Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 6 (2017) 25–38

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Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rsase

Remote Sensing, natural hazards and the contribution of ESA Sentinels MARK
missions
⁎
Dimitris Poursanidis , Nektarios Chrysoulakis
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics, N. Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton, 70013
Heraklion, Greece

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: Natural hazards are phenomena with a large spatial dimension and impact. Their mapping and monitoring can
Natural hazards be recorded only by using satellite remote image platforms. The range of the natural hazards and the way the
Remote Sensing latter affect the natural and manmade environments make the selection of the appropriate data types and
Sentinels mission analyses a challenging mission. Therefore, it is important that we understand the effects of each phenomenon as
well as the potential relations between them, both in the temporal and spatial dimension. Furthermore, we take
into account the availability and cost of the data in order to proceed to the selection of the appropriate data type
and analysis as well as the potential of ESA's Sentinel missions. All in all, this paper aims at examining the
recent technological developments ever since the advent of Remote Sensing via a variety of platforms and the
latter's application for a better planning and confrontation of the natural hazards. Those which are of global
interest and which occur more frequently during the last decades as a result of climate change are wild fires,
flash floods in the urban and rural environments, landslides, tsunamis and soil erosion. Last but not least, the
occurrence of volcanic activity, especially those in close proximity to urban areas, and heatwaves in the urban
environment, are also mentioned.

1. Introduction
Natural disasters and hazards whether triggered by natural or human
factors, have become an issue of growing concern (Seneviratne et al.,
2012; Prevention Web, 2015). UNDRO in 1991 (UNDRO, 1991) stated
that population growth and land degradation are interrelated issues and
as a consequence, more problems have arisen due to the uncontrollable
expansion of housing in natural areas and high density unplanned urban
sprawl. According to the recent annual review by the UNISDR (UNISDR,
2015), 87% of the disasters are driven by the negative effects of climatic
change in tandem with the degradation of natural resources. Both the
frequency and magnitude of the disasters have posed a threat on the
natural environment and its elements (biodiversity and its services) as
well as the populations which live in diverse environments and especially
those how are closer to urban and periurban – rural areas. Natural
disasters like floods, drought and fire, landslides and desertification
accompanied with soil erosion are highly related to human intervention.
On the other hand, heatwaves, cyclones and tsunamis are phenomena
driven by the climatic changes while volcanic explosions and earth-
quakes are purely natural phenomena. Deforestation for trade purposes
or for unsustainable urban sprawl as well as other land cover alterations
in the upstream parts of the catchments of the rivers change their
hydrological regimes. Wildfires can, also, cause deforestation and may
even result in massive destruction of properties and cultivations in rural
areas. Deforested areas are susceptible to desertification due to bare land
cover and intensive exploitation of the forthcoming new vegetation from
pastoral activities if no management plans are applied in the areas. The
above practices are responsible for landslides and flash floods down-
stream during the wet periods, with inconceivable ramifications to the
urban environments. The most severe are socioeconomic impacts,
including loss of human lives, health and quality of life degradation,
loss of private and public property and a dramatic plunge in economic
activities. The fact that the population density has increased is impor-
tant. New settlements are gradually expanding in nearby problematic
zones like areas along the river flood plains, marginal arid areas, and
steep slopes susceptible to landslides as well as to newly establish
volcanic eruptions. Moreover, urban areas attract more people to live
and work. The fast growing urban sprawl in tandem with a total lack in
mitigation measures which will secure the quality of city life can become
fatal when extreme temperatures occur for extended periods. This
ultimately results in massive heatwaves which cause even deaths.
The majority of the disasters are tackled as sudden emergency

