Space Technologies for the Benefit of HumanSociety and Earth

Phillip OllaEditor

Space Technologies for theBenefit of Human Societyand Earth

123

EditorDr. Phillip OllaMadonna UniversitySchool of BusinessDept. Computer InformationSystems36600 Schoolcraft Rd.Livonia MI 48150USApolla@madonna.edu

ISBN 978-1-4020-9572-6 e-ISBN 978-1-4020-9573-3

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Preface: The Role of Space Technologyin Society

Challenges Faced by the Planet

In today’s global society, it appears that economic prosperity is the most importanthuman goal; however, the foremost goal of the human race should be to sustaina livable biosphere. Our prime objective must be to implement a coordinated andconcerted effort to improve sustainable development activities over the next decade.The planet is facing some fundamental challenges, which are expected to becomemore devastating over the next couple of decades. The problems that must be ad-dressed extend over a spectrum of environmental, technological, and humanitariandomains. One of the most topical issues is the dilemma of global warming, whichcomprises such problems as carbon dioxide and methane build-up, and the disap-pearing ice caps. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concludedthat human activities are causing global warming with probable temperature risesof 1.8◦C and 4◦C (3.2–7.2◦F) by the end of the century. Sea levels are also likely torise by 28–43 cm. Another serious problem is the shortage of food. Josette Sheeran,Executive Director of the UN’s World Food Program, recently announced that foodreserves are at a 30 year low, and the WFP has started to ration food. The high foodprices have led to riots in over 30 countries around the globe in 2008. The cause forthe shortage is still not clear but possible factors are high energy and grain prices,the impact of climate change and the growing demand for biofuels, this problem isunlikely to be resolved in the near future.

The next set of challenges stems from global pollution and includes issues suchas the destruction of the rain forests, desertification, reduction of arable land, andover reliance on dwindling petro-chemical energy sources. Another series of prob-lems relates to humanitarian issues that are compounded by the spiraling growthof the human population. Foremost is the inappropriate distribution of natural andagricultural resources to manage the growing population; about 1 billion people, onefifth of the world’s population, live on less than $1 a day. Unfortunately, this is alsoreflected in the lack of universal access to information technology, global educationand health care; this is referred to as the digital divide. The most promising suite ofapplications that can address these challenges and probably our only real hope forchanging the way we treat the planet use space technology.

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Overview of Space Technology

It has been over 50 years since the first satellite was sent into orbit, and the impact ofspace technology can be felt in many aspects in our day to day life. In addition to theconvenience of knowing exactly where we are on the planet via GPS satellites; ordeciding what to pack for a trip based on forecasts from weather satellites; watchingCNN in a remote village via broadcasting satellites; there are now some crucial envi-ronmental uses of Space technologies in the areas of natural resources managementand environmental monitoring. Remotely sensed data reveals an unparallel view ofthe Earth for systems that require synoptic or periodic observations such as inven-tory control, surveying, agriculture, business, mineralogy, hydrography, geology,land mass cover, land utilization and environment monitoring. The advancementof remote sensing has made remote sensed data more affordable and available tomerge with a variety of data sources to create mash-ups. The amalgamation of thesedata sources into disciplines such as agriculture, urban planning, web applications,cartography, geodetic reference systems, and global navigation satellite systems, arean important advancement of space applications and space science.

Space Technology and Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs)

The MDGs are a set of time-bound, measurable goals and targets that are global aswell as country-specific for combating poverty, hunger, diseases, illiteracy, environ-mental degradation and discrimination against women. There have been a varietyof applications that have demonstrated that ICT-based systems and services suchas e-commerce, distance education, telemedicine and e-governance have improvedthe quality of life, reduced poverty and empowered people by reducing transactioncosts, integrated global and local markets and enhanced the potential value of humancapital. It has been established by various studies that ICTs can play an importantrole in attaining the United Nations’ MDGs by 2015. Integrating space technologywith existing ICT infrastructure has the potential to provide further benefits to soci-ety, this book presents a collection of chapters from around the globe that highlightthe importance and benefits of space applications to society.

Space applications have the potential to make a major contribution in global poli-cies, technological infrastructures, economies, along with social and cultural devel-opment. Although, the impact of space technology is ingrained in society providinga host of important established services such as communication, radio, television,weather forecasting, and navigation, there are a growing number of emerging appli-cations such as emerging broadband services, agricultural, land and sea monitoring,and telemedicine. These emerging space applications can potentially provide enor-mous opportunities to reduce social and economic inequalities; support sustainablerural wealth creation by overcoming barriers of geographic isolation, along withproviding access to information and in communication services at affordable costs.

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As a result of the innovation occurring ICT integrated with Space technology havethe potential to fuel the global economy and reduce global poverty. Article 19 ofthe Universal Declaration of Human Rights suggests that approximately 1.2 billionpeople are experiencing extreme poverty, The UN considers this to be one the worsthuman rights violation in the world.

If national and international policies are implemented to reap the benefits fromthe emerging Space applications that address crop and soil management, water andcostal resources, and disaster monitoring and mitigation there is a good chancethat some of the MDGs will be addressed. The UN office of Outer Space Affaires(Programme on Space Applications) has implemented a new natural resources man-agement and environmental monitoring programme. This initiative was created toassist developing countries utilize space-based solutions to address environmentalmonitoring and natural resources management issues. The contribution of space sci-ence and technology for the support and implementation of sustainable developmentactions was also identified during the World Summit on Sustainable Development(WSSD) in 2002.

Synopsis of Book Chapter Sections

This book is a compilation of work undertaken by authors from 15 countries includ-ing USA, UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherland, France, Germany, Russia, India,Australia, Canada, Tunisia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. The authors are from a vari-ety of disciplines and backgrounds such as space scientists, agricultural scientists,medical doctors, professors, policy analysts, engineers, botanists, and computer spe-cialist. The authors represent a diverse group of organizations such as the EuropeanSpace Agency (ESA), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Chinese SpaceInstitute, Academic Institutions, African Development Bank and a wide variety ofresearch institutions.

The book is divided into the following four sections:

1. Improving global resource management and protection of terrestrial, coastal andmarine resources.

2. Innovative Tele-heath applications and communication systems.3. Disaster monitoring, mitigation and damage assessment.4. Space technologies for the benefit of society.

The first section improving global resource management and protection of terres-trial, coastal and marine resources focuses on the efforts to sustain critical naturalresources such as water. The chapter “Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS)Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission” by McMullan et al discusses the Soil Moistureand Ocean Salinity SMOS project. This chapter presents techniques used to developsoil moisture and ocean salinity maps from space, these two geophysical parame-ters are of key importance to sustainable development. They are critical for im-proving climatological forecasting, increasing the understanding of the water cycle,

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providing new approaches to acquiring knowledge regarding the phenomenon of cli-mate change and monitoring the planet’s fresh water reserves. The chapter “India’sEarth Observation Pyramid for Holistic Development” in this section contributed byV. Jayaraman et al. provides a detailed overview of India’s in-orbit Earth Observa-tion constellation of operational satellites used for a variety of purposes includingland & water resources management, cartography applications, and oceanography& atmospheric science and management requirements along with the disaster man-agement support programme. Chapter “Shifting Paradigms in Water Management”contributed by Paxina Chileshe provides an analyses of the application of spacetechnology in informing water management and explores the use of technology withrespect to meeting agriculture and domestic water demands. Chapter “OperationalOceanography and the Sentinel-3 System” was written by Miguel Aguirre et al. andprovides an overview of the operational oceanography field, and describes how theadvent of satellite oceanography has accelerated the development of robust numer-ical ocean forecasting capabilities. The last chapter in this section was contributedby Zeynalova et al. and discusses how space technology can be used for oil spilldetection; an example from the Caspian sea is also provided.

The second section contains five chapters that discuss Innovative Tele-heath ap-plications and Digital Communication Systems. Tele-health and telemedicine usesatellite communications technologies to connect medical experts and patients inremote regions or disaster areas. Chapter “From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions forTerrestrial Challenges in Medicine” written by Shawna Pandya discusses exploresthe use of space technologies in the context of their applicability to medicine onEarth, the chapter presents medical spinoffs in the context of three categories: diag-nostics & imaging, treatment & management and safety. Chapter “Bridging HealthDivide Between Rural and Urban Areas – Satellite Based Telemedicine Networks inIndia” written by Satyamurthy L.S et al provides an insight into how Telemedicinenetworks are working in India, providing a connection between rural & urban ar-eas. This is followed by a chapter that discusses telemedicine from a completelydifferent perspective. Chapter “Temos – Telemedical Support for Travellers AndExpatriates” written by Markus Lindlar et al, describes the globally active TEMOSproject (TElemedicine for the MObile Society). TEMOS mainly focuses on opti-mizing health care and medical treatment for travellers and expatriates worldwide.

Chapters “Convergence of Internet and Space Technology and Using Inflat-able Antennas for Portable Satellite-Based Personal Communications Systems”are technical chapters that discuss innovative communications approaches, chapter“Convergence of Internet and Space Technology” was written by Jin-Chang Guoand discusses the new phenomenon of convergence of Space technology and theInternet. The chapter summarize research from the China Academy of Space Tech-nology and discusses satellite communication network architecture, satellite com-munication network protocol, and some key technologies for the satellite commu-nication. Chapter “Using Inflatable Antennas for Portable Satellite-Based PersonalCommunications Systems” puts forward an interesting concept for developing per-sonal communication using inflatable antennas. Chapter “Using Inflatable Antennasfor Portable Satellite-Based Personal Communications Systems” was written by

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Naomi Mathers and discusses how Satellite-based personal communications sys-tems can be an effective means to connect mobile personnel with a central supportnetwork in disaster management situations, the approach involves the use the net-work of orbiting satellites to make broadband communication possible when thereis no local infrastructure on the ground or the infrastructure has been damaged.

The third section of this books covers disaster monitoring, mitigation and dam-age assessment. Chapter “Spaceborne Tsunami Warning System” written by PeterBrouwer et al presents a conceptual design for a Space-borne Tsunami WarningSystem (STWS). This project was initiated in reaction to the devastating tsunamiin the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004. The tsunami global early warningsystem uses reflections of a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Chapter“GEONETCast Americas – A GEOSS Environmental Data Dissemination SystemUsing Commercial Satellites” was written by Richard Fulton, Paul Seymour, andLinda Moodie and describes the GEONETCast network. The GEONETCast sys-tem provides near-real-time, environmental data dissemination in support of theGlobal Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). It is a contribution from theUnited States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Chapter“Remote Sensing Satellites for Fire Fighting Applications” was written by JesusGonzalo et al. and discusses how remote Sensing Satellites can be used to providevital information to assist with fire fighting. The article provides detailed technicalinformation on how small forest fires can be detected and observed from space usinginfrared sensors, providing more accurate geometry than terrestrial observers. Chap-ter “Remote Sensing and Gis Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring” providesa brief examination of disasters discussing the causes, economic impact on society,and highlights the importance of prevention and awareness techniques. This chapterwas written by Luca Martino et al and provides an overview of the remote sensingprinciples and aims to illustrate how the sheer scale of the catastrophe means thatEarth Observation (EO) is vital both for damage assessment and for co-ordinatingemergency activities.

The final chapter in this section investigates Earth Observation Products fordrought risk reduction and was written by Sanjay K Srivastava et al. This chapterdiscusses various efforts to promote principles of risk management by encouragingdevelopment of drought early warning systems; preparedness plans; mitigation poli-cies and programmes that reduce drought impacts. This chapter describes how theuse of EO enabled products and services have made an impact whenever they havebeen used strategically.

