Space monitoring plays a crucial role in understanding, predicting, and responding to natural and human-made disasters.
Through continuous observation, satellites provide real-time or near-real-time data on weather patterns, land changes, ocean conditions, and atmospheric disturbances, enabling faster and more informed decision-making during emergencies.
This special focus publication delves into comprehensive strategies and solutions that protect our planet from above.
FloodPin: Safely navigating natural disasters from above
Space monitoring plays a vital role in flood management and response. Satellites equipped with radar and optical sensors can detect rainfall intensity, river levels, soil moisture, and changes in land cover. This information helps predict where and when floods may occur, enabling early warnings that save lives and property.
During floods, satellite imagery provides real-time data on the extent of inundation, guiding rescue and relief operations. Afterwards, it supports damage assessment and recovery planning.
RSS-Hydro’s FloodPin service does exactly this through AI, which provides real-time data and analysis to navigate disasters safely.
This can be combined with data from ground-based sensors – the “observation intelligence” that truly brings the system to life. This data can come from smart city infrastructure, such as water level sensors in storm drains, connected vehicles that can report when they hit a certain depth of water, and even citizen-provided information submitted through a dedicated app.
Using sophisticated models from weather and natural processes, FloodPin shows not only where flooding is happening now but also where it’s likely to happen based on various data streams. It analyses weather forecasts, the topography of the land, the capacity of storm drains, and the characteristics of water flow to model future flood scenarios.
This enables a level of proactive decision-making that was previously impossible.
By offering continuous, large-scale observations, space monitoring enhances preparedness, reduces risks, and improves resilience against one of the world’s most frequent natural disasters.
ESA’s Strategy 2040: Protecting our planet in an era of geopolitical instability
The European Space Agency’s Strategy 2040 is a blueprint for future activities and medium- to long-term priorities that will help to realise the European space agenda. The Strategy sets out goals for the next 15 years and is designed to reflect changes brought about by the increasingly turbulent geopolitical environment.
It is the longest vision set by ESA to date and follows Agenda 2025 – a set of five key priorities encompassing a plan for Europe to maintain and expand its excellence in space.
The priorities are to: Protect our Planet and Climate; Explore and Discover; Strengthen European Autonomy and Resilience; Boost European Growth and Competitiveness; and Inspire Europe.
Part of the short-term goals for this strategy is the European Resilience from Space programme, which develops state-of-the-art solutions for predictions and management of disasters and emergencies.
This is critical to ensure the planet remains a safe place to inhabit. We need eyes from the sky to inform us about ongoing movements, and we cannot wait for a satellite to move until certain conditions are met. We need to adjust the orbit slightly to enable constant monitoring. We need to communicate information live to our citizens and to security personnel so they can receive support.