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: dpoursanidis@iacm.forth.gr (D. Poursanidis).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2017.02.001
Received 9 February 2016; Received in revised form 18 September 2016; Accepted 21 February 2017
Available online 01 March 2017
2352-9385/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
D. Poursanidis, N. Chrysoulakis
situations due to the total lack in emergency plans and risk maps in the
areas, the underestimation of the hazard as well as the unusual and
extreme conditions of the natural phenomena. The use of remote
sensing when dealing with such natural disasters is a common practice
nowadays (Li and Liu, 2006, Voigt et al., 2007, Joyce et al., 2009, Joyce
et al., 2014, Plank, 2014). It is the only means that can provide large
scale datasets for the support of the planning phase (Neuvel and den
Brink, 2009) and the risk assessment. Also, the datasets can be used for
the evaluation of the post and after phase of a disaster, the spatial
mapping in the aftermath of it as well as the support of the restoration
and the evaluation of the economic impact. Remote sensing has
increased its common use due to the growing interest in environmental
issues as well as advances in geospatial technologies and the ability to
provide the public with near real time imagery and information
through different means, like the media and the web. At this point
we shall discuss the approaches on the mapping and monitoring of a
number of natural disasters like wildfires, floods, heatwaves and
geological hazards (landslides, tsunamis and erosions) as well as the
potential chain reaction between them. Optical Remote Sensing data
from MODIS, Landsat, Aster, SPOT, IKONOS, WorldView and other
satellite sensors producing imageries in a variety of spatial and
temporal resolution have been extensively used for the identification
of the hazards and the delineation of the boundaries of the affected
areas as well as to support the restoration phase. When the weather
conditions prevent the optical satellites from collecting data, the use of
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites (Joyce, 2014, Plank, 2014) is
the only option for the accurate and fast identification of the impacted
areas. Radar satellites are operational over areas covered in clouds, in
cases of floods, or smoke coverage due to wildfires as well as during the
night as it uses microwave pulses in different wavebands for the
collection of the information (Richards, 2009). Both optical and SAR
data types can be collected by using airborne platforms (airplanes,
UAVs) but the use of satellite collected data are much preferable due to
the satellite's extensive coverage and cost-affordability in collecting
data as opposed to the airborne platforms.
In the next sections we will provide information on the wildfires,
floods and the so-called geological hazards, the heatwaves in the urban
environment: the latter are for the first time mentioned in such a
review was well as the contribution of the new Sentinel missions from
the European Space Agency (ESA).
2. Wildfires
Even if a wildfire is a natural phenomenon which occurs in areas of
combustible vegetation evident in forested-vegetated areas out in
wilderness areas or in nearby cities and settlements, it is considered
one of the most severe natural risks globally. South Europe, North
America, Central Asia and Australia are the main areas on the planet
that are annually affected with a number of variations during the fire
seasons (IUCN, 2000) This natural risk is a permanent threat for the
natural resources with paramount ecological, economic and social
ramifications, including the loss of lives and goods, damages to wildlife
habitats, soil erosion and degradation of the watersheds. During the
last decade the frequency, size and intensity of the fires in forests and
forested areas has greatly increased (Jolly et al., 2015) as a result of
global warming and degradation of natural resources because of man's
insatiable thirst for material possession. The quantification of the
wildfire impact involves the delineation of the extend of the burnt area
as well as the identification of the burn severity and the unburnt areas,
the vegetated islets within the impacted area. The monitoring of the
vegetation regeneration is crucial as is the cause of fire detection in the
early stages, the forest fuel mapping prior to the fire in order to be used
in fire modeling tools for early warning and planning as well as the
monitoring of the vegetated habitats near the cityscapes.
Among the available satellite sources for wildfire scar mapping,
optical data from MODIS (Kaufman et al., 1998; Justice et al., 2002,
26
Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 6 (2017) 25–38
2011; Giglio et al., 2003; Roy et al., 2008), Landsat missions (TM, ETM
+, OLI) (Tucker et al., 2004, Potapov et al., 2015), Aster (Schroeder
et al., 2008), SPOT (Silva et al., 2005; Gouveia et al., 2010) and
IKONOS (Mitri and Gitas, 2008) and WorldView II (Zhuoting et al.,
2015) are among the most commonly used satellite images. In
addition, SAR radar data from ALOS PALSAR, Radarsat-2, ERS-2,
Envisat ASAR, COSMO-SkyMed and TerraSAR – X have been used for
wildfire mapping (Bourgeau et al. 2002; Goodenough et al., 2011a,
2011b; Tanase et al., 2010, 2011; Mari et al., 2012; Avezzano et al.,
2014).
The synergy between optical satellite sensor data like the MODIS –
Landsat synergy (Boschetti et al., 2015 and references cited in) is a
novelty in order to increase the accuracy of the fire mapping or for the
validation of the products of the lower resolution imageries with higher
ones. This will become efficient after the availability of the Sentinel 2
constellation (2 satellites – 2A and 2B – on orbit) with a higher revisit
time of 5 days during the phase of the constellation and with a spatial
analysis of 10 m in the visible spectrum.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is a
multidisciplinary instrument, designed to measure physical and biolo-
gical processes around the globe with a daily or every two days revision
time. It acquires data in 36 bands from the visible to the thermal
infrared spectrum with a spatial resolution from 250 m to 1 km, and
has been designed for a life span of 6 years. Two satellites from NASA,
Terra and Aqua, carry MODIS instruments. Each one passes from the
same location at different times during the day and, thus, it captures 2
images per day from the same location. It is used operationally by the
Earth Observing System Data and Information System of NASA
(NASA, 2015a) as well as by the European Forest Fire Information
System, EFFIS (Ayanz et al., 2012). EFFIS has been established by the
Joint Research Centre (JRC) in order to support services in charge of
the protection of forests against fires in the EU as well as to provide the
EC services and the European Parliament with information on forest
fires in Europe. EFFIS addresses forest fires in Europe in a compre-
hensive way, providing EU level assessments from pre-fire to post-fire
phases, thus supporting fire prevention, preparedness, firefighting and
post-fire evaluations. For the fire detection, MODIS has a product,
MOD 14 (Justice et al., 2011) through which thermal anomalies are
detected. These are mainly due to Fires and Biomass burning and in
this way the burnet areas can be mapped. MOD14 has a spatial
resolution of 1 km which is insufficient to detect and map small fire
cases, for example, in cases of fires near or in rural areas. In addition it
seems unable to identify unburnt islets within the delineated polygon of
the fire (Sparks et al., 2015). However, a great advantage is its very
high revisit time. The Aqua MODIS instrument acquires data two times
per day, the same as Terra MODIS. Consequently, four daily MODIS
fire observations are available for the accurate detection of a fire case as
well as for the monitoring of the fire front in cases of large-scale fires.
Landsat is the longest running program for the acquisition of satellite
imagery on Earth. It was launched back in 1972 and now it is up with the
Landsat OLI/TIRS or Landsat 8, named as the Landsat Continuity
Mission (Roy et al., 2014) and the continuation of the Landsat mission
has been secured after the planning for the Landsat 9 which will be in
orbit in 2023 (NASA, 2015b). Landsat data have a nominal resolution of
30 m, 11 bands (depending of the mission) and a revisit time of 16 days.
Over the course of wildfires, Landsat imagery is widely used for the
assessment of the wildfire impact (Chuvieco and Congalton, 1988, Haro
et al., 2001, Veraverbeke et al., 2010, Bastarrika et al., 2011), the
vegetation regeneration (Cohen et al., 2010; Veraverbeke et al., 2011) as
well as for registering historical fires (Huang et al., 2010, Goodwin et al.,
2014, Chen et al., 2014, Potapov et al., 2015) since the archive stores
images back to the 1970s’. The high revisit time, high resolution and the
above archive when compared to competitors like ASTER or previous
Landsat sensors (Poursanidis et al., 2015), make the choice and use of
the Landsat archive a unique means of wildfire mapping and the its
impacts on a local scale as well as for the analysis of time series.
D. Poursanidis, N. Chrysoulakis
The use of ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and
Reflection Radiometer) satellite sensor data, even if it is equipped with
better spatial resolution in the visible and NIR (15 m) sensor, has
limited uses (Petropoulos et al., 2010, Lasaponara and Lanorte, 2007b)
due to its limited design to store images inn a systematic manner as the
user has to apply for any image acquisition on a specific day and time.
In periodical times, ASTER imageries are archived and, under certain
circumstances, suitable images for the needed periods can be found.
MODIS, LANDSAT and ASTER satellite images are freely available
for use from the scientific community as well as from the industry
through their dedicated distribution portals. This makes them suitable
for use in an operational way in order to monitor wildfires with the
MODIS daily or every 16 days or whenever the atmospheric conditions
are suitable for LANDSAT and ASTER uses. Yet, there is still a gap for
additional data in these resolutions and at no cost.
The SPOT (Satellite Probatoire d’Observation de la Terre) satellite
program is a mission of Earth Observation satellites by the French
