Advances in Geosciences www.adv-geosci.net 1680-7340 1680-7359 14 2nd EGU Alexander von Humboldt Conference "The role of Geophysics in Natural Disaster Prevention" 2008 10.5194/adgeo-14-13-2008 http://www.adv-geosci.net/14/13/2008/ http://www.adv-geosci.net/14/13/2008/adgeo-14-13-2008.html http://www.adv-geosci.net/14/13/2008/adgeo-14-13-2008.pdf 13 20 2008-01-02 South American perspective of the International Charter "Space and Major Disasters" A. Mahmood ahmed.mahmood@space.gc.ca E. Cubero-Castan G. Platzeck J. Bequignon Satellite Operations, Canadian Space Agency, Saint-Hubert, Quebec, J3Y 8Y9, Canada Centre National d'Études Spatiales, Toulouse, France Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales, Buenos Aires, Argentina European Space Agency, Paris, France The International Charter "Space and Major Disasters" is about joint operations and tasking of imaging satellites and other space resources of the member space agencies and operators in the delivery of information products to assist in responding to disasters of natural and technological causes. Authorized Users, who are the civil protection, emergency response or similar organizations of a state that is member of the Charter, can request the data and products. A specialist, called the Project Manager (PM), manages the overall data acquisition and delivery process. Regional initiatives, as for the Latin American countries, are under way to involve PMs from non-member states to have access to satellite data and apply these to disaster coverage in their respective regions. Volcanic eruptions are typical examples of disasters that affect the Latin American countries. A few Charter activations on this disaster type are described to highlight the information products provided under the Charter. Bessis, J. L., Bequignon, J., and Mahmood, A.: The International Charter `Space and Major Disasters' initiative, Acta Astronaut., 53, 183–190, 2003. Graham, L. C.: Synthetic interferometric radar for topographic mapping, P. IEEE, 62, 713–720, 1974. Mahmood, A., Crawford, J. P., Michaud, R., and Jezek, K.: Mapping the world with remote sensing, EOS T. Am. Geophys. Un., 79, 21–23, 1998. Mahmood, A., Cubero-Castan, E., Bequignon, J., Lauritson, L., Soma, P., and Platzeck, G.: Disaster response in Africa by the International Charter, 5th African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment Conference, Nairobi, Kenya, 17–24 October 1998. Mahmood, A., Cubero-Castan, E., Bequignon, J., Lauritson, L., Soma, P., and Platzeck, G.: International Charter `Space and Major Disasters' Status Report, IGARSS 2005, Seoul, South Korea, 25–29 July 2005. Mahmood, A. and Giugni, L.-P.: Mapping recent lava flows with RADARSDAT-1 imagery, IEEE 2001 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Sydney, Australia, 9–13 July, p 3, 2001. Mahmood, A. and Giugni, L.-P.: RADARSAT-1 background mission coverage of the tropics, Asian Jour, Geoinformatics, 2, 79–83, 2002. Mahmood, A., van Der Kooik, M., and Giugni, L-P.: Crater serves as Terrestrial analog for Martian impact crater, EOS T. Am. Geophys. Un., 84, p 426, 2003. Zebker, H. A. and Goldstein, R. M.: Topographic mapping from interferometric synthetic aperture radar observations, Radio Sci., 23, 713–720, 1988.