Description
Project manager: Fabio Remondino
Host Organisation: Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK) Trento
Duration: 01-06-2013 to 31-05-2015
Total costs: 123,690.41 € PAT contribution: 122,960.00 €
Scientific or technological area: geomatics, geoinformatics, photogrammetry, webGIS
Project objectives:
In the event of natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, floods, volcanic eruptions, etc.) rapid and effective intervention is essential.
In particular, one of the most important is the rapid localisation of damaged areas in order to co-ordinate search and rescue activities.
The project aims to develop effective methodologies to obtain information on the areas affected by the disaster event as quickly as possible, using Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) technologies.
The extracted data are then made available to local administrations and rescue teams, who will be in charge of managing the emergency. The socio-economic impact of the project is high, as the effectiveness of the response to a disaster event saves lives and reduces damage to property and people.
From a technical/scientific point of view, the disciplines of Earth observation and monitoring are the main areas involved in the project. There are also interesting interdisciplinary aspects involving the IT, electronics and sensor sectors.
In the RS research area, algorithms were developed to extract information of interest from data acquired by sensors placed on satellite or airborne platforms.
From this background, the project has developed a new methodology that allows, in real time and in automatic mode, to exploit data of different origins, to operate even in the absence of pre-event information and to make the results immediately usable on PC/tablet.
Work organisation:
The working team consists of research institutes of excellence from different countries: Fondazione Bruno Kessler (Italy), Tokai and Nihon University (Japan), ETH (Switzerland), Leibniz University Hannover (Germany). By integrating the expertise gained over time by those involved, it was possible to exploit information from different sensors and placed on different platforms (satellites, aircraft and UAVs). By merging the various techniques, data on the damaged areas were finally made accessible on a WebGIS platform.
Results achieved:
The developed methodology was tested on three case studies: the area in Japan affected by the Tohoku tsunami in 2011 and the cities of San Felice (Emilia Romagna) and Aquila (Abruzzo) in Italy, affected by the destructive earthquakes of 2012 and 2009, respectively. Optical and SAR data acquired from satellites, images acquired from aircraft and UAVs, and vector maps were used and integrated. The main results obtained (orthophotos of the area and damage maps) are available online via WebGIS technology.
Impact:
The developed methodology can be applied to different scales and emergency scenarios. Due to the particular tectonic configuration of the Italian peninsula, there is a high risk of natural disasters, especially earthquakes. The project therefore has a very sensitive potential impact for the country, from the local to the national (and international) sphere.
Raising the awareness of public administrations and local communities is a desirable action to promote the results obtained and form a collective consciousness attentive to the problem.
Keywords:
real-time monitoring, natural disasters, damage identification, data fusion, WebGIS