Centre National d’ Etudes Spatiales (CNES). Seven SPOT satellites have
been launched since 1986. SPOT 1–4 has a 10 m spatial resolution in
the panchromatic and 20 m in the multispectral channels. SPOT 5 has
2.5 m spatial resolution in the panchromatic and 10 m in the multi-
spectral channels while SPOT 6 & 7 have a 1.5 m spatial resolution in
both the panchromatic and multispectral channels. The existence of
this constellation and the capability to capture images off-nadir,
something that LANDSAT cannot, reduces significantly the revisit time
of any geographic area. Thus, it is possible to have coverage of the same
location on a daily basis. The use of SPOT satellite images is limited
during wildfires due to the commercial operation of the satellites as
well as to the small size of a standard scene (60×60 km) in comparison
to the standard LANDSAT scene (170×185 km). Nevertheless, SPOT
images have been used for the assessment of burn severity as well as
the post-fire recovery of the vegetation in burnt areas (Fox et al., 2008;
Sankey et al., 2008). The subsidization of the SPOT imageries is noted
in the above-mentioned works since their cost in a multi-temporal or
operational base is very high.
The same is applied to Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite images
like IKONOS, QUICKBIRD, WorldView (II, III) and others. They have
a high spatial resolution ( < 2 m) in both the panchromatic and
multispectral channel, they can achieve off-nadir image acquisition
but the high cost is a limiting factor when used in an operational base.
Few works (Dragozi et al., 2014a, 2014b; Zhuoting et al., 2015) have
used such high resolution imageries for mapping such wildfires in
comparison to the MODIS or LANDSAT imageries. VHR images are
often used for mapping fuel types and the amount and type of
vegetation which is a contributory factor to the extent of such fires
(Dragozi et al., 2014a, 2014b; Giakoumakis et al., 2002; Lasaponara
and Lanorte, 2007a; Lanorte and Lasaponara, 2011; Mallinis et al.,
2014). Fuel types don’t change very often, but usually only after fire
cases, and it is a necessary component for the pre-fire design. It is one
of the mandatory dataset for use since inputs in fire models to simulate
the behavior of a fire in an area and, thus, it can support decisions for
planning the elimination of a fire.
After the fire, a request from the authorities is to map the affected
areas and to provide them with a map showing the burnt area. This is
the means for evaluating the impact on the environment and the
society, and this will set the basis for taking measures to regenerate the
area and other such alleviating actions. Several approaches have been
tested during the last decades for the accurate mapping of the burnt
areas. Supervised image classification techniques with advanced algo-
rithms (Mallinis et al., 2014; Koutsias and Karteris, 2000; Bastarrika
et al., 2011) on the known burnt and unburnt areas, fusion techniques
(Boschetti et al., 2015) for the improvement of the products and index
calculation for the detection of burnt areas (Cocke et al., 2005) are
among the most frequent techniques used.
The use of supervised classification for the delineation of the burnt
areas by using Landsat imageries or other medium to high resolution
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Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 6 (2017) 25–38
imageries as well as for the identification of the unburnt islets is
standard approach. Nowadays advanced machine learning algorithms
have been used in order to achieve the optimum results. Over the last
decade, the Support Vector Machine algorithm [58, 59] has been
extensively used for mapping burned area. This is because of the
limited training data needed for the training of the algorithm as well as
for its high accuracy in the results. Highly accurate results have been
extracted by analyzing Landsat TM data (Petropoulos et al., 2011,
2012, Ajeng et al., 2011), SPOT-5 (Zammit et al., 2006) and ASTER
(Petropoulos et al., 2010). Fuzzy logic algorithm on object oriented
classification via high resolution IKONOS imagery or WorldView II also
provide very accurate results (Mitri and Gitas, 2008, Zhuoting et al.,
2015).
Apart from using classification algorithms, indicators for burnt and
unburnt areas have been developed and are widely used. The
Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and the differenced Normalized Burn
Ratio (dNBR) are two indices which have been widely used for mapping
burned areas as well as defining burnt severity (Van Wagtendonk et al.,
2004). Both burn severity indices usually refer to the Bands 4 (NIR)
and 7 (MIR) of Landsat 5 TM and 7 ETM, from which they have been
developed [66]. Even if the development and application of the indices
have been designed for Landsat imageries, these are used for and
applied on other sensors (Cocke et al., 2005; Stow et al., 2007)
successfully.
ESA's Sentinels missions on Sentinel 1 (radar with 10 m spatial
resolution and a revision time of 5 days in constellation mode),
Sentinel 2 (optical with 10 m spatial resolution and a revision time of
5 days in constellation mode) and Sentinel 3 (optical with 1 km spatial
resolution and 2 optimized bands dedicated for fire monitoring) will
become the ultimate tools for the fire monitoring even under difficult
weather conditions (cloud – smoke cover) due to the ability of radar
system to penetrate the clouds. Also, after the fires, the use of Sentinels
will support mitigation measures for the mapping of the burned areas
and the analysis of the soil conditions.
3. Floods
Wildfires have severe effects on the hydrological response in the
level of the catchment basin. Apart from loss of vegetation, wildfires
also induce alteration on the physicochemical properties of the soil
(Neary et al., 1999; Doerr et al., 2000). Over the last decade there is an
increasing frequency of high-intensity fires, occurring repetitively and
this results in the area been overgrazing due to intensive pastoral
activities and land abuse (Vafeidis et al., 2007). The changes in soil
properties caused by the fire have a great impact on the water
repellency and subsequently on land degradation, flood and soil
erosion (DeBano, 2000a; Naama et al., 2013). These are post-fire
hazards, which cause extensive damage to public and private proper-
ties, urban infrastructures like water supplies, and thus have a great
impact on the local economy (Jeyaseelan et al., 2003). It is important to
have a fast and accurate analysis for the evaluation of the post-fire
conditions (burn severity, vegetation loss) in order to make efficient
plans for the prevention of soil erosion due to rainfall and hence, make
appropriate plans for the prevention of flash floods or their confronta-
tion with local constructions at areas susceptible to flash floods (close
to river beds, river mouths, etc.). So far, post-fire erosion assessment
has been done based on field measurements and simulations. Remote
Sensing has an important role during the pre-flood phase, as burnt
areas are sensitive to flash floods during winter or during other wet
periods like the monsoons (Papathanasiou et al., 2012, 2013; Franci
et al., 2014; Miller et al., 2015). The use of Remote Sensing during the
modeling of floods in the level of catchment basin or in the urban
environment is also important in order to help the preparation of
baseline data like the buildings in three-dimension, road network, etc,
(Poli et al., 2012) to simulate fire cases by applying fire model
algorithms, and to monitor the changes of the floods after a fire.
D. Poursanidis, N. Chrysoulakis
Coastal floods, is another type of flood caused due to tsunamis
(Suppasri et al., 2012) or intense winds from off-shore storms.
Before the flood case, it is important to delineate a flood modeling
scenario in the area in order to identify flood boundaries, in the areas
which are sensitive flash floods due to heavy rain/fast snowmelt and
tsunamis or intense winds on the coastal zone (Jeyaseelan et al., 2003).
Remote Sensing can support these actions by analyzing high resolution
imageries and extract high resolution surfaces sensitive to flood during
the dry period. These can be used as inputs to hydrological and
hydraulic models (Schumann et al., 2007) for the rural and urban area
respectively while the outputs of the models will be the areas which will
be flooded (flood depth) during a certain amount of rainfall as well as
the inundation level based on scenarios of the amount of rain / water
that will cover the surfaces (Khan et al., 2011). Also, such modeling can
provide vital information on areas that act as flood shelters (Uddin
et al., 2013) as these will become the lifejackets for citizens during the
flood and establish an early warning system for immediate area
evacuation due to a forthcoming flood disaster. During the flood, and
in order to identify the flooded plains close to real time, optical remote
sensing has limited usefulness due to heavy and intensive rainfall and
rapid snowmelt, because of the cloud coverage of the area and the
incapability of the optics to penetrate the clouds and identify the
flooded areas. Only in the case of coastal floods due to tsunamis can
optical remote sensing contribute to a near real time assessment of the
flooded areas and, thus, support a rescue plan for citizens, measure-
ments on the disaster and recover of the damaged areas (Roemer et al.,
2010; Villa et al., 2012). In order to overcome the limitations of
cloudiness and provided there is no other option, multitemporal
analysis of freely available images, like Landsat or MODIS (Aduah
et al., 2007; Haq et al., 2012; Ticehurst et al., 2015) could potentially
catch weather windows (cloud free areas) over the flooded areas and
thus identifying them.
The ideal solution for mapping flooded areas during their develop-
ment is the use of radar data (SAR). SAR imagery has the capacity to
penetrate clouds by using microwaves (de Groeve, 2010) as well as to
be insensitive to lighting variations; the backscatter signature of water
is distinctive compared to other surrounding elements like vegetation
(Joyce et al., 2009). The multitemporal availability of data, before
(baseline data on dry conditions) and during – after the flood is
deemed important in order to identify the flooded areas and calculate
inundation levels. By implementing spatial analysis on the different
imageries, flooded areas can be identified. Thus, damage assessment on
properties can be easily implemented (Roemer et al., 2010).
Assessment of flooded areas can be done by high resolution optical
data, when we have cloud free imageries, and by using SAR data in
case that heavy cloudiness insists for days (Joyce et al., 2009). Freely
available medium resolution satellite images like Landsat (30 m.
spatial resolution) have been extensively used for mapping flooded
areas both natural and urban, based either on a hard classification
approach, or on threshold values of calculated indices like NDVI,
NDWI, etc. (Mayer et al., 2002; Volpi et al., 2013; Schnebele et al.,
2013). Higher resolution imageries like IKONOS, QuickBird and
WorldView II have been also used for the same reasons as well as
for the assessing the economic impact on society (Jong et al., 2005;
Roemer et al., 2010, 2012; McLaren et al., 2012). The use of high
spatial resolution multi-date optical imageries is also recommended
for damage assessment. The final decision on the selection of the
appropriate means (data type, processing method) depends on the
expert's availability, data availability and amount of funding. The
existence of baseline data, which is frequently updated, is important
so that we establish a dataset of the after-the-disaster phase, and thus
make an appropriate analysis. Such an approach can reduce the costs
of high resolution multitemporal imageries of SAR and make them
affordable to be used. Lastly, all above-mentioned features on flood
modeling and mapping are requirements of the EU Flood Directive
(Tambuyzer et al., 2010).
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Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 6 (2017) 25–38
ESA's Sentinels missions on Sentinel 1 (radar with 10 m spatial
resolution and a revision time of 5 days in constellation mode) and
Sentinel 2 (optical with 10 m spatial resolution and a revision time of 5
days in constellation mode) will become the ultimate tools for the flood
monitoring even under difficult weather conditions (cloud cover). This
is the case of Sentinel 1 due to the ability of the radar system for cloud
penetration. Several examples even during the test phase have proven
the importance of Sentinel 1 in the fast and accurate flood mapping
(but see chapter 6).
4. Geological hazards
Landslides, Tsunamis, Earthquakes and Erosion are geological
hazards of global interest which are the main causes for land
deformation. They are interrelated, and when such disasters occur,
the impact on neighbor societies is fatal (Budimir et al., 2014). Fires
during the dry period cause vegetation loss following flash flood
catastrophes during the wet period. Bare land and washed soil is
sensitive to erosion and landslides during or after the floods. Tsunamis
cause erosion and floods in the coastal zone while earthquakes can
cause landslides and tsunamis respectively with their associated
impacts. Remote Sensing seems to be the only practical means which
can provide fast a large scale assessment on the impacts of these
hazards on the environment and society. The availability of a baseline
dataset or the creation of it by analyzing post-damage high resolution
optical data is important. This will be combined with the necessary new
data for the assessment of the impact of the land deformation disaster a
few hours later so that information to the local stakeholders and the
civil protection mechanisms is provided. These data are invaluable in
order to support an efficient planning for rescuing citizens, for
providing information to other social structures (police, hospitals) so
that they are ready to cope with injured people, to curfew damaged
road network, etc. The weather conditions in most of these situations
are usually not suitable for the acquisition of cloud free optical satellite
data. Thus, the use of radar data (SAR) is the only solution.
Multitemporal analysis of SAR data, captured before and after, by
applying interferometric coherence and intensity correlation will
provide information on the affected areas, the degree of it as well as
the type of damage. The fusion of this data with high resolution optical
ones has improve dramatically the accuracy of the results (Brunner
et al., 2010; Plank, 2014). In order to perform a multitemporal analysis
of SAR radar data all images must be acquired under the same
acquisition conditions (incidence angle, beam, relative orbit, pass
direction, imagine mode, wavelength) . The analysis of multitemporal
data provide information on the terrain motion and, thus, damage
assessment is possible. When multitemporal data are available, differ-
ential SAR interferometry (DinSAR) is the main type of analysis in
order to evaluate and identify the damages caused during the disaster
(Gamba et al., 2007; Yonezawa et al., 2002). More often, due to the lack
of data before the hazard with specific characteristics, a post-event
assessment is done only by analyzing SAR data collected after the
disaster (Balz et al., 2010, 2009; Dell’Acqua et al., 2011; Jin et al.,
2011). In cases that volcanos exists near urban/rural environment, the
use of earth observation data can be helpful for a detailed spatial
planning on the evacuation of the area as well as prediction of the lava
flow by analyzing stereo pairs of modern satellites like the WorldView
platform or Pleiades pair (Maxant et al., 2013). As such, a high
resolution terrain can be extracted whenever is required and flow
models can provide information to the stakeholders. Geological ha-
zards and the use of wide range of data and methods for the assessment
has been the subject of two extensive reviews, published in 2014. An
extensive review on mapping and monitoring geological hazards
including all above-mentioned geo-hazards has been made by K.E.
Joyce (Joyce et al., 2009). In addition, Plank (2014) has written an
extensive review on the SAR radar data, their multi-temporal analysis
and has made a point of demanding rapid damage assessment. Since
D. Poursanidis, N. Chrysoulakis
Fig. 1. Namibia flood mapped by Sentinel-1A. ESA/Tiger Net/Dept. of Water Affairs/GeoVille/DHI/TU Vienna/GEO 2014.
2014 no developments have been done in SAR technology, with an
exception, of course, of the launch and availability of Sentinel 1A SAR
radar satellite which Joyce and Plank have achieved through their
work.
5. Heatwaves
During the last decades, global warming has become more intense
due to a rise in global surface temperature. Extreme climatic phenom-
ena, such as heatwaves appear during the summertime (Schär et al.,
2004) and a key manifestation of the complex systems, both in the
natural man-made environments is evident. These are of great
environmental concern in the twenty first century (Meehl et al.,
2004). The aftermath of such phenomena is grave with fatal conse-
quences especially when they occur extensively for weeks or months.
Heatwaves are described as periods of unusually hot weather which
negatively affect human health and can exacerbate existing health
problems or cause even death. It has been estimated that this
phenomenon will increase as numerous examples of heat waves from
the early years of the twenty first century can validate such and
estimation (Conti et al., 2005; Vandentorren et al., 2004; Dousset
et al., 2007, 2011; Buscail et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2015).
In city areas, where urbanization has become one of the most
important contributory factors to global warming, the effect of the
Urban Heat Island (UHI) (Voogt and Oke, 2003) during the summer
period and during the heatwave period influences the climate, both
locally and globally, the environment and socioeconomics. UHI effect
describes the influence of urban surfaces on temperature patterns in
urban areas as opposed to surrounding areas as being caused by the
extensive use of impervious land surfaces covered by anthropogenic
material, the complexity of the three dimensional structures of the
surface, and the coincidental decrease of vegetation coverage, as well as
29
Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 6 (2017) 25–38
due to anthropogenic heat discharge due to human activities. Heat
islands can be defined in different layers of the urban atmosphere, and
in various other surfaces or even the subsurface. It is important to
distinguish between these different heat islands since their underlying
mechanisms act differently regarding urban microclimate. An urban
heat island refers to the excess warmth of the urban atmosphere
compared to the non-urbanized surroundings. Atmospheric heat
islands best occur under calmer and clear conditions at night when
radiative cooling differences are maximized between urban and sur-
rounding rural locations. The urban heat island phenomenon can be
classified into two types, the canopy urban heat island effect and the
land surface urban heat island effect. These definitions are based on the
scale and height of their appearance. Traditionally, this phenomenon is
identified based on measurements from meteorological stations. Yet,
for several reasons, most of them are situated in airports, parks and
agriculture areas. Therefore, the effects from the urban environment
are not measured. The canopy urban heat island is affected by local
building geometry and materials. The knowledge of the urban surface
energy budget and metabolism (Chrysoulakis et al., 2013) is of
paramount importance in order to assess the urban climatology and
interactions between human and the environment (Stone et al., 2012).
The increasing availability of Earth Observation systems and
advances in remote sensing techniques provide opportunities for
monitoring the urban environment and its thermal behavior. Several
parameters related to the urban climate can be derived from EO data
like the topography, the structure of the city, the materials used for the
construction of the city, the temporal changes in green spaces and they
can provide valuable support for advanced urban studies
(Chrysoulakis, 2003; Xu et al., 2008). Voogt and Oke (2003), in a
review on the application of thermal remote sensing in the urban areas,
highlighted the need to further research beyond the qualitative
description of thermal patterns and simple correlations, and suggested
D. Poursanidis, N. Chrysoulakis Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 6 (2017) 25–38

Fig. 2. Flood delineation map over the village of Balatun in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina based on Sentinel-1A data. Serbia lies on the north of the Sava River. © ESA/
European Commission/2014.

Fig. 3. Based on data from the Sentinel-1A satellite, this image shows how and where the land uplifted and sank from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Nepal. The blue color shows
areas of an uplift of up to 0.8 m towards the satellite (called ‘line of sight’) which could be caused by a vertical uplift of 1 m. The yellow area depicts areas of subsidence, a movement often
occurring as a counter movement to the uplift in subduction zones (where one plate dips below the other) during earthquakes. Additionally, a horizontal north–south shift of up to 2 m
was detected – DLR/EOC/2015. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.).

30
D. Poursanidis, N. Chrysoulakis
Fig. 4. Comparison of Landsat 7 and 8 bands with Sentinel 2. (source: http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=10643).
avoiding land use data to describe urban surface but focus on more
fundamental surface descriptors. Luyssaert et al. (2014) has recently
presented an example of Land Surface Temperature (LST) trend
increase due to modification of the human activities without changes
in land coverage. Among others, in Grimmond et al. (2010) the need to
explore the use of new measurement techniques including satellite
systems is highlighted. Moreover, coupling of different data sources,
like EO and in-situ measurements and the development of synergistic
methods, advanced algorithms and models are necessary to overcome
individual weaknesses and benefit from their diversity (Chrysoulakis
et al., 2013).
Remote Sensing has in its arsenal a limited number of satellite
sensors with data in the thermal infrared spectrum (TIR) in compar-
ison with data in the visible and infrared spectrum. MSG-Seviri, a
geostationary satellite, has a spatial resolution of 5 km and a temporal
resolution of 15 min, AVHRR has a spatial resolution of 1.1 km and a
temporal resolution of 14 days, MODIS (Terra & Aqua) has a spatial
resolution of 1 km and a temporal resolution of 4 images per day,
Envisat-AATSR has a spatial resolution of 1 km and temporal resolu-
tion of 35 days, Landsat TM has a spatial resolution of 120 m and a
temporal resolution of 16 days, Landsat ETM+ has a spatial resolution
of 60 m and a temporal resolution of 16 days, Landsat 8 has a spatial
resolution of 100, downscaled at 30 m in order to match the other
bands and a temporal resolution of 16 days, while ASTER has a spatial
resolution of 90 m but images from it are acquired on demand. Among
the abovementioned, the frequently used satellites are MODIS and
Landsat. The latter one, Landsat 8 and the TIRS sensor, has already a
malfunction on one of each thermal band (band 11 of TIRS) and it is
advisable not to use it when absolute values are needs for the
assessment of thermal data (Barsi et al., 2014).
The disadvantages of the available thermal data are mainly two. On
the one hand, there is the coarse spatial resolution of Seviri, AVHRR,
MODIS and Envisat, and on the other hand, the low temporal
resolution of the Landsat and the non-systematic acquisition of
Aster. These characteristics are not suitable for a routine energy
balance estimation because a high spatial and temporal resolution
thermal sensor is needed for such estimations. In order to solve this
obstacle, numerous approaches have been developed to downscale the
MODIS LST (Land Surface Temperature) in order to provide suitable
data in a city or neighbor scale (Gao et al., 2006; Zhan et al., 2012;
Bechtel et al., 2012; Feng et al., 2013; Mukherjee et al., 2014; Weng
et al., 2014, Hazaymeh et al., 2015, Mitraka et al., 2015).
Moreover, the extraction of information related to the materials
that a city has been made of, needs data in narrower spectral bands,
compared to the up-to-now mentioned satellites (see also in chapter 6,
the Earth Observation Handbook), data from hyperspectral sensors.
31
Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 6 (2017) 25–38
Hyperspectral Remote Sensing based on satellites is limited to date
in terms of the numbers of satellites providing. The Hyperion (EO-1),
NASA's hyperspectral satellite sensor is the only one in orbit and
collects data on demand at a spatial resolution of 30 m and 220 spectral
bands from 0.4 to 2.5 µm. No systematic collection of data over land
surfaces has been scheduled, and on several occasions the requested
targets are not fulfilled due to several reasons (weather conditions,
prioritization of captions, etc.). Also, the temporal resolution of this
sensor is insufficient to monitor the changes in the urban environment.
What's more, no thermal sensor has been included, something which
can benefit the studies of the heatwaves over urban areas. On the
contrary, several airborne based sensors exist and collect data on
demand (Goetz et al., 2009). However, the cost per scene/flight and the
spatial coverage of each mission don’t allow their use systematically.
Thus, potential solution on this issue will come about from the
forthcoming hyperspectral missions by DRL, NASA and JAXA. DLR's
EnMAP, NASA's HyspIRI and METI-JAXA's HISUI sensor on the
board of ALOS-3. These sensors will become operational after 2020.
The use of hyperspectral data is the only means to separate the
materials of the urban environment supplementing by the building of
spectral libraries with urban materials, and thus it is deemed an
important tool for the studies in this complex environment (Herold
et al., 2004; Franke et al., 2009; Heiden et al., 2012; Deshpande et al.,
2013). Moreover, only one hyperspectral satellite, the HyspIRI, will
have a Thermal Infrared instrument, valuable for the assessment of the
characteristics of the thermal capacity of the materials of the urban
environment.
6. Better resolution and more frequent acquisitions at no
cost
5 years ago NASA and USGS made remarkable improvements on
the accessibility of the Landsat archive to the public at no cost (USGS,
2008). The disclosure of such a data archive gives the opportunity to a
vast amount of scientists and developers in both the academic and the
industry sector to use it for a series of analysis, projects and products.
The reanalysis of time series data in order to identify past events of
natural disasters and areas sensitive to such phenomena, provides
stakeholders, urban planners and civil protection services with infor-
mation on how to better plan in order to reduce the impacts on
properties and citizens. Also, the archive is used for acquiring new
images in order to monitor and the map new cases. Yet, for monitoring
and continuously providing satellite data, the revisit time of 16 days
seems to be not enough, especially in cases of emergency due to
different natural disasters. Moreover, the spatial resolution of 30 m in
several cases is not sufficient.
 Table 1
Satellites and their sensors that can support monitoring activities in the field of Natural Hazards.

Natural Hazards

Satellite Sensor Swath (m) Spatial Res. Temporal Res. (day) Fire Flood Earthquake Tsunami Volcanic References Cost
(m) activity

WorldView II Panchromatic 16.4 0.46 1 Y Y Y Y Y Wu et al. (2015), Hashiba (2013) According to

Multispectral 16.4 1.85 1 the provider
D. Poursanidis, N. Chrysoulakis

WorldView III Panchromatic 13.1 0.31 1 Y Y Y Y Y

Multispectral 13.1 1.24 1
WorldView IV Panchromatic 13.1 0.31 1 Y Y Y Y Y
Multispectral 13.1 1.24 1
QuickBird Panchromatic 16.5 0.6 1,5 to 3 Y Y Y Y Y Mitri and Gitas, (2008), Hashiba (2013), Sabuncu
Multispectral 16.5 2.4 1,5 to 3 et al. (2016), Marghany and Hashim (2011)
Ikonos Panchromatic 11 1 1,5 to 3 Y Y Y Y Y Dragozi et al. (2014a, 2014b), Mitri and Gitas,
Multispectral 11 4 1,5 to 3 (2008), de Pinho et al. (2012), Jiang and Friedland
(2016), Gerl et al. (2014)
RapidEye Multispectral 77 * 1500 5 1 to 5,5 Y N Y N Y Kalabokidis et al. (2016), Mallinis et al. (2016), Geiß
et al. (2015), Bathke et al. (2013)
Terra ASTER 60 15, 30, 90 4 to 16 Y Y Y Y Y Schroeder et al. (2008), Petropoulos et al. (2010), No Cost
Veraverbeke et al. (2012), Alonso-Benito et al. (2013),
Polivka et al. (2016), Pandey et al. (2016)
Terra/Aqua MODIS 2300 250, 500, Twice daily per Satellite Y Y Y Y Y Kaufman et al. (1998), Justice et al. (2002, 2011), No Cost
1000 Giglio et al. (2003), Roy et al. (2008), Gaveau et al.
(2014), Laneve et al. (2016)
ALOS PRISM 35 4 JAXA acquisition plans N N N N N According to
AVNIR 70 10 N N N N N the provider
PALSAR (Fine) 40–70 10 Y Y Y Y Y Polychronaki et al. (2013), Gaveau et al. (2014),

32
Minh et al. (2015), Martinis and Rieke (2015), Noda
et al. (2015), González et al. (2015)
PALSAR (ScanSAR) 250–350 100 N N N N N
SPOT − 6 Panchromatic 60 1.5 1 Y Y Y Y Y Fox et al. (2008), Sankey et al. (2008), Fox et al. According to
Multispectral 60 6 1 (2016) the provider
SPOT − 7 Panchromatic 60 1.5 1 Y Y Y Y Y Fox et al. (2008), Sankey et al. (2008), Fox et al.
Multispectral 60 6 1 (2016)
Kompsat 3 Panchromatic 12 0.7 2 Y Y Y Y Y Seo et al. (2015), Laneve et al. (2016) According to
Multispectral 12 2.8 2 the provider
Kompsat 3A Panchromatic 12 0.55 2 Y Y Y Y Y
Multispectral 12 2.2 2
Landsat 8 Panchromatic 185 15 16 Y Y Y Y Y Mallinis et al. (2016), Laneve et al. (2016) No Cost
OLI 185 30 16
TIRS 185 30 (100) 16
Pleiades 1A Panchromatic 20 0.5 1 Y Y Y Y Y Maxant et al. (2013), Laneve et al. (2016) According to
Multispectral 20 2 1 the provider
Pleiades 1B Panchromatic 20 0.5 1 Y Y Y Y Y
Multispectral 20 2 1
GeoEye – 1 Panchromatic 15.2 0.46 2 to 8 Y Y Y Y N Hara et al. (2015), Franci et al. (2016), Dragozi et al. According to
Multispectral 15.2 1.84 2 to 8 (2015) the provider
Formosat – 2 Panchromatic 24*24 2 1 Y Y Y Y Y Kontoes et al. (2013) According to
Multispectral 24*24 8 1 the provider
Sentinel 1A Stripmap 80 5*5 12 Y Y Y N Y Cazals et al. (2016), Rodionova (2016), Boni et al. No Cost
Interferometric Wide 250 5*20 12 (2016)
Swath
Extra-Wide Swath 400 20*40 12
Mode
Wave-Mod 20 5*5 12
Sentinel 1B Stripmap 80 5*5 12
(continued on next page)
Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 6 (2017) 25–38
 Table 1 (continued)

Natural Hazards

Satellite Sensor Swath (m) Spatial Res. Temporal Res. (day) Fire Flood Earthquake Tsunami Volcanic References Cost
(m) activity

Interferometric Wide 250 5*20 12

Swath
Extra-Wide Swath 400 20*40 12
D. Poursanidis, N. Chrysoulakis

Mode
Wave-Mod 20 5*5 12
Sentinel 2A Multispectral 290 10–20–60 12 Y Y N N N Hall et al. (2016) No Cost
TerraSAR-X Spotlight 10 1 11 day repeat cycle 2.5 day Y Y Y Y Pandey et al. (2016), Laneve et al. (2016), Mason et al. According to
Stripmap 30 3 revisit capability (2016) the provider
ScanSAR 100 18
CosmoSkymed Spotlight 10 1 4 days (constellation of 4/ Y Y Y Y Y Avezzano et al. (2014), Laneve et al. (2016), Mason
Stripmap 40 3 to 15 16 day cycle per satellite) et al. (2016), García-Pintado et al. (2015), Chung
ScanSAR 100–200 30 to 100 et al. (2015), Boni et al. (2016), Briole et al. (2015),
Noda et al. (2015), Chini et al. (2012), Yonezawa
and Shibata (2014), Jo et al. (2015), Hamling et al.
(2016)
RadarSat – 2 Spotlight 8 3 12 Y Y Y Y Y Morandeira et al. (2016), Bolanos et al. (2016), Luiz
Ultra Fine 20 3 12 Felipe de Almeida Furtado et al. (2016),
Multi-Look Fine 50 8 12 Goodenough et al. (2011a, 2011b), Rykhus and Lu
Fine 50 8 12 (2011), Bhatt et al. (2016), Brunori et al. (2015),
Standard 100 30 12 Luo et al. (2016), Catry et al. (2015), González et al.
Wide 150 30 12 (2015)
ScanSAR Narrow 300 50 12
ScanSAR Wide 500 100 12

33
Extended High 75 18 to 27 12
Incidence
Extended Low 170 30 12
Incidence
Fine Quad- 25 8 12
Polarisation
Standard Quad- 25 30 12
Polarisation
Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 6 (2017) 25–38
D. Poursanidis, N. Chrysoulakis
The demand for closer to near real time information, higher spatial
resolution as well as fast assessment of the damages has forced the
European Union and the European Space Agency to provide open
access to the new missions of the Copernicus earth observation
program (ESA, 2015a). A series of Sentinel missions, each one focusing
on a different aspect but with an overlap allowing synergistic ap-
proaches, have started providing data (Sentinel 1A), and soon many
more will set up an excellent platform for constantly monitoring the
Earth's surface with a high revisit time (5 days) provided that the
constellations are complete. In 2014 (03/04/2014) ESA launched the
first Radar imaging satellite (Sentinel 1A), (ESA, 2012a; Torres et al.,
2012) which will be accompanied by the second one (Sentinel 1B) in
2016. It is a C-band SAR with a frequency at 5.4Gh. This constellation
will provide radar satellite data every 5 days (now with the one satellite
every 12 days) in four nominal operational modes:
1) Strip Map Mode with 80 km swath and 5×5 m (range×azimuth)
spatial resolution
2) Interferometric Wide-Swath Mode with 250 km swath 5×20 m
(range×azimuth) spatial resolution and burst synchronization for
interferometry
3) Extra-Wide-Swath Mode with 400 km swath and 20×40 m (ran-
ge×azimuth) spatial resolution
4) Wave Mode with 5×5 m (range×azimuth) spatial resolution leap-
frog sampled images of 20×20 km at 100 km along the orbit, with
alternating 23° and 36.5° incidence angle
Even before the operational use of Sentinel 1A, radar data have
been used for mapping the floods which cause significant damages to
properties and towns. Firstly, the floods in Caprivi Plain, Namibia on
8/05/2014 and then in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 13/05/2014. A day
after the floods in Namibia, the Tiger initiative made use of the Sentinel
1 radar data and released a map (Fig. 1) showing the impacted areas.
A couple of days after the floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina a very
high resolution map showing the flooded areas was released by the
EMS Emergency Management Service (Fig. 2).
The Nepal Earthquake on 25 April 2015 is another example of the
successful exploitation of Sentinel 1A SAR (C-band) data during the
operational phase. Scientists used this data in order to identify the
magnitude of the devastation (Fig. 3), the reason for the great impact
on Katmandu (17 km far away from the town, the maximum land
deformation) and the provision of information to the local stakeholders
with the cooperation of the International Charter Space and Major
Disasters (ESA, 2015b). The analysis was done by the EMS Emergency
Management Service, a European Commission service aiming at the
rapid assessment of damages from natural disasters by using Remote
Sensing imagery, among which the Sentinel 1A, and providing accurate
data on how to best access the damages in each impacted area. Through
its dedicated website (http://emergency.copernicus.eu/) each citizen
has access to such information from past events, and authorized users
can request the assessment of new cases within a few hours or days
when such earthquakes occur.
The Sentinel 1 satellite radar mission will be the only designed to
provide such radar data systematically under the necessary specifica-
tions of a multitemporal analysis since this is deemed essential during a
natural disaster (Plank, 2014).
In 2015 (23/06/2015) ESA launched the first high resolution
optical satellite (Sentinel 2A) which will be accompanied by the
second one (Sentinel 2B) in 2016. This constellation will provide
satellite data every 5 days (with the one satellite in orbit every 12
days). It is an optical multispectral imagery which covers 13
spectral bands, from 433 nm to 2190 nm. It has a swath of
290 km and spatial resolutions of 10 m (4 visible and near-infrared
bands), 20 m (6 red-edge/shortwave-infrared bands) and 60 m (3
atmospheric correction bands) (Drusch et al., 2012; ESA, 2012b).
Unfortunately, no thermal data will be collected from this con-
34
Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 6 (2017) 25–38
stellation, and hence the need for high temporal and spatial
resolution thermal data exists.
This data will be distributed through the dedicated portal of ESA
called “Scientific Data hub” (https://scihub.esa.int/). It is expected to
be used by a great number of scientists as well as by the industry in
order to prepare services and applications that will address the
Copernicus Earth observation program (ESA, 2012a) for example
monitoring agriculture and forests, land-use change, land-cover
change; mapping biophysical variables such as leaf chlorophyll
content, leaf water content, leaf area index; monitoring coastal and
inland waters; risk mapping and disaster mapping. As already
mentioned above, the Sentinel-2 mission is based on the
constellation of two satellites in order to have a revisit time of 5 days
per site. However, because of the fact that the Landsat-8 satellite offers
similar image characteristics (Fig. 4) and thanks to the cooperation
between ESA and NASA, plans have been made in order to reduce the
revisit time down to three days over the equator and to generate
comparable data products (Vermote et al., 2013).
In 2015, ESA is planning a new mission, Sentinel 3. This will have 3
different instruments focusing on different aspects. The Sea and Land
Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR), the Ocean and Land Color
Instrument (OLCI) and the dual-frequency (Ku and C band) advanced
Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter (SRAL) (ESA, 2012c). The mission
is designed to have a constellation of 2 satellites until 2020 (Sentinel-
3A and 3B) and a life span of 7 years. It will provide the scientific
community with real time information above ocean and land. Ocean
forecasting, sea-ice charting and timely measurements on the condi-
tions of the ocean surface, including surface temperature, ocean
ecosystems, water quality and pollution monitoring are some which
are related to ocean delineation, while for the terrestrial environment
Sentinel 3 will monitor land-use change, forest coverage, photosyn-
thetic activity, soil quality, land surface temperature and fire detection.
Regarding fire detection and mapping of fires around the globe, it is
expected to be equipped with have higher precision and accuracy
compared to the MODIS MOD14 product (Wooster et al., 2012) but in
the same spatial resolution (1 km for the fire detection and burn scar
mapping) (ESA, 2012c). It is expected to detect more low energy fires
(fire radiative power – FRP) compared to the MOD14 product of
MODIS, as this type of fire is the most common component of a
region's fire regime. Sentinel 3 LST data will be used in a similar way as
the MODIS data in order to be downscaled in higher spatial resolution
for many applications like fire mapping and urban surface temperature
time series estimation at local scales (Mitraka et al., 2015).
As space technology rapidly evolves and a new satellite is in orbit
very often, we have decided not to design nor provide a table which will
include all available satellites associated with their characteristics. Such
information can be found in other sources available in journal
publications covering a specific time window (Kuenzer et al., 2014).
An excellent source of this information which is updated when a new
satellite is in orbit or when such satellites are scheduled for the next
years, is the CEOS Earth Observation Handbook (Petiteville et al.,
2015). The full text of this report is available on the Earth Observation
Handbook's website at www.eohandbook.com/wcdrr. A supporting
database of the satellite missions, instruments and measurements is
available at http://database.eohandbook.com/ and contains powerful
search and presentation tools with the ability to export customized
tables and timelines which can support analyses of current and planned
provision of observations and which can support different applications
and measurements.
7. Conclusions
It is imperative that spatial resolution, high revisit time and free of
charge satellite images become available nowadays. The release of
Landsat archive free of charge, the availability of products from the
Landsat archive and the policy of ESA for the distribution of the
D. Poursanidis, N. Chrysoulakis
Sentinel missions with open accessibility to the data, sets new
challenges in the field of Earth Observation. Now, there is an urgent
need of supercomputers for the analysis of the vast large amount of the
archived data as well as the forthcoming. The joint forces of both
Landsat and Sentinel will provide valuable data for monitoring the
earth closer to near real time. During natural disasters the timely
identification of all impacted areas and the delineation of them, as well
as the provision of such information to the authorities and the
stakeholders is of vital importance. A drawback on the designation of
the new missions is the lack of medium/high resolution thermal
band(s) that will support the problem of the heatwaves. Table 1
summarize the satellites and their sensors that can support monitoring
activities in the field of Natural Hazards. The Y(yes)/N(no) in the table
has come out after the literature search in the databases of SCOPUS,
Web of Science and Google Scholar for the period 2008–2016.
According to the United Nations, Department of Economic and
Social Affairs (UN, 2014) in 2050, more than 65% of the global
population will live in urban areas; these areas will demand on energy
consumption and heating/cooling while the up-to-now paradigm
shows that there is no planning on how to sprawl the urban environ-
ment. Such planning is crucial in order to overcome problems like the
heatwaves which also will become more frequent and more severe in
the next decades as not extremes are directly relate to climate change
(Fischer and Knutti, 2015). The limitation of the availability medium/
high resolution thermal bands only to Landsat satellites force the
scientist to synergistic approaches (downscaling) of the low resolution
MODIS thermal data with the use of Landsat optical data (Mitraka
et al., 2015). Something also important is that the large amount of data
collected need high performance computers, especially in the case of
time series analysis, and storage of petabytes of data. The alternative of
cloud services like the one that Google attains, the Google Earth Engine
(Hansen et al., 2013), seems to be a way to store, manage and analyze
such large volumes of data.
Acknowledgments
This work was funded from the KRIPIS Action of the General
Secretariat for Research and Technology (project PEFYKA, funded by
Greece and the European Regional Development Fund of the European
Union under the NSRF and the O.P. Competitiveness and
Entrepreneurship).
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