOSAT
Ellie Rusack
Pints of Science 20-21 May 2014
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What is UNOSAT?
Operational Satellite Applications Programme of the United Nations Institute for Training and
Research (UNITAR)
Goal: to make satellite derived geospatial information, integrated systems (GIS, navigation, and
geo-positioning), and knowledge transfer easily accessible to the UN, local governments,
international organizations and NGOs who work at reducing the impact of crises and disasters.
Humanitarian Rapid Mapping
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Operational Uncertainty in context of Humanitarian
Operations
“Fog of Disaster” - Early stages of
major disasters are characterized
by limited, incomplete and often
contradictory information related
to:
Geographic extent of affected
area(s)
Numbers & Locations of casualties
and population at-risk
Damages to housing, infrastructure,
transport facilities
Capacity and response of
local/national authorities
Capacity and coordination of Int.
humanitarian actors (3Ws Who Does
What Where)
Source: Australian Development Gateway
Operational
uncertainty
highest in
early
disaster
response
stage
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Humanitarian Rapid Mapping
UNOSAT is the main implementing agency within the UN
for the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters”
Mandated by UN to provide satellite imagery-based
products and services in support of the international
humanitarian operations (UN, IASC, NGOs and other
humanitarian agencies)
Technical team (scalable, normally 6-10 professionals)
Image analysts, GIS-experts, cartographers,
geophysicists, agronomists, meteorologists
Operational 24/7
Operational office in Geneva (CERN)
How does UNOSAT make use of satellites?
1. Activation / Request to International Charter
3. UNOSAT
Staff
analyze
satellite
data
2. Satellites
collect data
over area of
interest
4. UNOSAT Staff Produce
maps, reports & databases
to support humanitarian
operations and post disaster
recovery
Caprivi, Namibia
Port-Au-Prince, Haiti
Bihar, India
Mogadishu, Somalia
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UNOSAT Video
Limitations of satellite imagery
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Limitations of satellite imagery
Angle of view only from above
Sometimes hard to get clear data
Weather
Satellites can’t see what is happening
on the ground
Credits: Huda.Sy http://www.panoramio.com/user/7127417
Citizen Cyberlab: Geotag-X
Geotag-X ?
Harvest media (photos, videos, audio)
coming out of a disaster
Analyse media to produce structured
and relevant data of what is
happening on the ground
Share knowledge of experts with crowd
to perform analysis
Source: National Geographic
What is a disaster for Geotag-X ?
“Fast moving” emergency – eg flooding, earthquakes etc
“Slow moving” emergencies – eg drought, pollution, climate
change related
Thailand Floods 2011. Source: UN-ASIGN
Drought Namibia/Angola. Source: Lutheran World Federation/Mairo Retief
Where do we get the media for Geotag-X ?
Tools increasingly available and accessible
Smartphones, apps etc
Eg – Haiti, Syria, Thailand
Workflow and tools for analysis of media
Expert
volunteers
Field experience/
surveys
Applications/
Tutorials
Volunteers
Firefox plugin
Analysis
Structured/
relevant
data
Media
Disaster managers, NGO’s,
UN etc
Expert Volunteers
Experts (professionals, academics etc) in relevant topics
What data can they extract from media?
Develop structured analysis and tutorials
Analysis translated into applications on Geotag-X
Currently working with experts in:
sociology,
environmental health,
human ecology,
agriculture,
disaster response.
Tools for analysis of media – Geotag-X (PyBossa)
and Firefox
Expert
volunteers
Field experience/
surveys
Applications/
Tutorials
Volunteers
Firefox plugin
Analysis
Structured/
relevant
data
Media
Disaster managers, NGO’s,
UN etc
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Workflow and tools for analysis of media
Expert
volunteers
Field
experience/
surveys
Applications/
Tutorials
Analysis
Volunteers
Firefox plugin
Structured
/relevant
data
Media
Disaster managers, NGO’s,
UN etc
Source: National Geographic
Relevant, Structured Datasets
Applications linked with questions from field assessments
Geotagged (as best as possible)
Results as JSON, accessible via API (thanks to PyBossa)
Used by UNOSAT to complement/verify satellite analyses,
available to other organisations
How to standardise results to make accessible across different
organisations (HXML?)
Citizen Cyberlab: Possible limitations
How much useful info is available in media?
How much media? availability of bandwidth in disaster area,
how quickly disseminated?
Who will be involved, who
can be an expert? Will
experts want to be
involved?
What can we expect of the
crowd?
What issues can be
suitably addressed with
these tools?
Thailand Floods 2011. Source: UN-ASIGN
geotagx.org
[email protected]
www.unitar.org/unosat
Cybermappr: crowdsourced geotagging of visual media