Insights and Opportunities in NASA's Disasters' Program

Francis Lindsay, Ph.D.,Applications Program Manager for DisastersNASA Headquarters

Start @ the End

• The MFAQ for speakers at Federation meeting is:

- What is the role of the Federation, what can the Federation (members) do?

• The premise of this talk is to spur the reaction of and interaction with the Federation and members who may be well placed to act on opportunities from NASA's ASP.

• My presentation focuses on NASA's ASP and our work in natural and human-induced disasters.

Hurricane Carla

‣ Hurricane Carla was one of two Category 5 tropical cyclones during the 1961 Atlantic hurricane season. It struck the Texas coast as a Category 4 hurricane, becoming one of the most powerful storms to ever strike the United States.

‣ Hurricane Carla was the second most intense storm to ever strike the Texas coast.

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NASA’s Applied Sciences Program

‣ The Applied Sciences (AS) Program promotes efforts to discover and demonstrate innovative and practical uses of Earth observations.

‣ The AS Program is our first responder in the identification and coordination of NASA assets for disaster reduction and mitigation.

‣ The Program funds applied science research and applications projects that;

- enable beneficial near-term uses of Earth observations,

- integrate Earth observations and related products in end-users’ decision-making applications,

- aid in developing new applications. ‣ AS projects are carried out in partnership with public and private

organizations to achieve sustained use and sustained benefits from the Earth observations.

‣ NASA science and research is globally focused so AS seeks global solutions to disaster prediction, mitigation and response.

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Grand Challenges for Disaster Reduction

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Sustainability (CENRS) Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction (SDR). NASA activities focus on the first four national challenges:

Provide hazard and disaster information where and when it is needed

Understand the natural processes that produce hazards

Develop hazard mitigation strategies and technologies

Recognize and reduce vulnerability of interdependent critical infrastructure

Assess disaster resilience using standard methods

Promote risk-wise behavior

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NASA Research vrs. Operations

‣ NASA is a research agency, but in the event of a disaster NASA applies all available assets:

- satellite data and data products, near real time and specialty products

- domain specific scientific expertise

- airborne assets such as UAVSAR‣ There is an overlap between disaster response and science

research and analysis

- When an event occurs there is an immediate need for information for disaster response

‣ Transferring application research results to end-users:

- requires existing partnerships and collaborations

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Disaster Areas of Focus

‣ AS research and application developments include: - Hurricanes, in collaboration with NASA’s hurricane science

program

- Flooding, e.g., major events such as Mississippi River, Pakistan, Thailand

- Levee stability (California and Mississippi)

- Geohazards, earthquakes (e.g., Tohoku-Oki and Christchurch), volcanoes, landslides and tsunamis

- Wild-land fires (California and Texas)

- Technological disasters (Deepwater Horizon oil spill)

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Examples of ASP Disaster Activities

Jedlovec, Gary J., Udaysankar Nair, Stephanie L. Haines, 2006: Detection of Storm Damage Tracks with EOS Data. Wea. Forecasting, 21, 249–267.

Tuscaloosa–Birmingham Tornadoes Event May 2011

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- “A major tornado outbreak of historic proportions impacted portions of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia on Wednesday. More than 150 reports of tornadoes were received on Wednesday...”

- Based on techniques of G. Jedlovec (2006), NWS forecasters used MODIS color composites to evaluate tornado damage tracks

- Guide NWS forecasters to remote locations to conduct post-tornado surveys and analysis

- Correlate damage locations with Doppler radar rotational signatures

- Used high resolution 15m ASTER data for better visual assessment of damage

Birmingham

Tuscaloosa

NASA-MODIS Rapid Response Record of 2011 Flooding in Thailand

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- Severe flooding occurred during the 2011 monsoon season in Thailand. Beginning at the end of July triggered by the landfall of Tropical Storm Nock-ten.

- The World Bank's estimate for this disaster means it ranks as the world's fourth costliest disaster as of 2011

- Composites of multiple MODIS acquisitions (Terra and Aqua) used as the basis of flood extent maps for the 2011 Thailand flood.

- Flood team at GSFC developed an automated system for gathering satellite data, performing geolocation and running a water detection algorithm to create final flood map products.

Global Flood Potential Model – based TRMM and other satellites -Adler Univ. of Md

Daily MODIS Flood Map- Brackenridge, Dartmouth Flood Observatory

Envisat Flood Map- Kussul, Skakun, National Space Agency of Ukraine

Multi-sensor campaign manager -GSFC et al

High resolution optical

MODIS Global Water Mask

Univ. of Md –Sohlberg

High resolution SAR such as TerraSAR

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Flood Sensor Web Product Service Chain

ASTER Images of Tsunami Impact: Rikuzentakata, Japan

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March 2007 March 2011

NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert and Jesse Allen, using data from the GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.

• When a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off the northeast coast of Japan and triggered a tsunami in March 2011, one of the hardest hit areas was the city of Rikuzentakata. At the end of a narrow inlet, the city of roughly 8,000 households lost 75 percent of its homes.

• ASTER on NASA’s Terra satellite observed dramatic changes at Rikuzentakata using multi-spectral; imagery to assess damage.

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Satellites: monitored the extent of the spill daily-Terra & Aqua / MODIS – visible and infrared daily synoptic-Terra / ASTER – visible, near IR and thermal IR high res-EO-1 / Advanced Land Imager and Hyperion – highest res-Terra / MISR and CALIPSO / CALIOP

Airborne sensors: Measured spill extent and oil volume -ER2 / AVIRIS and DCS: 18 sorties, >120 flight hours-Twin Otter / AVIRIS: 32 sorties, 107 flight hours-B200 / HSRL: 5 sorties, 16 flight hours-UAVSAR: 22-24 June, 4 sorties, 21 flight hours

Data provided for use by first responders; NOAA used radiances to initialize trajectory model; USGS used data to detect oil concentrations

ER-2 Flights

Visible/IR false color

NASA Response to Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

MODIS Visible 29 April 2010

ASTER 24 May 2010

MODIS Infrared 29 April 2010

OK, so what is this opportunity?

The Details

‣ NASA wishes to work with the ESIP community to improve the Agency's response and effectiveness of disaster management.

‣ This is no unfunded mandate. The Disasters Program has resources to enable interested members in the development of novel data and technology solutions to disasters efforts.

‣ NASA is working with the ESIP Board to develop the methods and processes for enabling this funding.

‣ It is likely that these funds would be competed largely (maybe entirely) within the ESIP community.

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More Details

‣ The scope of interest for NASA include the following factors:

- Projects that help us connect NASA data, information and services to end user communities

- Focused and targeted to specific communities

- Development of novel products from NASA voluminous data store

- Help enable communities understanding of and access to information pertinent to disasters

- Leverage/collaborate with disaster projects already funded

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Earth Science Missionsto Come...

ERM

Ideas, thoughts, questions?