- Active wildfire front detection from thermal infrared — Mid-wave and thermal infrared sensors detect actively burning fire fronts by measuring radiance that saturates standard land channels, enabling near-real-time alerts. Latency, resolution floors and cloud cover set hard limits on what any system can reliably report.
- Satellite-derived triggers for anticipatory humanitarian action — Anticipatory action frameworks release pre-positioned humanitarian funds before a disaster peaks, using objective satellite and model-derived triggers. This page explains the data inputs, trigger logic, and honest uncertainty limits that any government or humanitarian agency must understand before committing to the approach.
- Power-outage and blackout mapping with nighttime lights — VIIRS Day/Night Band radiance composites detect city-block-scale electricity loss at 500 m resolution by comparing pre- and post-disaster light fields. Cloud cover, moonlight and fire glow all confound the retrieval, and honest analysis accounts for each.
- Cyclone and tropical storm structural damage assessment — Post-cyclone structural damage assessment uses very-high-resolution optical imagery and SAR intensity change to grade buildings from destroyed to moderately damaged. Speed and cloud cover are the two variables that determine whether the map arrives in time to matter.
- Refugee and IDP camp growth monitoring from space — Very-high-resolution optical satellites can detect new shelters, access tracks, and latrine pits within days of their appearance, giving UNHCR and UNOSAT population proxies where ground access is denied or unsafe.
- Vegetation stress and drought severity for food-security early warning — Satellite vegetation indices detect agricultural drought stress two to six weeks before food insecurity becomes visible on the ground. This page explains the operational methods, honest resolution limits, and the workflows used by FEWS NET and WFP VAM.
- Earthquake building-damage proxies via SAR coherence loss — Interferometric SAR coherence drops sharply where structures have collapsed or shifted, giving emergency managers a damage proxy within hours of an earthquake. The signal is real but indirect: coherence loss is not a body count or a building count, and field validation remains essential.
- Earthquake surface deformation measurement with InSAR — Differential InSAR turns phase shifts between two SAR passes into centimetre-scale maps of coseismic ground displacement, revealing fault geometry and slip distribution within days of a major earthquake.
- Flood extent mapping with optical imagery — Multispectral satellites can delineate inundated surfaces within hours of a flood peak, but only when skies clear. This page explains the spectral physics, the indices, and the honest limits of optical flood mapping.
- Flood extent mapping with synthetic aperture radar — Synthetic aperture radar detects flooded land by the near-total absence of backscatter from smooth open water, day or night, through cloud. The method is fast and operationally proven, but flooded vegetation and wind chop introduce systematic errors that demand careful handling.
- International Charter Space and Major Disasters rapid-mapping workflow — The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters routes satellite tasking and derived maps to civil protection authorities within hours of activation. This page explains the mechanics: who triggers it, what data arrives, and where the workflow breaks down.
- Landslide mapping and post-event inventory from satellite — Fresh landslide scars have a distinct spectral signature that satellite sensors can detect within one to two days of an event. This page explains how optical change detection and SAR coherence loss combine to build event inventories that feed susceptibility models.
- Storm surge and coastal inundation extent from SAR — When a tropical cyclone makes landfall, optical sensors go blind and the surge boundary moves by the hour. X-band SAR from ICEYE and Capella Space cuts through cloud to deliver sub-metre flood extent within hours, though mangrove and salt-marsh returns demand careful interpretation.
- Volcanic ash cloud detection for aviation hazard — Volcanic ash plumes can destroy jet engines with no visible warning. Geostationary infrared sensors and hyperspectral sounders give aviation authorities the detection speed and chemical confirmation they need to close airspace before aircraft enter the cloud.
- Volcanic edifice deformation monitoring with InSAR — Time-series InSAR turns repeated C- and L-band radar passes into surface displacement maps that reveal magma intrusion, chamber volume change, and flank creep weeks to months before a volcanic crisis becomes visible.
- Post-wildfire burn scar extent and severity mapping — Burned area extent and fire severity are mapped from space using the differenced Normalised Burn Ratio, combining pre- and post-fire Sentinel-2 or Landsat imagery. Where smoke or cloud persists, SAR backscatter change from Sentinel-1 fills the gap.