26-Jul-2019: China, Russia, France share satellite data on Assam floods

With Assam inundated by floods, several countries including China, Russia and France collaborated with India on sharing satellite images of the scale of inundation. As signatories to the "The International Charter Space and Major Disasters", any of the 32 member countries can send a ‘request’ to activate the Charter. This would immediately trigger a request by the coordinators to space agencies of other countries whose satellites have the best eyes on the site of the disaster.

Based on an activation request by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on July 17, France’s National Centre for Space Studies, China National Space Administration and ROSCOSMOS of Russia shared satellite images of the flood situation in the districts of Dhubri, Marigaon, Barpeta, Dhemaji, Lakhimpur in Assam with ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre. ISRO’s CARTOSAT satellites too got the Indian space agency its own images.

Combining earth observation assets from different space agencies allows resources and expertise to be coordinated for rapid response. This was a “standard practice” and in the past ISRO too had provided information to other space agencies in response to similar requests. In August 2014, for instance, ISRO’s CARTOSAT shared images after an activation request from China after an earthquake struck Yunan province and killed 398.

Since 2000, when the Charter came into operation there have been about 600 activations and data from 61 satellites have helped with disaster operations in 125 countries.

About: The Charter is a worldwide collaboration, through which satellite data are made available for the benefit of disaster management. By combining Earth observation assets from different space agencies, the Charter allows resources and expertise to be coordinated for rapid response to major disaster situations; thereby helping civil protection authorities and the international humanitarian community. This unique initiative is able to mobilise agencies around the world and benefit from their know-how and their satellites through a single access point that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and at no cost to the user.

In addition to the space agencies that form the Charter, national and regional disaster monitoring organisations also support the Charter's efforts as co-operating bodies. Members and co-operating bodies join an international initiative to provide support to those in need following major disasters, and benefit from the wide distribution of data that the Charter offers. Organisations that wish to co-operate with the Charter in this way must be approved by the Board, and may be granted exceptional requests for data from Charter satellites.

The satellite data obtained by the Charter offers invaluable aid to the end-users - typically disaster relief organisations. Following a successful activation of the Charter, they may receive satellite data of affected areas within a matter of hours or days; depending on the type of the disaster and available satellite resources. The data is delivered on an ongoing basis throughout the duration of the Charter activation and provides valuable information about a disaster that is not possible to obtain on the ground.