The final section discusses the importance of space technology to society. Thefirst chapter in this section (Chapter “Caring for the Planet: Using Space Technol-ogy to Sustain a Livable Biosphere”) written by Phillip Olla provides an overviewof some of the challenges being faced and discusses how space technology can beused to address these problems. This chapter discusses the various space infras-tructures along with the upgrades planned, the chapter also discusses the variousinformation technology challenges being faced by society implementing new appli-cations that rely on data generated from space infrastructure. Chapter “HumanitarianAids Using Satellite Technology” was written by Mattia Stasolla and Paolo Gamba

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and discusses how remote sensing data can be used in the Darfur region of Sudanfor monitoring of informal settlements for humanitarian aids. The chapter descrieshow using remote sensing data provides the capability to perform semi-automatedprocedures to analyze data that will assist administrations and Non GovernmentalOrganizations (NGO). Chapter “National Development Through Space: India as aModel” discusses how India’s experience in space can be applied as a model todeveloping countries that aim to achieve growth from a space program. The chapterwritten by Ian A. Christensen, Jason W. Hay, Angela D. Peura describes the re-lationship between science and technology investment and national developmentproviding specific detail on the example of India’s experience in space. This chapteridentifies a set of elements that have enabled the success of India’s space efforts.These elements are then used as key attributes to a model that can be applied inother developing countries. Chapter “Space Based Societal Applications” written byBhaskaranarayana and P. K. Jain describes the potential of satellite communicationtechnologies for societal applications like tele-education, tele-medicine, disastermanagement, and Village Resources Centers, and initiatives taken by Indian SpaceResearch Organization (ISRO) in implementing these applications in India. Chapter“Space for Energy: The Role of Space-based Capabilities for Managing EnergyResources on Earth” was written by Ozgur Gurtuna and discusses the concept ofKnowledge Management (KM). This chapter discusses how space operations facethe challenge of preserving and sharing knowledge. At the ESA Space OperationsCentre, ESOC, KM is considered a strategic issue for maintaining and strengthen-ing the leadership in spacecraft operations and ground systems infrastructure in anexpanding international context. Chapter “Sharing Brains: Knowledge ManagementProject for ESA Space Operations” was written by Mugellesi Dow et al., and de-scribes the important role of space based capabilities for managing energy resourceson Earth, the chapter provides and overview of the current energy problem andexamines some of the possible ways that space-based capabilities can be used toaddress the challenges and create new opportunities.

Livonia MI Phillip Olla

Contents

Part I Improving Global Resource Management and Protection ofTerrestrial, Coastal and Marine Resources

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3K.D. McMullan, M. Martın-Neira, A. Hahne and A. Borges

India’s EO Pyramid for Holistic Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37V. Jayaraman, Sanjay K. Srivastava and D. Gowrisankar

Shifting Paradigms in Water Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Paxina Chileshe

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75Miguel Aguirre, Yvan Baillion, Bruno Berruti and Mark Drinkwater

Advanced Space Technology for Oil Spill Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99Maral H. Zeynalova, Rustam B. Rustamov and Saida E. Salahova

Part II Innovative Tele-Heath Applications and Communication Systems

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges inMedicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123S. Pandya

Bridging Health Divide Between Rural and Urban Areas – SatelliteBased Telemedicine Networks in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159A. Bhaskaranarayana, L.S. Satyamurthy, Murthy L.N. Remilla,K. Sethuraman and Hanumantha Rayappa

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TEMOS – Telemedicine for the Mobile Society Telemedical Support forTravellers and Expatriates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179Markus Lindlar, Claudia Mika and Rupert Gerzer

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201Jin-Chang Guo

Using Inflatable Antennas for Portable Satellite-Based PersonalCommunications Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233Naomi Mathers

Part III Disaster Monitoring, Mitigation and Damage Assessment

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257Peter A.I. Brouwer, Mark Visser, Ramses A. Molijn, Hermes M. Jara Orue,Bart J.A. van Marwijk, Tjerk C.K. Bermon and Hans van der Marel

GEONETCast Americas – A GEOSS Environmental Data DisseminationSystem Using Commercial Satellites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291Richard Fulton, Paul Seymour and Linda Moodie

Space Technology for Disaster Monitoring, Mitigation and DamageAssessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305Jesus Gonzalo, Gonzalo Martın-de-Mercado and Fernando Valcarce

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring . . . 331Luca Martino, Carlo Ulivieri, Munzer Jahjah and Emanuele Loret

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383Sanjay K. Srivastava, S. Bandyopadhyay, D. Gowrisankar, N.K. Shrivastava,V.S. Hegde and V. Jayaraman

Part IV Space Technologies for the Benefit of Society

The Diffusion of Information Communication and Space TechnologyApplications into society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413Phillip Olla

Humanitarian Aids Using Satellite Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431Mattia Stasolla and Paolo Gamba

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National Development Through Space: India as a Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453Ian A. Christensen, Jason W. Hay and Angela D. Peura

Space Based Societal Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

Space for Energy: The Role of Space-Based Capabilities for ManagingEnergy Resources on Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509Ozgur Gurtuna

Sharing Brains: Knowledge Management Project for ESA SpaceOperations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525R. Mugellesi Dow, M. Merri, S. Pallaschke, M. Belingheri and G. Armuzzi

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549

About the Authors

M. Aguirre is Senior Mission Engineer in the Science, Applications and FutureTechnologies Departments. He was in charge of the definition phase of Sentinel-3and he presently continues working on new space mission ideas for Earth observa-tion. e-mail: Miguel.Aguirre@esa.int

G. Armuzzi is HR Transformation and Knowledge Management responsible inMercer, Italy. Before the leading consultancy company in learning processes, forwhich he has been working since 1985, and has become partner in 1996, after ob-taining a degree in Business Administration at Bocconi University in Milan.He is an expert in the analysis and improvement of high intensity Knowledge organi-sations and processes (the so-called “brain processes”), in HR process reengineeringand e-learning. He has developed specific competencies in the area of KnowledgeManagement, operating on knowledge sharing systems connected to intranet por-tals for technicians and developing integrated KM systems for professionals. Ine-learning he has developed a specific methodology to integrate e-learning into anoverall process of learning strategy which enables aspects of organisation, learning,technology and economic return to be defined before the activation of investment.He has a wide experience as project leader on HR reengineering and KM projects inseveral companies like Abbott Chemicals, Bayer, Q8 (Oil Company) Riello (Heat-ing Company) Sole 24 Ore (Finance newspaper) and GSK. He is currently leading aconsultancy contract on Knowledge management with the Operations Centre of theEuropean Space Agency.

Y. Baillion was in charge of the definition phase of Sentinel-3 in Thales and ispresently the Project manager of the Sentinel-3 satellite project in Thales.

Bhaskaranarayana A. had joined DRDO, Govt. of India and worked in “Elec-tronics and Radar Development Establishment” after graduation from I.I.T. Madrasin 1965. He joined Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1972 and wasassociated with the development of India’s first satellite, “Aryabhatta”. There after,he worked on Telecommand, Telemetry and Communication payloads developed

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xvi About the Authors

for India’s first remote sensing satellite IRS-1A. He served ISRO in different ca-pacities like Associate Director of Satellite Communication Programme Office;Director, Frequency Management Office etc. Currently he is working as Director,Satellite Communication Programme Office and the Scientific Secretary of ISRO.Bhaskaranarayana has been instrumental in running several societal space applica-tion programmes like Telemedicine, Tele-education, Disaster Management, Search& Rescue, Village Resource Centres, etc. He is a fellow of the IETE and a memberof the Astronautic Society of India. At present he is a member of the IETE Council.He has received several awards from ISRO and other agencies for his contributionin the field of space technology.

M. Belingheri is an Italian (aged 53, married, two daughters) who lives in theNetherlands. He holds a telecommunication diploma and an MBA. He has workedin Italy from 1974 in the telecommunication sector with Marconi as telecom engi-neer and in the energy sector with Ansaldo as project controller. He moved to theNetherlands in 1987 joining the European Space Agency in the Human Spaceflightsector and as since contributed to the projects related to the International SpaceStation in the domain of planning and scheduling, cost and financial control. Hebecame Head of the Project Control in 1996.He started the ISS commercialisation activities at ESA in 1999: in 2001 he hasbeen nominated Head of the Commercialisation Division, the ESA entity chargedof developing the ISS commercialisation programme.Mr. Belingheri is currently Head of the Management Support Office; he is respon-sible of the ISS Operations Programme control which includes project control, riskmanagement, knowledge management, continuous improvement and performanceassessment.

Tjerk C.K. Bermon received the BEng. degree in mechanical engineering from theHogeschool van Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2003. Hereafter he continued to finish hisMSc. degree in Earth and Planetary Observation technology within the Departmentof Earth Observation and Space systems (DEOS) at Delft University of Technology,The Netherlands, 2008.

B. Berruti works in the Earth Observation Projects Department and he is theProject manager of the Sentinel-3 project in ESA.

Dr. S. Bandyopadhyay received MSc and Ph. D. degree in Agricultural Physicsfrom Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, in 1992 and 1995,respectively. He joined Indian Council of Agricultural Research in 1995 and wasassociated with soil and water conservation studies. Subsequently, he joined IndianSpace Research Organization in 1998. He has worked with crop simulation model-ing in rice agro-ecosystem, environmental impact assessment and microwave remotesensing application in soil moisture retrieval as well as crop growth monitoring.

About the Authors xvii

Presently, he is working in water resource management and crop risk insurancestudies. He has published over 30 papers in Journals and Symposia.

Andres Borges graduated in Electrical Engineering from the Universisty Polithec-nic of Valencia, Spain in 1989. For the next two years, he worked as a SoftwareEngineer at the European Space Agency specialising in software development forspace robotics. In 1992 he joined EADS CASA Espacio of Madrid, Spain and duringthe next 6 years worked in several space projects as a Software and System Engineer.In 1998 he was appointed as Project Manager of the MIRAS Demonstrator Project,a technology development for SMOS and he continued as Project Manager through-out the development phases of the SMOS payload, MIRAS. He has completed hisuniversity background in Business Administration (UNED, Spain) and received anMBA from the Instituto de Empresa, Spain.

Peter A.I. Brouwer received his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering at Delft Universityof Technology and his M.S. in Earth and Planetary Observation within the De-partment of Earth Observation and Space systems (DEOS) at Delft University ofTechnology. In 2006 he started a company which amongst others will work on GPStracking for the transport industry.

Paxina Chileshe started her career in the mining industry on the CopperbeltProvince of Zambia where she worked as a Senior Assistant Metallurgical Engineerafter obtaining her Bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering. In 2007 she com-pleted a PhD in water politics. Her PhD research focused on community water man-agement and her thesis was entitled “A Multi-scalar Analysis of Shifting Paradigmsin Water Management. A case study of Zambia”. She currently works for the AfricanDevelopment Bank, which she joined on the Young Professionals Programme.

Ian A. Christensen is a Program Analyst at Futron Corporation in Bethesda, MD.He holds a Master’s Degree in International Science and Technology Policy, with aconcentration in Space Policy from the Elliott School of International Affairs at theGeorge Washington University. Ian also holds Bachelor’s degrees in Biochemistryand Political Science, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

R. Mugellesi Dow is member of the Planning and Management Support Officeat the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) of the European Space Agencyin Darmstadt, Germany. She received her degree in Mathematics followed by adegree in Automatic computation from the University of Pisa, Italy. She workedover 20 years as Flight Dynamics Engineer in the ESOC Flight Dynamics Divi-sion where she was involved in orbit manoeuvre optimization, mission planningand Flight Dynamics operations of ESA satellites during the pre-launch missionpreparation phase, the launch and early orbit phase as well as during the routine

xviii About the Authors

phase of the mission. She received in 2004 the Master in Business Administra-tion with major in International Business from the Schiller International Universityin Heidelberg, Germany. Her current research interests lie in the area of knowl-edge management, risk management, competence assessment and organizationalstrategy.

M. Drinkwater is the head of the Mission Science Division of the Science, Appli-cations and Future Technologies Department. He was in charge of the definition ofthe operational service and mission requirements aspects of Sentinel-3.

Richard Fulton is a meteorologist and the Special Projects Manager in the Of-fice of Systems Development in NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service (NES-DIS). He has managed the GEONETCast Americas development project since theproject first started in early 2006. He has worked for NOAA within several orga-nizations for 15 years, focusing primarily on project management, environmentalremote sensing, and research and development of rainfall estimation techniquesusing operational Doppler weather radars. Prior to NOAA, he worked at the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration for seven years on environmental microwaveremote sensing research from space-based platforms and ground-based weatherradars.

Paolo Gamba is Associate Professor at the Department of Electronics, Universityof Pavia, where he heads the Remote Sensing Group. His main research topic isurban remote sensing. Since 2001 he has been the promoter and Technical Chairof the series of URBAN workshops, and published more than 40 papers on peerreviewed journals as well as two book chapter and numerous conference papers onthis subject. P. Gamba is a Senior Member of IEEE, a member of IAPR, ASPRS,EGU, AGU and AIT. He is currently Associate Editor of the IEEE Geoscience andRemote Sensing Letters.

Prof. Dr. med. Rupert Gerzer is chairman of the Institute of Aerospace Medicineof the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne as well as of the Institute ofAerospace Medicine at the Technical University of Aachen. After studying medicineat the University of Munich, Professor Gerzer was postdoctoral fellow at the In-stitute of Pharmacology of the University of Heidelberg. From 1981 to 1983 heworked as a visiting scientist and research instructor at the Dept. of Pharmacologyand Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Vanderbilt University in Nashville,TN, USA. Subsequently he worked as a resident in internal medicine and cli-nical pharmacology at the University of Munich. In 1992 he took office in theDLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne. Professor Gerzer is trustee ofthe International Academy of Astronautics and was president of the German So-ciety of Aviation and Space Medicine from 1991 to 2001. He is president of theGerman Association for Travel Medicine as well as of the University Council of the

About the Authors xix

Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences. Since 2008, he is editor-in chiefof Acta Astronautica.

Dr. D. Gowrisankar is a Ph D (Agriculture & Soil Science) from Indian Agricul-tural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, India has been working with IndianSpace Research Organisation (ISRO), since 1999, as scientist in the field of re-mote sensing applications for agriculture and natural resources management. Heis presently working on developing EO projects for crop risk assessment, national-wise soil carbon pool assessment, etc. He has got more than 20 paper published.

Prof. Jin-Chang Guo, Chief Researcher, R&D Dept., China Academy of SpaceTechnology. He is working on the design phase of space communication and remotesensing system. Presently, he is in charge of a project on the common satellite busfor remote sensing applications. He has published over 30 papers in Journal andSymposia.

Jesus Gonzalo graduated in Aeronautical Engineering and obtained his PhD inInfrared Remote Sensing. He joined INSA in 1993, becoming head of Remote Sens-ing Department in 2001. In this period, he led the development of the FUEGOSATconstellation for forest fire detection and monitoring. From 2005 he is full professorat University of Leon, Spain, heading the laboratory of Aerospace Research andinvolved in R&D programmes related to remote sensing from space and unmannedair vehicles.

Ozgur Gurtuna is the founder and president of Turquoise Technology Solu-tions Inc., a Canadian company providing services in the energy, environment andaerospace sectors. He is active in both professional and academic domains, and hasa keen interest in developing innovative solutions by merging multiple technologyareas. He obtained his Ph.D in Operations Research from the joint Ph.D. program inMontreal (this program is administered by four Canadian universities: Concordia,HEC, McGill and UQAM). His areas of expertise include space applications forthe energy sector, emerging technology markets and quantitative analysis in de-cision making (covering areas such as optimization, simulation and mathematicalmodeling). He is also a part-time faculty member at the International Space Uni-versity, lecturing on topics related to the business and management aspects of spaceactivities.

Achim Hahne graduated in Atmospheric Chemistry at the Nuclear Research Cen-tre in Julich, Germany and obtained his Ph.D. in Material Science at Aachen Techni-cal University. In 1983 he joined the European Space Agency. After initial positionsin the Space Science and the Technical Directorates he transferred to the Earth Ob-servation Programmes Directorate where he worked on the ERS 1/2, ENVISAT andMETOP Projects. He is the SMOS Project Manager since 2002.

xx About the Authors

Jason Hay is a Research Analyst at The Tauri Group in Alexandria, VA. He grad-uated from the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington Univer-sity, with a Master’s Degree in International Science and Technology Policy and aconcentration in Space Policy. Jason also holds Bachelor’s degree in Physics fromthe Georgia Institute of Technology.

Dr. V.S. Hegde received the M.Sc. degree in Applied Geology from Karnatak Uni-versity, Dharwad in 1974. From 1975 to 1988 he worked as Scientist at the NationalRemote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad. During 1989–91, he was founder Director ofthe Karnataka State Remote Sensing Technology Utilisation Centre. Since 1992, heis at Headquarters of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and presently asDy. Director in the Earth Observations Systems (EOS) Office. He is also ProgrammeDirector, Disaster Management Support (DMS) Programme and Programme Coor-dinator, Village Resource Centre (VRC) Programme. He is responsible for promo-tion, planning and co-ordination of remote sensing application programmes. He hascarried out a variety of remote sensing application projects - for geological mappingand mineral exploration; groundwater exploration and recharge; monitoring of landuse/cover and wastelands; urban development; integrated land and water resourcesmanagement; environment impact analysis and other societal applications. He haspublished over 50 papers in Journals and Symposia.

Munzer Jahjah was born in Syria in 1965, he received the B.Sc. in Electrical En-gineering in 1989 at the University of Tishreen- Syria; two years post lauream Spe-cialization school in Town-Planning Techniques for Metropolitan Areas in 1999 andPhD in Aerospace Engineering in 2003 at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”.Between 1991 and 1996, he worked in the applied sciences at the Data Processingand Production Remote Sensing Dept in Syria. Since 2003, he has been a consultantat the San Marco Project Research Centre (CRPSM)- Rome, where he is involved inseveral research projects (GMOSS). His main research interests regard EnvironmentRemote Sensing data and GIS applications devoted to fire detection, subsidencephenomena, archaeology and change detection analysis.

P.K. Jain has been working in ISRO Headquarters, Bangalore and is designatedas Deputy Project Director responsible for the implementation of various Satcomapplication programmes like Tele-education, Tele-medicine, Village Resource Cen-ters, etc. of ISRO.He started his career with National Remote Sensing Agency (Department of Space),Hyderabad, India in 1989 and worked for the design and development of remotesensing satellite receive earth station communication equipments and commission-ing of RF receive-chain of various national and international remote sensing satelliteground stations.He also worked in Space Applications Centre (ISRO), Ahmedabad, India from 2002to 2005 for the establishment of C-, Ext. C-, Ku- and Ka-band SATCOM earth

About the Authors xxi

stations. He has published several papers in various journals & magazines of na-tional and international repute. He is recipient of two “Team Excellence Awards” ofISRO in 2007. He can be reached at pkjain@isro.gov.in

Hermes M. Jara Orue received the BSc. Degree in Aerospace Engineering atDelft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He is pursuing his MSc. Degreein Space Technology and Engineering at the Astrodynamics and Satellite Systemsdepartment of Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. Hermes has under-gone a traineeship at the Mission Analysis Section of the European Space Opera-tions Centre (ESA-ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.

Dr. V. Jayaraman With doctorate from Bangalore University and post-graduationfrom Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Dr Jayaraman has been withISRO since October 1971. He has been closely associated right from India’s firstsatellite, Aryabhata in 1975 to the most recent state-of-the-art Cartosat 2 launchedin 2007. Presently, in ISRO, he holds the important portfolios of Director of India’sEarth Observations System (EOS) Programme; Director, NNRMS Regional RemoteSensing Service Centres (RRSSC); and Programme Director, ISRO Geosphere-Biosphere Programme; and also the Member Secretary of National Natural Re-sources Management Systems (NNRMS). As the Director, EOS, he has contributedsignificantly to the definition, and operationalisation of Indian EO Programme,and in the institutionalization of remote sensing to many applications of directsocietal relevance at the user end through NNRMS. He has been primarily in-strumental in defining a thematic series of IRS satellites in the areas of land &water resources management; cartography and large-scale mapping applications;and, Ocean & atmosphere studies. As Director, NNRMS RRSSCs, he leads a teamof young scientists in 5 distributed Centres across India in promoting community-based applications such as watershed development, disaggregated poverty map-ping, and customized products and services with indigenous software, developedusing Open Source tools. Parallely, in his capacity as Progarmme Director, ISROGeosphere-Biosphere he also has been organizing the national efforts in harnessingthe potentials of space technology and applications in climate change studies. Hehas more than 220 publications to his credit with more than 50 of them appearing inpeer reviewed journals.

Dr. med. Markus Lindlar is German physician specialised in medical informatics.In 1994 he graduated in medicine after studying at the Universities of Ancona (Italy)and Bonn (Germany). He then worked as a resident in the surgical department of aGerman hospital being also in charge of the medical controlling and clearing. Hebuilt up an IT-department and implemented a comprehensive hospital informationsystem. In 1997 he took up the position of a research assistant at the Institute forHealth Economics and Clinical Epidemiology of the University of Cologne wherehe received his doctor’s degree in medicine with his thesis about “The economic

xxii About the Authors

aspects of telemedicine and robotics in medicine”. Since 2002 he works as a re-search assistant at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine of the German AerospaceCenter in Cologne focussing on telemedical projects and the research on their healtheconomic aspects. Dr Lindlar is member of the German Society for Medical Infor-matics, Biometrics and Epidemiology as well as of the Professional Association ofGerman Medical Computer Scientists. He is board member of the German Societyof Health Telematics. Dr Lindlar is medical manager of the TEMOS project.

Emanuele Loret was born in 1949, in Rome; he received the laurea degree in Biol-ogy/Hydrology from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1980. He is a visitingresearch scientist for the Earth Observation Science, Applications Department ofESA/ESRIN (Frascati – Rome) where he is involved in several European Projectssuch as PRIMAVERA, DEMOTEC-A, BACCHUS, DiVino, EDUSPACE. His mainresearch interests concerns the GIS and remote sensing environment application andmodeling.

Naomi Mathers received her degree in Aerospace Engineering from RMIT Uni-versity in Melbourne, Australia, in 2001 and is currently completing her PhD atRMIT University, investigating the possibility of applying inflatable structure tech-nology to portable land-based direct satellite communication. She works at theVictorian Space Science Education Centre (VSSEC) in Melbourne, helping to in-crease Australia’s capacity in science and mathematics and raise awareness of theapplications of space technology. As a member of the Engineers Australia NationalCommittee for Space Engineering, the International Astronautical Federation (IAF)Space Education and Outreach Committee and the Asia Pacific Regional SpaceAgency Forum (APRSAF) Space Education and Awareness Working Group, Naomihelps to promote the benefits of space technology to society and inspire the indus-tries future scientists and engineers.

Gonzalo Martın-de-Mercado graduated in Telecommunications Engineer. Hejoined INSA in 2001, becoming Systems Engineer for the REMFIRESAT andFUEGOSAT programmes for forest fire detection and monitoring amongst others. In2008 he joined European Space Agency (ESA) and he is working within the ARTES20 programme for the development of integrated applications (involving space andground technologies) in various fields such as energy, health, safety, transportationand development.

Luca Martino, was born in Rome, in 1976; he received the degree in aerospaceengineering and the Msc in Emergency Engineering in 2004 and 2006 respectivelyfrom the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. In 2008 he achieved the Msc on SpaceTelecommunications at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and presently he is at-tending the Astronautical Engineering School at University of Rome “La Sapienza”.

About the Authors xxiii

He was involved in several projects such as Humboldt. His main research interestsconcern the space mission telemetry, the earth observation applications (Naturalduasters) and ICT. Currently he is working for the earth observation division ofTelespazio.

Manuel Martın-Neira received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in TelecommunicationEngineering in 1986 and 1996 respectively from the School of TelecommunicationEngineering, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain. In 1988 he worked as aYoung Graduate Trainee at the European Space Agency (ESA) on radiometry. From1989 to 1992 he joined GMV, a Spanish company, with responsibility for severalprojects on GPS spacecraft navigation and attitude determination. Since 1992 he hasbeen a staff member of ESA in charge of all radiometer activities within the Tech-nical Directorate. He was responsible for the pre-development technology activitiesfor MIRAS, the SMOS payload. He is currently the SMOS Instrument PrincipalEngineer.

M. Merri holds three degrees in Electrical Engineering: a “Laurea” degree from thePolitecnico di Milano, Italy, a Master degree and a PhD degree from the Universityof Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA. Since 1989, he is with the EuropeanSpace Agency at the European Space Operations Centre. He is currently the headof the Application Mission Data System Section that is responsible for the design,development, deployment, supervision and maintenance of Mission Control Sys-tems and Spacecraft Simulators for a number of ESA missions including: AEOLUS,CLUSTER, CRYOSAT, ENVISAT, ERS-2, GOCE, METOP, MSG, SMART-1,SWARM, XMM. During his career, he has also been extensively involved in stan-dardisation activities and he is actively involved in CCSDS, ECSS and OMG.

Kevin McMullan graduated with a BE (Hons) degree in Electrical Engineeringfrom University College, Cork, Ireland, in 1973. For the next 10 years he workedas a Microwave Engineer at the Plessey Radar Research Centre, a UK company,specialising in Microwave Radiometry (at L-Band and Ku-Band) and in Millimetre-wave Imaging. In 1983 he joined the European Space Agency (ESA) as CalibrationEngineer for the Radar Altimeter (RA) Instrument on-board the European RemoteSensing Satellite (ERS-1) subsequently becoming RA Instrument and MicrowaveRadiometer (MWR-2) responsible for ERS-2, Communications Payload Managerfor the METEOSAT Second Generation (MSG) suite of meteorological satellitesand laterally SMOS Payload Manager.

Dr. oec. troph. Claudia Mika is the Executive Director (ED) for TEMOS. She isexperienced in international projects that were managed at the German AerospaceCenter. In particular, she was involved in the planning, organization, realization andevaluation of international projects like Head-Down Tilt Studies and space physiol-ogy projects, e.g. MIR’97. She studied nutritional science at the University of Bonn

xxiv About the Authors

and was also intern at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine, German Aerospace Cen-ter (DLR) in Cologne. She held various positions at the department for Child andAdolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Clinic and the Institutes of AerospaceMedicine, at the Technical University of Aachen and the German Aerospace Cen-tre, DLR Cologne. Dr. Mika published numerous papers. In 2002, she received the“Young Researcher Award” of the European Space Agency (ESA). In 2007, Dr.Mika was nominee of and received a “N.U.K. Business Plan” prize for the TEMOSconcept.

Ramses A. Molijn received the BSc. degree in aerospace engineering at Delft Uni-versity of Technology, The Netherlands. Hereafter he continued to finish his MSc.degree in Geomatics within the Department of Earth Observation and Space systems(DEOS) at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. In 2007, he studied forhalf a year at The University of Melbourne, Australia and in 2008 he was an internat the Centre for Space Research in Austin, Texas.

Linda Moodie is Senior Advisor to NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service andis the point of contact in GEO for the global GEONETCast project. Ms. Moodieplayed a major role in the conceptualization, organization, and execution of thefirst Earth Observation Summit in July 2003, which launched the GEO initiative.She advised the NOAA Administrator in his capacity as GEO Co-chair, advises theNOAA Co-chair of the U.S. effort to develop a U.S. Integrated Earth ObservationSystem, which is the U.S. contribution to the international system, and participatedon the small team that drafted the international GEOSS 10-Year ImplementationPlan.

Phillip Olla is the endowed Phillips Chair of Management and Professor of MISat the school of business at Madonna University in Michigan USA, and he is also aVisiting Research Fellow at Brunel University, London, UK. His research interestsinclude space for sustainable development, Mobile telecommunication, and healthinformatics.In addition to University level teaching, he is also a Chartered Engineer and has over10 years experience as an independent Consultant and has worked in the telecom-munications, space, financial and healthcare sectors. He was contracted to performa variety of roles including Chief Technical Architect, Program Manager, and Di-rector. Dr Olla is the Associate Editor for the Journal of Information TechnologyResearch and the Software/Book Review Editor for the International Journal ofHealthcare Information Systems and Informatics, and is also a member of the Edito-rial Advisory & Review Board for the Journal of Knowledge Management Practice.

S. Pallaschke was born in 1942 and retired in 2007 after having been employedwith the European Space Agency (Satellite Operations Centre at Darmstadt,Germany) for about 40 years. During this time he worked in Flight Dynamics,

About the Authors xxv

primarily in the orbit determination area, where he gathered experience duringmany satellites projects covering launches and operations. The years of experienceenabled him to provide consultancy support to other Space related InternationalOrganisations during this affiliation with the European Space Agency. Next to theorbit determination tasks he participated in Standardisation Boards and during thepast five years as well in the Knowledge Management activities of the Centre.

Shawna Pandya is a medical student at the University of Alberta (Edmonton,Canada) and holds prior degrees in Neuroscience (BSc Hon., University of Al-berta, 2006) and Space Studies (MSc, International Space University, 2007, Stras-bourg, France). Her research interests are numerous and diverse, ranging from spacemedicine to neurosurgery to the use of telemedicine and technology for ensuringaccess to quality healthcare. Shawna has previously worked in the Crew MedicalSupport Office of ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in Germany and is currentlycarrying out pre-clinical testing of the neuroArm at the University of Calgary. Inher spare time, Shawna enjoys many hobbies including taekwondo, scuba-diving,rock-climbing, travel, writing, singing, piano and guitar. Any comments regardingher contribution can be forwarded to pandya@ualberta.ca.

Angela D. Peura is a Master’s student in International Science and TechnologyPolicy with concentrations in Space Policy and Eurasian Studies from the ElliottSchool of International Affairs at the George Washington University. Angela alsoholds a Bachelor’s degree in Archaeological Studies from Boston University.

Hanumantha Rayappa holds a Masters degree in Statistics from Bangalore Uni-versity. He is working in ISRO for about 17 years. Prior to his movement to ISROHead Quarters in the year 2000, he worked at master Control facility (MCF) Hassanin Mission systems and Software. In his current position at Satellite Communica-tion programme Office (SCPO), ISRO HQ; he is responsible for the deployment,operation and maintenance of telemedicine systems across India. He has been in-strumental in empowering the telemedicine users and service providers to reach thebenefits of space technology to the common man at the grassroots level.

L.N. Murthy Remilla holds a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Electronics &Communication and Masters Degree in Business Administration (Marketing) andcarrying out his research in International Marketing at Indian Institute of Science(IISc). He has been serving the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) since1988. Currently he is working as Deputy Director, Business Development in AntrixCorporation Limited, the Marketing and Commercial Wing of ISRO. Murthy is re-sponsible for programme development and coordination of Telemedicine and Tele-education services in India and International Marketing of Indian Remote SensingServices from IRS satellites. He has been the co-editor of “Telemedicine Manual”and Member of National Task Force on Telemedicine formed by Indian Ministry of

xxvi About the Authors

Health & Family Welfare. He has several national and international publications tohis credit in Telemedicine and remote Sensing.

Rustam B. Rustamov 1981–1984-PhD at the Russian Physical-Technical Institute(S. Petersburg); 1985-Doctor of physical and mathematical sciences;1972–1977-Student, Azerbaijan Polytechnic Institute/AzPI/, Baku, Azerbaijan; 1979–1981-Trainee at the Physical-Technical Institute (S. Petersburg); 1998-ESA/UN Programon Space Applications; Associate Professor.

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs – member of Action Teams; UnitedNations Economical and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific – contact point;International Astronautical Federation – contact point; Former Director General ofthe Azerbaijan National Aerospace Agency.

Project implementation: Implementation of the technical support project “Streng-thening Capacity in Inventory of Land Cover/Land Use by Remote Sensing” un-der contribution FAO UN as a project manager from 1999 for two years duration(ArcView GIS version 3.2 software application) – project manager; Application ofRemote Sensing and GIS technology to reduce flood risk under ProVention Re-search & Action Grants project as a project mentor for 2007–2008 years – men-tor of project. Author of 50 scientific papers including 4 monographers. e-mail:r rustamov@hotmail.com

Saida E. Salahova 1997–2001 Bachelor degree on Applied mathematics at theAzerbaijan State Oil Academy; 2001–2003 Master degree on Mathematical mod-eling at the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy; Pursuing the PhD degree in RemoteSensing and GIS at the Space Research Institute of Natural Resources on topicof development the Neural Network algorithms for classification of aerospaceimage.

Project Implementation: Application of Remote Sensing and GIS technology toreduce flood risk under ProVention Research & Action Grants project as a projectmentor for 2007–2008 years – project team leader. Author of 8 scientific papers.e-mail: saida salakhova@yahoo.com

L.S. Satyamurthy holds an Engineering Degree in Electrical and Mechanical En-gineering, after an initial service at the Ministry of Defence for about 5 years,joined ISRO in 1974 and worked for the first Indian Satellite Project “Aryabhat”. Heworked as Director, Business Development and Programme Coordinator,Telemedicine till September 2008 at ISRO/Antrix. He has worked in ISRO for thevarious communication and remote sensing satellite programmes especially with theoperational programmes of Indian National Satellite System (INSAT) and IndianRemote Sensing Satellite System (IRS). From 1993 to 1998, he was the Coun-sellor of Space Technology at the Embassy of India, Washington D.C. USA. Hehas successfully implemented the telemedicine initiatives of ISRO. He has beenthe co-editor of “Telemedicine Manual” and Member of National Task Force on

About the Authors xxvii

Telemedicine formed by Indian Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. He has sev-eral national and international publications to his credit.

K. Sethuraman holds a Masters degree in Mathematics from Bharathidasan Uni-versity. He is working in ISRO for 22 years and prior to his movement to ISROHead Quarters in the year 2000, he worked at master Control facility (MCF) Hassanin Mission systems and Software. At ISRO HQ he is responsible for the design anddeployment of telemedicine and Tele-education systems from the Satellite Com-munication programme Office (SCPO). He has been instrumental in the transitionof ISRO’s Telemedicine technology and programme on par with the technologicaltrends and their adaptation for benefiting the organisation as well as the society.

Paul Seymour is a physical scientist and the Direct Readout Program Managerin the Satellite Services Division of the Office of Satellite Data Processing andDistribution in NOAA/NESDIS. He has participated in the GEONETCast Americasdevelopment project since he was employed by NOAA in June of 2007 and assumedleadership of the service when it became operational in 2008. Prior to NOAA, heworked at the U.S. National Ice Center as the Command and Operations DepartmentTechnical Advisor.

Mr. N.K. Shrivastava did his Master’s degree (Physics) in 1980, and started hiscareer with teaching for a short period. He joined ISRO in 1981, and since thenworked in different areas related to Satellite Tracking, Operations and Control.Since the inception, he has been associated with ISRO’s Satellite Aided Search andRescue (SASAR) Programme. He has been responsible for strengthening SASARprogramme in India by providing valuable operational support, system developmentand establishing excellent interfaces with the various user departments and Inter-national agencies. He represented ISRO in several national and international fo-rums. Presently he has been working as Manager for Indian Mission Control Center(INMCC/ISTRAC/ISRO) at Bangalore.

In the year 2002, he has also been assigned additional responsibility to coordinateInternational Charter “Space and Major Disasters” Operations for global DisasterManagement as Emergency On-call Officer (ECO). In his capacity as ECO, he hasbeen responsible in planning and providing space data for major disasters like AsianTsunami and Katrina.

Dr. Sanjay K. Srivastava is a Ph.D (Agricultural Physics) from India’s premierIndian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, has been working withIndian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Government of India, since 1991, asan application scientist in the area of agriculture, rural development and disastermanagement. While his interest lies in developing EO products relevant to foodsecurity, poverty alleviation and disaster risk reduction, he has also been working inthe areas of hyperspectral remote sensing, multi-polarimetric SAR applications and

xxviii About the Authors

assimilation of EO products in dynamic simulation modeling. He has got more than100 papers published.

Mattia Stasolla received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Electronics Engineering, summacum laude, from the University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy, in 2003 and 2005, respectively.In 2006 he also received the diploma for Sciences and Technologies class from theInstitute for Advanced Studies (IUSS) of Pavia.

He is currently completing his Ph.D. in Electronics and Computer Science atthe University of Pavia. His fields of interest include remote sensing data process-ing, especially for risk and crisis management, mathematical morphology, fuzzyrule-based classifiers and neural networks. Since 2007, he has also been a ResearchEngineer at the Microwave Laboratory, University of Pavia, dealing with direct andinverse scattering problems and electromagnetic diagnostic techniques.

M. Stasolla is a Member of IEEE and frequently acts as a referee for IEEETransactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing and IEEE Geoscience and RemoteSensing Letters.

Calo Ulivieri was born in Turin- Italy in 1942; he received the M.Sc. in ChemicalEngineering in 1986 and the PhD in Aerospace Engineering in 1970 at the Univer-sity of Rome “La Sapienza”. Twentyfive years cumulative technical experience inAerospace Engineering (Space Systems, Astrodynamics, Remote Sensing). He hasdeveloped his activity in NASA and in several Institutions of the University of Romeand of National Research Counsel. He has directed many researches and programsin space systems (Astrodynamics, Remote Sensing, Satellite Subsystems). Mem-ber of several international institutes and organizations, his present position is fullProfessor in “Aerospace System Design” at the Aerospace Engineering School ofthe Sapienza – University of Rome; he is Head of the Aerospace and AstronauticalEngineering Department and President of the Centro di Ricerca Progetto San Marcoof the same university.

Fernando Valcarce received his MSc in Telecommunications Engineering. Hejoined INSA in 2003, working as a Systems Engineer for several ESA projectssuch as: RISK-EOS (implementation of operational services for emergency man-agement based on remote sensing data), FUEGOSAT (study of Fuegosat payloaddata suitability for forest fires detection and monitoring). From 2006 he becameProject Manager for the European Commission PREVIEW programme developingnew geo-information services for risk management at European level.

Hans van der Marel obtained the degree of Geodetical Engineer (cum laude) atthe Delft University of Technology in 1983. In 1987 he was appointed task-leaderfor the great-circle reduction task in the international FAST consortium and becamea member of ESA’s Hipparcos science team, until 1997, when the Hipparcos cata-logue was published. He obtained his PhD (cum laude) at the Delft University of

About the Authors xxix

Technology in March 1988. In December 1987 he was awarded a research fellow-ship by the Netherlands Academy of Sciences. Since 1989 he is working as assistantprofessor in the section Mathematical Geodesy and Positioning at the Delft Uni-versity of Technology, where he has been working on Global Navigation SatelliteSystems (GNSS).

Bart J.A. van Marwijk is pursuing a M.Sc. in Dynamics and Control of AerospaceVehicles within the Control and Simulation Department of Delft University of Tech-nology, The Netherlands. In 2006, he received his B.Sc. in Aerospace Engineeringat the same university. In autumn 2007, he was an intern with the Flight SystemsDepartment of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Mark Visser received his B.Sc. degree in Aerospace Engineering from the DelftUniversity of Technology in The Netherlands. He is pursuing his M.Sc. degree inDynamics and Control of Aerospace Vehicles. Mark was a visiting student in theHumans & Automation Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cam-bridge in 2006 and was an intern in the Flight Efficiency Department of the BoeingResearch & Technology Europe office in Madrid in 2007.

Maral H. Zeynalova 1982–1987-PhD at the Russian Institute of Biology(S. Petersburg); 1987- Doctor of Biology; 1980–1982- Trainee at the Russian Insti-tute of Biology (S. Petersburg); 1974–1979 – Student, Azerbaijan State University,Baku; 1977-Trainee, Czech-Slovakia; 2000-Trainee on empowering education ofgender.

Project implementation: Biodiversity and novel mechanism of photosynthesisin Central Asian desert plants (RB1-2502-ST-03), Cooperative Grants Programme,United States Civilian Research and Development Foundation for the independentstates of the former Soviet Union for 2003–2005 years.

More than 14 scientific papers. e-mail: maral zeynalova@yahoo.com

Part IImproving Global Resource Management

and Protection of Terrestrial, Coastaland Marine Resources

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission

K.D. McMullan, M. Martın-Neira, A. Hahne and A. Borges

Abstract The SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) project is the second EarthExplorer Mission of Opportunity within the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Liv-ing Planet Program.

The purpose of the SMOS mission is to provide soil moisture and ocean salinitymaps from space. These two geophysical parameters are of key importance in im-proving climatological forecasting, increasing the understanding of the water cycle,providing new approaches to acquiring knowledge of the phenomenon of climatechange and monitoring the planet’s fresh water reserves.

The mission employs a satellite in low-earth sun-synchronous orbit with an al-titude of 755 km and a revisit time of 3 days. SMOS measures the thermal noisegenerated by the earth at L-Band (1.4 GHz) with a spatial resolution of 50 km andradiometric sensitivity of 3.5 K per snapshot at boresight.

The thermal radiation detected by SMOS at L-Band is where microwave theoristshave devised a direct relationship between Soil Moisture (SM) and Ocean Salin-ity (OS) with earth emissivity. The SMOS single-instrument MIRAS (MicrowaveImaging Radiometer with Aperture Synthesis) is an innovative 2-D aperture syn-thesis radiometer. Aperture synthesis, or, interferometry, is an alternative to realaperture instruments that permits the synthesis of a theoretical antenna of verylarge aperture using a diverse collection of small antenna/receivers which achievesa greatly improved instrument weight/geometric resolution ratio.

The fundamental theory behind this technique is the same as that used for decadesin radio astronomy. The instrument measures the cross correlations between allpairs of receivers to derive the visibility function. In a first-order approximation, thebrightness temperature of the source is computed as the inverse Fourier transformof this function. However, the large field of view present in earth observation ap-plications introduces non-negligible effects of individual antenna patterns, obliquityfactors and spatial decorrelation effects. Experimental work on SMOS has shownthat mutual effects of closely spaced antennas, as well as their individual match-ing, become important to fully understand the measurements. For SMOS, a new

K.D. McMullan (B)ESA, Keplerlaan 1, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlandse-mail: Kevin.McMullan@esa.int

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 1, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

3

4 K.D. McMullan et al.

formulation of the visibility function, including full antenna characteristics and in-teractions between receivers, was developed. These effects, never taken into accountin previous approaches, have an important impact on inversion techniques and alsoon instrument specifications and performance.

MIRAS consists of an array of separate radiometric receivers. The system acts asa radio camera, and as the satellite moves forward, a wide swath is covered withoutmechanical movement to create a larger synthetic antenna in order to increase theimage resolution.

The raw data output of MIRAS consists of one-bit digital correlations that aretransmitted to ground to the Data Processing Ground Segment (DPGS) via an X-Band communications link.

Calibration of any earth observation sensor is a key stage which encompassesthose tasks necessary to convert the raw measurement data into science data. Cali-bration is an important prerequisite to performance verification (which demonstratesthe instrument meets its requirements) and the validation of geophysical parametersproduced as higher level products.

The flight model satellite of SMOS, developed by European space industry, isscheduled for launch within the last quarter of 2008 with a planned lifetime of 3to 5 years. A second generation of SMOS satellites (SMOS Ops) is under study tocontinue the supply of soil moisture and ocean salinity maps with improvements inpixel resolution and revisit time. Following the successful deployment of SMOS inorbit and a satisfactory demonstration of its capabilities, it is hoped that the SMOSconcept and design will form the basis of future soil moisture and ocean salinitymissions for earth observation purposes and as a major contributor to operationalmeteorology and climate change awareness.

Keywords Microwave radiometry · Interferometry · Aperture synthesis · Microwaveimaging · Remote sensing

Introduction

Water in the soil and salt in the oceans may seem to be unconnected, however,both variables are intrinsically linked to the Earth’s water cycle and climate (ESAWebsite, Earth Explorers (SMOS)).

The SMOS mission is a direct response to the current lack of global observationsof soil moisture and ocean salinity which is needed to further our knowledge of thewater cycle, and to contribute to better weather and extreme-event and seasonal-climate forecasting.

The variability in soil moisture is mainly governed by different rates of evapo-ration and precipitation so that severe drought can result in features such as hard,dry, cracked soil, while floods and landslides can be a consequence of very heavyrainfall. Less obvious perhaps is the fact that some areas of the Earth’s oceansare significantly saltier than others. Changes in the salinity of surface seawater are

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 5

brought about by the addition or removal of freshwater, mainly through evaporationand precipitation, but also, in polar regions, by the freezing and melting of ice.Variability in soil moisture and ocean salinity is due to the continuous exchange ofwater between the oceans, the atmosphere and the land – the Earth’s water cycle.

The importance of estimating soil moisture in the root zone is paramount forimproving short- and medium-term meteorological modelling, hydrological mod-elling, the monitoring of plant growth, as well as contributing to the forecasting ofhazardous events such as floods.

The amount of water held in soil, is of course, crucial for primary production butit is also intrinsically linked to our weather and climate. This is because soil moistureis a key variable controlling the exchange of water and heat energy between the landand the atmosphere. Precipitation, soil moisture, percolation, run-off, evaporationfrom the soil, and plant transpiration are all components of the terrestrial part of thewater cycle. There is, therefore, a direct link between soil moisture and atmospherichumidity because dry soil contributes little or no moisture to the atmosphere and sat-urated soil contributes a lot. Moreover, since soil moisture is linked to evaporation,it is also important in governing the distribution of heat flux from the land to theatmosphere so that areas of high soil moisture not only raise atmospheric humiditybut also lower temperatures locally.

In the surface waters of the oceans, temperature and salinity alone control thedensity of seawater – the colder and saltier the water, the denser it is. As water evap-orates from the ocean, the salinity increases and the surface layer becomes denser.In contrast, precipitation results in reduced density and stratification of the ocean.The processes of seawater freezing and melting are also responsible for increasingand decreasing the salinity of the polar oceans, respectively. As sea-ice forms duringwinter, the freezing process extracts fresh water in the form of ice, leaving behinddense, cold, salty surface water.

If the density of the surface layer of seawater is increased sufficiently, the wa-ter column becomes gravitationally unstable and the denser water sinks. This pro-cess is a key to the temperature and salinity-driven global ocean circulation. Thisconveyor-belt-like circulation is an important component of the Earth’s heat engine,and crucial in regulating the weather and climate.

The principal objective of the SMOS mission is to provide global maps of soilmoisture and ocean salinity of specified accuracy, sensitivity, spatial resolution, spa-tial and temporal coverage. In addition, the mission is expected to provide usefuldata for cryospheric studies.

A novel instrument, MIRAS (Microwave Imaging Radiometer with ApertureSynthesis), as shown in Fig. 1, has been especially developed to make these obser-vations and to demonstrate the use of this new radiometer concept and its capabilityof observing both soil moisture and ocean salinity by capturing images of emittedmicrowave radiation in the protected frequency band between 1400 and 1427 MHz(L-Band). SMOS will carry the first-ever, polar-orbiting, space-borne, 2-D interfer-ometric radiometer.

Moisture is a measure of the amount of water within a given volume of materialand is usually expressed as a percentage. From space, the SMOS instrument can

6 K.D. McMullan et al.

Fig. 1 SMOS satellite withMIRAS instrument indeployed configuration

measure as little as 4% moisture in soil on the surface of the Earth – which is aboutthe same as being able to detect less than one teaspoonful of water mixed with ahandful of dry soil.

Salinity describes the concentration of dissolved salts in water. It measures inpractical salinity units (psu), which expresses a conductivity ratio. The averagesalinity of the oceans is 35 psu, which is equivalent to 35 grams of salt in 1 litreof water. SMOS aims to observe salinity down to 0.1 psu (averaged over 10–30days and an area of 200 km × 200 km) – which is about the same as detecting 0.1gram of salt in a litre of water.

Background

The social benefits to humans of a global knowledge of soil moisture and oceansalinity are numerous and varied.

Soil moisture variations affect the evolution of weather and climate over con-tinental regions. Enhancement of numerical weather prediction models and sea-sonal climate models resulting in improved seasonal climate predictions will benefitclimate-sensitive socioeconomic activities, including water management, agricul-ture, and fire, flood and drought hazards monitoring.

Soil moisture strongly affects plant growth and hence agricultural productivity,especially during conditions of water shortage, the most severe of which is drought.At present, there is no global in situ network for soil moisture. Global estimatesof soil moisture, and in turn, plant water stress, must be derived from models.

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 7

These model predictions (and hence drought monitoring) could be greatly enhancedthrough assimilation of soil moisture observations.

Soil moisture also is a key variable in water related natural hazards, such as floodsand landslides. High-resolution observations of soil moisture lead to improved floodforecasts, especially for intermediate-to-large watersheds where most flood damageoccurs. The surface soil moisture state is key to partitioning of precipitation intoinfiltration and runoff. Hydrologic forecast systems initialized with mapped high-resolution soil moisture fields will open a new era in operational flood forecasting.Furthermore, soil moisture in mountainous areas is one of the most important deter-minants of landslides.

Soil moisture data will provide information on water availability for plant pro-ductivity and potential yield. The availability of direct observations of soil moisturewill allow significant improvements in operational crop productivity and crop water-stress information systems by providing realistic soil moisture observations for themodels.

Improved seasonal soil moisture forecasts will directly improve famine earlywarning systems, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia where hungerremains a major human health factor. Indirect benefits will also be realized as soilmoisture data enables better weather forecasts which lead to improved predictionsof heat stress and virus-spreading rates. Soil moisture data will also benefit theemerging field of landscape epidemiology (aimed at identifying and mapping vec-tor habitats for human diseases such as malaria), where direct observations of soilmoisture provide valuable information related to vector population dynamics.

Coincidently, human safety and prosperity depend on better ocean observing sys-tems. Speedy diagnosis of the temper and vital signs of the oceans matters increas-ingly to the well being of humanity.

Current ocean observing systems suffer from major gaps in observational cover-age which can be greatly improved by satellites which provide a high-altitude win-dow on such marine characteristics as sea surface salinity and roughness, tempera-ture, currents, ice cover and shifting meadow-like areas where marine plants grow.Scientists envisage an ongoing, integrated ocean observing system that routinelysurveys and monitors conditions and offers prompt diagnoses and timely forecastsof problems – practical information of benefit to humanity in many ways.

Deeper understanding of ocean behaviour will help society better forecast andprotect itself from catastrophic storms such as hurricanes, typhoons and tsunamis.Better ocean information will improve short- and long-range weather and climateprediction, thereby strengthening disaster preparedness and damage mitigation andstrategies for agricultural and seafood harvests. As well, better ocean observing willimprove safety of the marine transportation network – which conveys 90% of goodstraded internationally – with accurate, timely information about ocean conditions.

Among the benefits offered by better ocean observing: measurement of sea sur-face temperatures and circulation could predict movement of fish from traditionalwaters, and even outbreaks of disease, which have been associated with warmerwater, while monitoring pollution will help predict toxic algal blooms.

8 K.D. McMullan et al.

Oceans are a growing source of energy – oil and especially natural gas – asoperators reach into the seafloor in deeper and deeper parts of the ocean with multi-billion dollar facilities. Offshore wind farms would also depend on timely, reliableinformation on ocean conditions. Better ocean observation will help harness variousenergy sources safely and efficiently with minimal environmental impact.

A more fully developed ocean observing system will foster important new in-sights into how altered ocean conditions, including warmer water, circulation andincreasing acidity, affect weather, climate and the role of the oceans as a carbonsink. Scientists want to know how warmer water, for example, impacts microscopiclife forms that consume some 50 giga-tonnes of carbon per year, about the same asall plants and trees on land.

As the planet’s primary reservoir, oceans govern the global water cycle. Improvedocean observations will help scientists better understand precipitation patterns.

A majority of life on Earth eats, swims, crawls, and lives in oceans. Water temper-atures and circulation affect where species live and travel, as well as the distributionof nutrients, plankton and on up the food chain. A global ocean observing systemsuch as SMOS will illuminate the impact of shifting ocean conditions and pollutionon marine and coastal ecosystems and the distribution, abundance and biodiversityof organisms.

In summary, the SMOS objectives are to demonstrate the use of L-Band 2-Dinterferometric radiometry from space

� To monitor on a global scale soil moisture over land surfaces,� To monitor on a global scale salinity over oceans, and� To improve the characterisation of ice and snow covered surfaces

for

� Advancing climatological, oceanographic, meteorological, hydrological, agro-nomical and glaciological science,

� Assessing the potential of such measurements to contribute to improve the man-agement of water resources.

Regarding the technological evolution of the MIRAS design for SMOS, the con-cept of aperture synthesis was advanced in the field of radio astronomy as a meansof achieving the finest resolving power with an antenna array that uses a relativelysmall number of individual elements. The objective of this technique is to achievethe best resolution at minimum cost. A prime example is the Very Large Array(VLA) shown in Fig. 2 that uses a “Y’ configuration of elements to achieve theresolution of a filled array whose diameter is equal to that of the circle that enclosesthe “Y” (Napier et al. 1983). Because of phase fidelity offered by microwave com-ponents, antenna complexity can be replaced by signal processing complexity toobtain resolutions which could otherwise not be achieved. Indeed, radio telescopesutilizing aperture synthesis and very long baseline interferometry rival and evenexceed the resolution achieved by some of the best earth-based optical telescopes(Swift et al. 1991).

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 9

Fig. 2 Very Large Array(VLA) at the National RadioAstronomy Observatory(NRAO) (Napier et al. 1983)

Space-based microwave applications in earth science are a much younger disci-pline than radio astronomy. As more geophysical-product users become accustomedto passive microwave satellite data, a demand is developing for both better spatialresolution and for the addition of frequencies as low as 1.4 GHz. These demandsnow place the space technologist in a similar quandary to radio astronomers 50years ago; large, mechanically scanned filled apertures are just too costly to placeinto orbit. The ground rules for earth observation are somewhat different to thosefor radio astronomy. The spacecraft orbits at 6.5 km/s, so that processing must bedone more rapidly. The earth is an extended source, whereas astronomical sourcesare embedded in a cold cosmic background which influences signal-to-noise ratiosand sampling requirements.

Interferometric aperture synthesis was first proposed in the 1980’s as an alterna-tive to real-aperture radiometry for earth observation from space at low microwavefrequencies with high spatial resolution (Ruf et al. 1988). An L-Band radiometerusing real aperture for across track and interferometric aperture synthesis for along-track is described in (Le Vine et al. 2001). A radiometer using aperture synthesisin both directions (MIRAS) was proposed in (Martin-Neira and Goutoule 1997). Inthe meantime, extensive work has been done to improve the understanding of sucha radiometer (Camps 1996).

The interferometer shown in Fig. 3 is the basic building block of the aperture syn-thesis technique developed for earth observation (Swift et al. 1991). If the outputs

Fig. 3 Conceptual diagramof a two-element imagingmicrowave interferometer [3]

V DD

fc

fc

TB DISTRIBUTION

CORRELATEDANTENNA PATTERN

λ )(

10 K.D. McMullan et al.

of the two isotropic antenna elements are multiplied together, it can be shown (see(Kraus 1966), for example) that the equivalent measurement is described by thefollowing formula:

V (d) =π/2∫

−π/2

TB(θ ) exp [− j (2πd/λ) θ ] dθ

where λ is the electromagnetic wavelength, θ is the incidence angle and d is thespacing between elements. V is known as the “visibility” function in line with theterm commonly used in radio astronomy. If the visibility function is sequentiallymeasured for 0 < d < D, then V can be defined as the Fourier transform of thethermal emission, or brightness temperature, of the scene. The scene can then bereconstructed by performing the Fourier inverse. The resolution of the measurementis determined by the total baseline D, and not the dimension of the antenna elements.Furthermore, only discrete samples with d equal to integer half wavelengths arerequired for perfect reconstruction of the scene with spatial resolution determinedby D.

Unfortunately, such a scheme is not practical from low earth orbit because theforward motion of the spacecraft limits the time on target and hence sensitivity.A practical system requires simultaneous sampling of all integer half wavelengthsdistributed over the baseline. This dilemma has led to the concept of thinned arrayradiometry (Moffett 1968). The objective is to appropriately distribute a small num-ber of elements over a baseline, perform power divisions of each output, and thenperform the cross-correlations to generate the complete set of visibility functions.An example is shown in Fig. 4. In this example, five elements perform the work ofeight. Although the savings are trivial in this case, thinning geometrically increasesas the size of the array increases. This is a desirable characteristic since antennasbecome more expensive as the electrical size increases (Swift et al. 1991).

The thinned array concept offers interesting cost benefit trade-offs. One trade-off is the exchange of antenna complexity for system complexity. In the examplecited, five receivers and fifteen correlations are utilized to image the scene. Thisparticular trade-off option of thinned arrays has become attractive as a result ofadvances that have occurred in microwave and computer technology. However itshould be noted that the system complexity is considerable as the array thinningbecomes more significant.

The other trade-off relates to signal-to-noise considerations. The figure of meritof a single total power radiometer is determined by �T , the measurement standarddeviation, as given by the following formula:

�T = Tsys√Bτ

where Tsys is the system noise temperature, B is the system bandwidth, and τ is thepost-detection integration time. Because of the type of processing used in aperture

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 11

Fig. 4 Example of a thinned array antenna with five elements performing as a filled array of eightelements (Swift et al. 1991)

synthesis, the �T of the thinned array additionally depends upon the size of thearray and the degree of thinning, which generally leads to a significant degradationin sensitivity over what can be achieved with a total power radiometer in a “stare”mode, because, as the physical collecting area is reduced, the signal-to-noise ratiois correspondingly reduced to the detriment of the radiometric sensitivity. Such atrade-off is discussed in (LeVine 1989) which concludes that the sensitivity ob-tained with aperture synthesis is proportional to that obtained with a total powerradiometer of the same system temperature, bandwidth and integration time. Theproportionality constant is the “fill” factor which is the ratio of the effective area ofthe synthesised antenna to the actual collecting area employed in the array. The re-duction in sensitivity that this entails can be restored by a correspondingly increasedintegration time because the synthetic aperture does not need to scan as it collectsenergy from many independent, fixed antenna pairs.

A Microwave Imaging Radiometer with Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS) in twodimensions for earth observation applications from space based on the VLA con-figuration of Fig. 2 is presented in Fig. 5 (Tanner et al. 2006). MIRAS consists ofa Y-array of microwave receivers located at the points of a hexagonal grid. Eachpair of receivers forms a single particular baseline and the correlations of all base-lines as a function of their relative position form the complex visibility function.Each sample of the visibility function measures a particular spatial harmonic of thebrightness temperature image across the field of view. The brightness temperaturecan be recovered by an image reconstruction process which is similar to an inverse

12 K.D. McMullan et al.

Fig. 5 Two-dimensional Aperture Synthesis Concept: MIRAS has receivers along the main di-rections of a hexagonal grid (top-left); the correlations between all pairs of receivers (baselines)populate the spatial frequency domain (bottom); the image reconstruction provides the brightnesstemperature of the Earth, Spain (top-right)

Fourier transform. To save in complexity, the spacing between receivers can bemade larger up to the point where the alias free field of view reaches the desiredswath extent, as per Fig. 13. An extended alias free field-of-view is limited by thesix-curved contours of the earth aliases, as seen in Fig. 5 (top-right). Moreover, thelarge field of view present in earth observation induces non-negligible effects ofindividual antenna patterns, obliquity factors and spatial decorrelation effects (Cor-bella et al. 2004). Experimental work on SMOS has shown that mutual effects ofclosely spaced antennas, as well as their individual matching, become important tofully understand the measurements. For SMOS, a complete re-formulation of thevisibility function, including full antenna characteristics and interactions betweenreceivers, was developed in the Corbella equation, a full derivation of which is con-tained in the Appendix. The main outcome is that when these effects are taken intoaccount, the measured cross correlation between receiver output signals turns outto be proportional to the inverse transform of the difference between the brightnesstemperature of the source and the physical temperature of the receivers. This effect,

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 13

which has never been taken into account in previous approaches, has an importantimpact on inversion techniques and also on instrument specifications and perfor-mance.

The Smos System

The SMOS System consists of a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite, dedicated groundsegment and launcher. A block diagram of the system architecture is shown in Fig. 6.

The satellite incorporates the EADS CASA Espacio Payload Module MIRASand a platform based on the THALES ALENIA Space generic PROTEUS bus (Barreet al.). The ground segment of SMOS is sub-divided into two functional groupings,the Satellite Operations Ground Segment (SOGS) for spacecraft monitoring andcontrol and the Data Processing Ground Segment (DPGS) for scientific data pro-cessing. The rocket selected to launch SMOS is the ROCKOT-Breeze KM operatedby EUROCKOT from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia.

Fig. 6 SMOS System Block Diagram showing the space and ground segments and launcher (Barreet al. 2008). Satellite operations is via the Satellite Operations Ground Segment (SOGS). Scientificdata processing is centred on the Data Processing Ground Segment (DPGS) consisting of the Pay-load Data Processing Centre (PDPC) and the SMOS Plan Generation Function (SPGF), assisted byExpert Support Laboratories (ESLs). Planning of payload operations is carried out at the PayloadOperations and Programming Centre (PLPC)

14 K.D. McMullan et al.

Satellite operations are managed by the SOGS located in Toulouse, France. TheTelemetry, Tracking and Tele-Command Earth Terminal (TTCET) is an S-Bandground station providing bi-directional telemetry and telecommand links with thesatellite using stations in Kiruna (Sweden) in combination with Kourou (FrenchGuiana), Aussaguel (France) or Hartebesthoek (South Africa).

The DPGS, located at Villafranca near Madrid in Spain, is responsible for ac-quisition, processing, archiving and distribution of the scientific and associatedauxiliary data generated in-orbit up to geophysical parameter level. The X-BandAcquisition Station (XBAS) acquires the X-Band down-linked data. The SMOSUser Service centre provides interfaces and services between the SMOS Systemand external users.

The core of the SMOS system is complemented by external support teams andexpert user-groups and centres such as the Expert Support Laboratories (ESL’s).

A summary of the key SMOS mission parameters is given in Table 1.

Table 1 Key SMOS Mission Parameters

Global coverage: Latitude 80 S/NOrbit: Sun-synchronousAltitude: 755 kmSpatial resolution: 50 kmSwath width:

– Nominal swath: 1050 km– Narrow swath: 640 km

Temporal coverage:– Nominal swath: 3 days– Narrow swath: 7 days

Geo-location accuracy: 400 mSoil moisture accuracy: 4%Ocean salinity accuracy: 1.2 psuSM radiometric sensitivity 3.5 K rmsOS radiometric sensitivity: 2.5 K rmsMeasurement accuracy: 4.1 K rmsNominal lifetime: 3 yearsExtended lifetime: 5 years

The Miras Payload

MIRAS is the single-instrument payload of SMOS. The mechanical layout of theantenna is Y-shaped with a central support structure (McMullan). With its armsextended, the instrument-weighing 360 kg-has a wingspan of 8 m. Sixty-nine Light-weight Cost Effective (LICEF) receivers distributed uniformly along the three an-tenna arms and within the centre section constitute the main elements of the 2-Dsynthetic aperture interferometric design.

Three dual LICEF-sets at the centre double as Noise Injection Radiometers(NIR). Each arm is composed of three segments inter-connected by hinges. Thearms are folded by the sides of the central structure during launch. Deployment ofthe arm segments in orbit is spring activated and is controlled by a synchronisation

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 15

Fig. 7 Photograph of the flight-model MIRAS under test in flight configuration showing externalthermal control covering (Maxwell chamber at ESTEC, ESA). electromagnetic compatibility

system consisting of steel cables and pulleys. The deployment speed is controlledby a speed regulator based on an escape (clockwork) mechanism. A pyrotechnichold-down system maintains the arms in stowed configuration during launch. Aphotograph of the deployed flight payload is provided in Fig. 7.

The key element of MIRAS is the LICEF. Figure 8 shows a simplified block dia-gram of a single receiver and the noise injection network which is used for internal

Fig. 8 Schematic layout of a LICEF receiver with antenna (upper) and Noise Injection Radiometer(lower) both connected to the Noise Distribution Network used for internal calibration (Corbellaet al. 2004)

16 K.D. McMullan et al.

calibration purposes. The four-way input switch selects one of the two antenna out-puts (H or V), uncorrelated noise from a resistor at ambient temperature (U) orcorrelated noise from the noise distribution network (C). The RF part includes afilter to select the band 1404–1423 MHz within the protected radio astronomy rangewhich the mixer down-converts to 8–27 MHz using a local oscillator common toall receivers. Two output signals, the in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) components,are produced. One of them is sent to the Power Measurement Subsystem (PMS)consisting of a diode detector and integrator acting as a total power radiometer.Simultaneously, both output signals are clipped using zero-voltage comparators toproduce 1-bit digital signals which are sent to a centralized matrix of 1-bit 2-levelcorrelators. Each individual correlator cell is an exclusive NOR gate and the corre-lation is measured by accumulating its output during an integration time at a rategiven by the clock frequency fs = 55.84 MHz. Five different kinds of correlationproducts are available:

� Between I channels of different receivers� Between Q and I channels of different receivers� Between Q and I channels of the same receivers� Between ‘0’ and I or Q channels� Between ‘1’ and I or Q channels.

The correlator counts and all PMS outputs constitute the raw data sent to ground.These are used to generate the MIRAS visibility function, the inverse Fourier trans-form of which gives brightness temperature maps.

In the case of the Noise Injection Radiometer (NIR) depicted in Fig. 8, twoLICEFs are permanently connected to the antenna, one each to ports H and V. TheNIR is used to measure the full polarimetric antenna noise temperature and theamplitude of the noise injected by the noise distribution network.

Another important element within the MIRAS payload that supports the LICEFimaging mission is a central computer containing the payload Correlator and Con-trol Unit (CCU) with distributed Control and Monitoring Nodes (CMN), one per an-tenna segment. MIRAS data containing correlator counts, instrument modeinformation, PMS values and LICEF temperatures, are formatted into source pack-ets and stored in a (redundant) 20 Gbits Mass Memory Unit (MMU) until they aretransmitted to ground by the on-board software. The transmission of the accumu-lated MMU data is via a dedicated X-Band transponder that is fully controlled bythe payload.

A distributed Local Oscillator (LO) design is implemented in MIRAS and fea-tures separate microwave oscillator modules integrated in each CMN and synchro-nised to a common reference clock.

Data and reference-clock interfaces between the LICEFs, CMNs and CCU arevia an optical fibre network immune to electrical interference and purposely devel-oped and qualified for SMOS.

In addition to its standard instrument control and data management functions, theCCU software also implements a thermal control system that minimises the temper-ature gradient across the MIRAS arms. For this purpose, 12 thermal control-loops

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 17

are implemented and operate in parallel to ensure a thermal gradient of less than 1◦Cacross any arm segment and 6◦C maximum gradient between any pair of LICEFreceivers in line with the capability of the thermal control concept implemented forMIRAS. The MIRAS on-board software is fully re-programmable from ground.

Miras Calibration

Calibration of any earth observation sensor is a key stage which encompasses thosetasks which are necessary to convert the raw measurement data into science data.Calibration is an important prerequisite to performance verification (which demon-strates the instrument meets its requirements) and the validation of geophysicalparameters produced as higher level products. Equally, characterization activities,mainly performed on-ground before launch, are a prerequisite for the calibrationactivities. Characterization is the measurement of the typical behaviour of instru-ment properties, including subsystems, which may affect the accuracy or qualityof its response or derived data products. Verification encompasses the testing andanalysis necessary to provide confirmation that all instrument requirements havebeen met. Validation is the process of assessing, by independent means, the qualityof the geophysical data products derived from the system outputs (Brown et al.).

To compute the calibrated visibility function, the correlator counts are first pre-processed to eliminate comparator offset and quadrature errors. Actual calibration isperformed afterwards by injecting correlated and uncorrelated noise at the receivers’inputs. This is used to estimate the system temperatures needed to de-normalize thevisibilities and also the in-phase and quadrature errors in the correlation data due toreceiver’s different frequency responses. This procedure cannot deal with antennaimperfections since the noise is injected between the antenna and the receiver input,as indicated in Fig. 8. Therefore antenna pattern errors must be initially character-ized on-ground and taken into account in the image reconstruction process (Corbellaet al. 2004).

Elements of SMOS that require calibration include:

� NIR gain and offset� PMS gain and offset, due to receiver and baseline amplitude errors� Fringe-washing function (FWF), due to receiver amplitude and phase errors� Noise injected to receivers during calibration� Correlator offsets.

A baseline for an interferometer consists of two receivers and a complex corre-lator. Each baseline gives the value of one sample of the visibility function.

The FWF is a term of the visibility function that accounts for the dissimilaritybetween the frequency response of receiver front-ends denoted by FWF (0) and thespatial decorrelation effects of off-nadir target-scene pixels due to the differentialdelay between antenna-array receivers. The effect is a smoothing of the scene in theradial direction at the edge of the image.

18 K.D. McMullan et al.

Various types of calibration have been devised:

1. Internal calibration, using the injection of correlated and uncorrelated noise toall receivers, as per Fig. 8

2. External calibration, based on observation of a known target, subdivided as:

a. NIR absolute calibrationb. Flat Target Transformation (FTT), used to calibrate antenna pattern errors

3. Distributed-noise Calibration Sub-system (CAS) calibration, performed by NIRduring internal calibration

4. Correlator calibration, by injecting known signals5. Local oscillator (LO) phase-tracking error.

The FTT involves imaging a uniform distributed target such as cold sky at thegalactic poles to retrieve detailed antenna-array errors, which, according to Corbella,are magnified to the maximum extent by the temperature contrast factor betweencold sky and the receivers’ physical temperature. It is an ideal calibration for a 2-D interferometer and replaces the more classical point-target response techniquewhich is impractical for SMOS (Martin-Neira et al. in press).

Two types of internal calibration modes have been defined, the short calibrationand the long calibration. The short calibration is used for PMS gain and FWF (0)calibration. Correlated noise at two levels is injected with both levels measured byNIR. Long calibration is used to calibrate PMS gain and offset, FWF (0) and FWFshape using correlated noise and visibility offset using un-correlated noise. TheFWF shape is calculated using a 3-delay method based on performing correlationsat −T, 0 and +T lags of each baseline of the interferometer when all receiver inputsare connected to a common correlated noise source and by fitting the resulting threepoints to a sinc function waveform.

The LO phase-tracking error between receivers is due to temperature variation ofthe LO modules in the various CMNs and is calculated from normalised correlationscorrected for the 0-1 imbalance and quadrature error using injected correlated noise.

For external calibration, it is important that perturbations due to sun, moon andearth are minimised.

The on-ground characterization represents the initial data set for the in-flightcalibration, sometimes known as pre-calibration. All parameters which are to bemeasured in-flight should, if possible, be characterized on-ground.

Calibrated visibilities will have been verified during on-ground testing. All theinstrument elements will have undergone rigorous on-ground testing, in particularthe NIRs. The antennas are not included in the internal calibration path and so anyerror in their characterization can lead to an error in the products produced by theground processing. Consequently, extremely accurate on- ground pattern charac-terization is required in order to minimize the effect on the radiometric accuracyand which can then be complemented by in-flight validation. In particular, the backlobes of the antennas cannot be measured for the complete satellite (payload andplatform). It is proposed to validate the impact of the in-flight patterns on the FTTagainst the on-ground characterized patterns (Brown et al.). It is assumed that the

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 19

Table 2 In-orbit Calibration activities [15]

Activity Mode Description Objectives

Deep Sky View External NIR absolute calibration Internal noise source levelFlat Target

Transformation (FTT)Determination of antenna

pattern errorsLong Calibration Internal Uncorrelated noise

injectionCoupling between receivers

Correlated noiseinjection

Amplitude and phasecalibration

PMS and FWF (0)Short Calibration Internal Correlated noise

injectionAmplitude and phase

calibrationPMS and FWF (0)

LO Phase Tracking Internal Correlated noiseinjection

LO phase error betweenreceivers

Self-calibration Internal Normalisation ofcomplex correlations

I/Q correction Quadratureoffsets Samplingcorrection

antenna patterns remain invariant between the on-ground characterizations and in-flight. By comparing the in-flight FTT against a simulation using the on-groundantenna patterns, any differences in the visibilities can be determined. As long asthese differences are sufficiently small, the assumption remains valid.

The activities to be included in the overall calibration scheme are summarized inTable 2. This shows the appropriate activity and instrument mode together with theplanned measurements and objectives.

The main driver for regular calibration is the sensitivity of various instrumentcomponents to thermal variations. Since the thermal environment varies around anorbit, it is necessary to perform the calibration measurements around the completeorbit. Furthermore, the seasonal effect of solar contributions means that the calibra-tion must be repeated regularly. In order to maintain a near-continuous operation ofthe instrument in measurement mode, the total time allocated to these internal andexternal calibration operations is limited to 1% of the mission.

