RADARSAT1 Disaster Management Operations

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UNISPACE-III
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Mandate
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Activities

• The Action Team work commenced with a plenary on
  the occasion of the 52nd IAC in Toulouse in
  October 2001.
• Canada, China and France, named CCF, assumed the
  role of Co-chairs with the concurrence of the
  Action Team members.
• A three-year work plan was prepared and approved
  by the plenary, with the three lead countries
  taking on the Action Team chairmanship in turns.
• Action Team membership
• Open to all States members of the U.N.
• Observers Inter-/non-governmental members of
  COPUOS
• Non-COPUOS organizations require Team's
  agreement
• Private sector entities only as part of the
  national delegations

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Activities (cont.)

• The CCF has conducted its work by regular
  teleconferences and reported it to the Action
  Team in six plenary sessions
• Toulouse (France), October 5-6, 2001 - 52nd IAC
• Vienna (Austria), February 28, 2002 - STSC
  session
• Houston (U.S.A.), October 13, 2002 - World Space
  Conference
• Vienna (Austria), February 19, 2003 - STSC
  session
• Vienna (Austria), June 11, 2003 - COPUOS session
• Bremen (Germany), October 2, 2003 - 54th IAC
• A total of 41 countries, 7 U.N. agencies, 3
  intergovernmental organizations, and several
  ad-hoc and private sector groups have
  participated in the activities of the Action
  Team.

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Activities (cont.)

• Three major surveys conducted during phase 1
  users needs (UK and China), national capacities
  (Mexico and France), existing and planned
  disaster support operational systems (Canada).
• Phase 2 was spent on carrying out two types of
  gap analysis
• - with regard to cross-cutting issues
  technical, operational, organizational, financial
  and educational and
• - from the viewpoint of managing all the various
  disasters.
• Phase 3 was the preparation of the final report.

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Key Findings

• Considerable global investment has been made in
  EO, communications, navigation and positioning
  systems for disaster management application.
• There are some notable international efforts to
  promote the use of space-based information for
  disaster and natural resource management, for
  example

• The International Charter Space and Major
  Disasters
• Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC)
• GMES
• GEOSS
• Integrated Global Observations Strategy (IGOS)

• Current use of space operations are limited to
  response and recovery and need to be expanded to
  longer term prevention and preparedness.

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Key Findings (cont.)

• In order to facilitate the use of space data and
  their acceptance by the user, information-service
  pathways need to be established. Simply
  facilitating access to data would not serve the
  purpose.
• Space-based disaster management support should be
  a common endeavor among all the stakeholders

• Technology suppliers
• Space operators
• Disaster management organizations
• Civil protection authorities
• Value-added producers
• Agencies for international development
• Lending institutions
• Insurance companies

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Key Findings (cont.)

• Most of the countries have little or no exposure
  to space-based disaster management, therefore,
  local capacity building is important.
• Disaster management in most countries is spread
  over several responsibility centers, which is not
  helpful for the integration of space technology.
• Public-private sector partnership can be used as
  one of the funding mechanisms for a global
  system.

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Concept of a Global Integrated Disaster
Management System
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Considerations and Recommendations

• Disasters such as floods, earthquakes, fires, oil
  spills, droughts and volcanic eruptions
  indiscriminately affect all parts of the globe
  thus coordinated international effort is required
  to minimize their impact.
• Disasters require timely and up-to-date
  situational analysis in a cost effective way
  through the full cycle of mitigation
  preparedness response recovery and linked to
  local geo-social and thematic databases.
• Currently there is some emphasis on disaster
  response but too little on prevention and
  mitigation.
• Space technology (EO, communications,
  positioning) can provide the necessary
  information to help in disaster management.
• A more integrated and coordinated approach to
  space-based disaster management is needed to
  reduce the gap in all areas of space technology
  application.

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Recommendation 1

• Establish an international space coordination
  entity for disaster management, nominally
  identified as the 'Disaster Management
  International Space Coordination Organization'
  (DMISCO).
• Through linkages with stakeholders, DMISCO's
  perceived role

• Provide the necessary means to optimise the
  efficiency of services in support of DM by fully
  utilizing the existing and planned space and
  ground-based assets and infrastructures, with the
  full participation of existing organizations and
  mechanisms, including DM authorities
• Product and service delivery standardization
• Data policy harmonization
• Improved access to EO data archives and database
  maintenance
• Technical support for capacity building
• Education and training services

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Recommendation 2

• Establish a fund to provide sustainable resource
  to support international disaster management
  efforts, particularly in the developing world

• Development and relief organizations
• Lending institutions
• Resource management institutes
• Insurance companies
• End users

Recommendation 3

• Encourage member states to allocate a portion of
  their disaster management/relief and
  environmental security funds to using space
  technologies and appoint single points of
  contact.

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Present situation

• Final report was submitted to the COPUOS
  Scientific and Technical Subcommittee in February
  2004 and accepted by the 47th COPUOS Plenary last
  June in Vienna.
• COPUOS agreed that a study should be conducted on
  the possibility of creating an international
  entity to provide coordination and the means of
  optimizing the effectiveness of space-based
  services for use in DM and that the Office for
  Outer Space Affairs (OOSA) should coordinate the
  organization of the work.
• The study should
• Define the key functions of a possible Disaster
  Management international space coordination
  entity
• Describe the benefits that it would provide to
  the DM community

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Present situation (cont)

• Define the scope and nature of the entity
  (inter-governmental or non ?)
• Propose an implementation plan that would include
  estimated cost of such entity and possible source
  of funding
• Be prepared by an ad hoc expert group with
  experts to be provided by interested member
  States
• Commenced as soon as sufficient voluntary
  contributions (in cash or in kind) have been
  received by the UN OOSA
• Progress in the work of the ad hoc expert group
  should be reviewed by the ST Subcommittee.

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Present situation (cont)

• Expected benefits
• Identify the best mechanism to enhance
  coordination to better respond to the needs of DM
  and civil protection agency
• Enhanced sharing of information on the available
  space-based products that support DM
• Increase capacity of developing countries in
  using space technologies for DM
• ? Findings and proposed actions as well as
  expected benefits were included in the Review of
  the implementation of the recommendations of the
  3rd UN Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful
  Uses of Outer Space (UNISPACE III) for the
  attention of the present UN General Assembly in
  NY and will be adopted following informal
  consultation between interested members.