Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
becoming an essential adjunct to sustainable development in the “Third World” (See
Table
11.1
).
In addition to the satellites launched by developing countries, data from numer-
ous other satellites, launched by the highly industrialized countries, have been
utilized specifically for public health, environmental impact and disaster man-
agement applications (Rochon et al.
2009
; Beck et al.
2000
). In particular, a
consortium of the major global owners of earth observing satellites have formed the
International Charter-“Space & Major Disasters,”
http://www.disastercharter.org
/,
a vehicle for rapid dissemination and free distribution to approved disaster man-
agers of near-real-time satellite data, in the event of a declared major biogenic or
anthropogenic disaster.
Since the inception of its first activation on February 2, 2002 through the January
13, 2010 activation for the Haitian earthquake, the Charter has been activated 222
times for a wide array of disasters, including flooding, earthquakes, landslides, hur-
ricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, typhoons, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, fires, oil spills,
oil slicks, snow disaster, a chemical tanker accident and a train wreck. To date, the
Charter has not been activated for famine, drought, an epidemic
or an
epizootic;
however, the potential for such activation still exists. The current member agencies
of the International Charter and their respective earth observing satellite assets are
listed in Table
11.2
.
A global surveillance program, in anticipation of a potentially pandemic
influenza outbreak, has been initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO)
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/pandemic/en
/, as well as early warning for
a wide range of other infectious diseases (i.e. WHO Global Alert and Response
(GAR)
http://www.who.int/csr/en
/). Similar initiatives are sponsored by the Centers
for Disease Control (CDC), (i.e. Early Warning Infectious Disease Surveillance
(EWIDS) Program
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/surveillance/ewids
/) and the Department
of Defense Global Emerging Infections System (Pavlin et al.
2003
). Methods
employed in surveillance programs, for example, as relates to avian influenza,
include combining ecological variables and in situ inspections with remote sensing
for monitoring migratory bird movements, as well as domestic poultry production
(Xiao et al.
2007
).
11.2 Geopositioning
The georeferencing of satellite data is propaedeutic to development of an effec-
tive spatial/temporal database, otherwise referred to as a Geographic Information
System (GIS). Such georeferencing enables the accurate fusion of multiple data
layers (e.g. elevation, soil type, landcover, landuse, health care facilities, population
density, specific disease prevalence/incidence, transportation routes, disaster vulner-
ability mapping, etc.). The early constellations of geo-positioning satellites included
Global'naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema
(GLONASS), launched by the
Soviet Union and currently maintained and enhanced by the Russian Federation,
and the Global Positioning System (GPS), launched by the USA.
