Five Years of International Charter on Space and Major Disasters

The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters has completed five years of successful operation worldwide. To mark the occasion, a special session of the charter was organised by ISRO during October 4-5, 2005 at Bangalore. It was followed by the Executive Secretariat and Board meetings on October 6 and 7, 2005.

The Charter is a cooperation initiative created between the European Space Agency (ESA), the National Centre for Space Studies of France (CNES) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Later, many other space agencies including ISRO joined the charter and committed their space resources to respond to natural and technological disasters in terms of Earth Observation enabled products to civil defence agencies. The Charter aims to provide easy access to value added earth observation satellite data from all parties to countries affected by a natural or technological disaster.

Since November 2000, the Charter has been activated for more than 80 times to assist on mergencies such as floods, fires, landslides, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, oil spills, tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes and civil accidents which occurred all over the globe. With a low response time of 38 to 48 hours and by facilitating high quality data, the Charter has time and again reconfirmed the effectiveness of space information for emergency management.

Mr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO (sixth from left) and other dignitaries on the dais.

The Charter on Space and Major Disasters was outlined by its founding members on the occasion of the Third United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space held in Vienna, in 1999. Recently, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the British National Space Centre (BNSC), incorporated their valuable and diverse capabilities and technical resources.
In 2004, through its Office for Outer Space Affairs, the United Nations became a cooperating body enhancing the promotion of the Charter as a gateway for United Nations agencies responding to natural disasters and emergencies.

As an example of its impact, during December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand, no less than 200 passive (electro-optical) and active (Synthetic Aperture Radar) sensor images acquired from satellites owned or operated by the Charter members were processed. Subsequently, an equally large number of image products were delivered in the field.
The Charter also provided space based information on the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, when levees were breached and floodwaters submerged the city of New Orleans in August 2005.

The special session, organised by ISRO to mark the fifth anniversary, was presided over by
Mr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO. Mr Jean-Luc Bessis of CNES delivered the keynote address on Disaster Management. Charter functionaries from CNES, CONAE (Argentina), CSA, ESA, ISRO, JAXA (Japan), NOAA and USGS (of USA) participated in the proceedings. Representatives from UN were also present. During the event, functionaries assessed the impact of the Charter and its performance, reviewed the real capabilities of Remote Sensing for Disaster Management with feedback from real disasters during this period including the response of the Charter to recent Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina disasters. Besides, operational aspects such as lessons learnt, effectiveness and improvements were also reviewed thus aiming to establish future directions for the Charter.

Imagery from Resourcesat-1 showing damage to Trinkat island (of Nicobar chain of islands) caused by December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami