Typhoon Haiyan, locally known as Super Typhoon Yolanda, left
the Philippines in a national state of calamity with at least 2 million
families in 44 provinces gravely affected, according to the National Disaster
Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).
The world has united to help victims of the
disaster wrought by one of the strongest storms ever recorded. Various relief
efforts are helping to alleviate the dire situation. But long-term strategies
involving strategic mapping of urban and rural developments are needed more
than ever. Learning where and how to adapt to future storms, including surges, in
order to minimize the impact of such weather disturbances is key to
rebuilding lives, property and infrastructure in the damaged areas.
The numbers reported from the ground up are staggering.
Resources depicting the aftermath of the storm surge abound in social media,
taken and uploaded by witnesses and survivors in the provinces of Cebu Island,
Eastern Samar, Northern Samar, Western Samar, Southern Leyte, Leyte, and
Biliran, among others.
A resource is needed that will enable disaster and emergency
team responders, relief operation trackers and infrastructure planners to see
the extent of damage caused by Yolanda in up-to-date satellite imagery with
photos before and after the storm.
RASA Surveying Land Survey Consultants, a DigitalGlobe reseller in the Philippines,
supports the campaign to make professional satellite imaging
available to the Philippine government and the
general public to assist in rebuilding efforts. DigitalGlobe, a satellite
imagery provider and operator of the largest space satellite constellation in
the world responded to the call to help the Philippines under Operation Damayan
by establishing special accounts on its cloud services platform that will let
the public get temporary access to Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)-related
imagery.
The DigitalGlobe facility has been made available
to the government for the time
being to enable it to respond to emergency measures better, faster.
DigitalGlobe has established special accounts on its cloud services platform to
enable Government to make quick emergency responses on the ground where needed
most. This effort also helps local government units (LGUs) of affected areas to
establish technical reports so relief operations can be delivered more
effectively and recovery solutions implemented ASAP.
DigitalGlobe satellite imagery that translates to images
with resolution of 0.5m GSD (ground sampling distance) is the most accurate.
For every pixel in the image, one can see anything bigger than half a meter on
the ground;’ for example, cars, houses, large trees, roads and bridges.
Planning and reconstruction engineers may then assess actual damages and categorize them into lightly damaged,
severely damaged or totally damaged houses, buildings and other structures.
This would hasten the process of balanced relief operations and implementation
of reconstruction efforts.
Currently, the public can also access data
published at DigitalGlobe.com for free. Satellite imagery for Leyte Island,
parts of Samar island, Northern Cebu, including Bantayan Island, Roxas City and
Coron, Palawan can be accessed at www.digitalglobe.com/super-typhoon-haiyan.
Fresh imagery before and after Super Typhoon Yolanda is made possible by
DigitalGlobe’s constellation of satellites’ daily collection of data. Project
Noah, Google Earth,
NAMRIA and DOST are among the private and government agencies that use
DigitalGlobe images for their application.
Now that electricity and communication lines
are not yet fully operational, LGUs can rely on DigitalGlobe for images that will help them
assess the extent and cost of damages, identify areas for relocation, areas
that should not have structures, etc. Private citizens may also use
DigitalGlobe in support of their insurance claims to
prove that their houses or buildings have been damaged.
More
information is available at www.rasasurvey.com.
**Press release from DigitalGlobe