Smos Data Processor

The purpose of the SMOS data processor is to convert the raw data downloaded fromthe satellite into calibrated microwave brightness temperature maps at the top of theatmosphere which, using suitable algorithms and ancillary data, can ultimately beused to product useful geophysical measurements such as global soil moisture andocean salinity data products.

To this end, the SMOS Level 1 processor is a vital element in the space seg-ment to ground processor chain which forms the minimum configuration needed toproduce meaningful results (Zundo).

20 K.D. McMullan et al.

Fig. 9 SMOS Ground Segment Data Processing Sequence

The processing of raw data to brightness temperature is not direct and the rawdata needs to undergo a complex sequence of multi-step software processing (sum-marised in Fig. 9) in order to obtain brightness temperature first (Level 1 process-ing) and SM and OS later (Level 2 processing). Implementation of this processingis performed in the DPGS by two separate multi-node computer facilities namedrespectively the Level 1 Processor and the Level 2 Processor.

Regarding the Level 1 processing stage, the following three steps have been iden-tified:

1) Level 0 processed to Calibrated Visibilities (Level 1a)2) Image reconstruction i.e. Calibrated Visibilities to Brightness temperatures

(Level 1b)3) Brightness temperature to geo-located map (Level 1c).

Level 2 processing relies on co-located brightness temperature measurements atdifferent angles. In general, LEO satellite measurements taken at different timesare never co-located due to satellite motion so at each moment a different patch ofsurface is sensed making it necessary to interpolate in space with a correspondingloss of accuracy. MIRAS, however, is a synthetic aperture radiometer so each ofthe sensing beams, which have an approximate width of 2.6 deg., is created mathe-matically by combining the data measured by each of the array’s receiver-baselinesduring the process of image reconstruction. The directions in which each beam, atany time, is pointed can therefore be mathematically changed resulting in effect ina virtual “steerable” sensor with a resolution at nadir corresponding to a pixel sizeof 30 km, the – 3dB beam-width and its intersection with the ground.

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 21

This feature is highly valuable and has been exploited by SMOS in creating afixed Discrete Global Grid (DGG). The SMOS DGG has been selected in a way asto offer the most uniform sampling of the earth’s surface at a resolution of 15 km,twice the actual value at nadir.

The DGG, based on a hexagonal geometry, partitions the Earth’s surface intoapproximately 2.6 million cells, it does not present any preferential directions orsymmetry and is as accurate at middle and high latitudes as it is at the equator. Anexample of the hexagonal sampling for a SMOS data set is shown in Fig. 10.

The value of brightness temperature in an area sensed by MIRAS at each snap-shot can then be computed at each DGG point in the instantaneous field-of-view(FOV) and a Level 1c product built consisting of pole-to-pole swaths of fixed pixelrecords each listing the number of attached measurements (more near the centre,less toward the edges) and their value. No interpolation is needed and each pixelcan be processed independently from any other by the Level 2 processors using onlydata associated with that pixel in Level 1c, producing considerable computationaladvantage.

Since the Level 1c defined in this way consists of a list of pixel and brightnesstemperature values (although variable in number), it can be easily plotted and ac-cessed by user applications and there is no need to “search” in time for data relatedto each ground pixel.

It is to be noted that L-Band signals undergo rotation while propagating throughthe atmosphere due to the presence of the ionosphere and the earth’s magnetic fieldso that the values measured by MIRAS at the Top-Of-Atmosphere (TOA) need to becorrected for on-ground use. This correction depends among others on the varyinggeophysical input like total electron content (TEC) which is not known exactly at themoment of processing. In order to avoid permanently changing the brightness tem-perature value with a value that is not accurate, the correction is computed but notapplied and stored in the data product independently. In this way the user can easilycompute the brightness temperature at the Earth’s surface using the pre-computedcorrection or apply a better one if known.

Fig. 10 SMOS Level-1csimulated data for the coastof Portugal on DGG 349 350 351 352 353

100

150

200

250

300

37

37.5

38

38.5

39

39.5

40

40.5

41

41.5

348

22 K.D. McMullan et al.

Fig. 11 Diagram showing Level 1 signal processing flow

The L1 processor has been built according to the following architecture:

a) data driven processingb) modularityc) standardised data product Read/Writed) standardised numerical libraries.

To favour portability and to ensure that the processor can be used by a widecommunity of scientific users without platform restrictions, it has been coded instandard C99 and the GNU gcc compiler, available on all platforms. The prototypedevelopment version, however, utilises a dual processor 64 bit Linux system, butit has also been exported to MacOS X and can be compiled on most other Unixoperating systems. A diagram showing the Level 1 signal processing flow is shownin Fig. 11.

Smos Polar Orbit and Imaging Geometry

The SMOS orbit is a frozen, sun-synchronous, low earth orbit with mean local solartime at the ascending node (equatorial crossing) of 06:00 hours (Barre et al.). A sun-synchronous orbit has an orbital plane precession equal to the mean angular rotation

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 23

–90

–60

–30

0

30

60

90–180 –150 –120 –90 –60 –30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180

Fig. 12 SMOS Earth Coverage for 1 Orbit, ascending from S to N and descending from N to S(Barre et al. 2008)

of the earth around the sun. This results in a constant angle between the orbital planeand the mean sun. A dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbit offers the observation of SMearly in the morning for ascending orbits. The frozen orbit gives a quasi-constantgeometry between orbits. The mean local solar time at the ascending node of theorbit is maintained to within ±15 minutes. The SMOS reference orbit overflies thesame earth location after exactly 149 days or 2144 orbits. SMOS earth coverage forone orbit is illustrated in Fig. 12.

This reference orbit has been selected to satisfy the coverage requirements forsoil moisture such that the entire earth shall be covered in no longer than 3 days. Thenominal swath of SMOS is used to achieve this requirement. Figure 13 illustratesthe full Field-of-View (FOV) of SMOS, the two outer vertical lines representing thenominal swath width of about 1000 km. Note that Fig. 13 is directly derived fromthe hexagonal geometry of the plot of visibilities of Fig. 5.

Fig. 13 SMOS Field of View and its Projection onto the Earth’s Surface (Barre et al. 2008)

24 K.D. McMullan et al.

For ocean salinity, the entire earth shall be covered in no longer than 7 days. Thenarrow swath of SMOS is used to satisfy this requirement. In Fig. 13, the two innervertical lines represent the narrow swath of about 600 km.

The nominal measurement mode of MIRAS is characterised by an earth-fixedattitude with a constant forward tilt-angle of 32.5 deg. between the instrument bore-sight and the local nadir in the flight direction. A yaw-steering angular motionaround the local nadir is implemented to compensate for earth rotation effects ofabout 4 deg. on the ground-trace of the MIRAS images. This measurement-modeattitude and image geometry results in the instrument FOV on ground as illustratedby Fig. 13.

The external calibration modes used to calibrate the MIRAS instrument by point-ing to known celestial targets, mainly deep space, are implemented by the satelliteby executing slew manoeuvres in the orbital plane in two attitude sub-modes:

� inertial attitude, where the instrument boresight is controlled and pointed in aconstant inertial direction

� earth-fixed attitude, where the instrument boresight is controlled and pointed ina constant pitch (or tilt) angle defined in the local orbital reference frame.

A particular case of interest is when the satellite is oriented and maintained inthe zenith direction allowing the payload to image the deep sky while keeping theearth outside the main lobe of the antenna. Both external calibration modes allowcalibration of the instrument against given celestial targets for a duration of up to 30minutes with a pointing stability of better than 0.3 deg. and a pointing knowledgeaccuracy of less than 1 deg. The complete duration of the external calibration modes,including slews and returning to nominal measurement attitude, is less than 1 orbitalperiod of 100 minutes. Slews have a typical duration of 24 minutes.

In addition to the MIRAS-specific modes described above, the PROTEUS plat-form features standard attitude modes such as Orbit Correction Manoeuvres (OCM)and Safe Hold Mode (SHM). OCM modes with two or four thrusters (OCM-2/OCM-4) are used to maintain the altitude (in-plane manoeuvres) and inclination(out-of-plane manoeuvres) of the SMOS orbit throughout the mission lifetime. SafeHold Mode (SHM) is initiated to ensure safety and survivability of the satellite incase of anomalies or FDIR (Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery). In SHM,also entered just after separation from the launcher, the base of the PROTEUS plat-form is pointed towards the sun ensuring a known and stable thermal environmentand for provision of electrical power via optimum solar array orientation to the sunwith battery charging.

An example of a typical brightness temperature measurement along one swathis presented in Fig. 14. It consists of a series of consecutive snapshots (as perFig. 5) and for each snapshot, which corresponds to a period of 1.2 s, the MIRASinstrument measures the complex visibility function of the observed scene which issubsequently converted to a calibrated brightness temperature map in the Level 1processor.

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 25

Fig. 14 SMOS Sea Brightness Temperature Image of Western Europe

Smos Concept Demonstration and Product Validation

The launch of a scientific instrument on board a satellite has often, if not always,been accompanied by the parallel development of a representative airborne version.Such a demonstrator is used to understand better the operational, performance andtechnological limitations of the instrument and its measurement technique in a re-alistic environment. Very importantly the airborne demonstrator also plays a crucialroll in the development of calibration techniques and retrieval algorithms for thegeophysical parameters, the ultimate objective of the satellite mission, before launch(Martin-Neira et al. in press).

The complexity of MIRAS and of the SMOS mission called for an airbornedemonstrator to be ready well before launch. AMIRAS, or Airborne MIRAS, is onesuch demonstrator. It consists of a 13-element two-dimensional Y-shaped aperturesynthesis radiometer operating at 1400-1427 MHz with dual- and full-polarisationmeasurement capability. It is functionally and technologically equivalent to SMOS.It has been specifically designed mechanically and thermally to fly on-board a ShortSC-7 Skyvan aircraft of the Helsinki University of Technology. The spacing betweenelements is the same as in SMOS, i.e. 0.875�. A photograph of the aircraft-mountedinstrument is presented in Fig. 15.

The maiden flight of AMIRAS took place in June 2006 in the vicinity of Helsinkiwith the objective to acquire dual-polarisation images of coast lines and islands. Anexample of the acquired images is presented in Fig. 16. The image processing hasfocused on Lake Lohja and shows different snapshots (of 1.2 s integration time) ofthe alias-free field of view as the aircraft enters the lake from the South over a placewhere there is an island. The range of incidence angles along track varies from5◦ to 35◦. The coastlines are clearly imaged and geometry is well preserved. The

26 K.D. McMullan et al.

Fig. 15 AMIRAS installedon the Skyvan aircraft with itsantenna radome(Martın-Neira et al. 2008)

–1000 –500 0 500 1000

PeL

100

120

140

160

180

200

220

240

260

[K]

–800

–1000

–600

–400

–200

0

200

400

600

800

1000

West /East relative coordinate (m)

20-Jun-2006 21:03:42

Fig. 16 Maiden flight of AMIRAS: Lohja Lake snapshots (Martın-Neira et al. 2008)

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 27

Fig. 17 AntennaTemperature in H and Valong three passes over LakeLohja (Martın-Neiraet al. 2008)

21:00

K

50

100

150

200

250

300

21:05 21:10

GPS time

21:15 21:20 21:25

Antenna temperature (from PMS)

HV

brightness temperature of the land and water is as expected with a good contrastbetween the two. This is shown in Fig. 17 where the antenna temperatures for Hand V are seen to consistently change between 260 K over land down to 100 K overwater. The second flight signature is time-mirrored with respect to the first and thirdas it was flown in the opposite direction. These results have validated the calibrationtechniques and image reconstruction algorithms planned for SMOS.

In addition to proof-of-concept using demonstrators pre-launch, campaigns fordata product calibration and validation are also initiated. For SMOS, it is esti-mated that the ultimate calibration after instrument internal calibration can onlybe obtained using vicarious methods which involve campaigns of ground-based,airborne, and on-orbit sensors making simultaneous radiometric measurements ofspatially and spectrally homogeneous earth targets for purposes of validating theon-orbit satellite radiometric measurements. These campaigns provide an effectivecheck of the operation and reliability of the satellite on-board calibration systemsand measurements (Bouzinac et al.).

The first such calibration method for SMOS uses ocean brightness temperature.Monitoring of the lowest brightness temperatures over ocean is proposed to detectvery subtle drifts in measurement. In the case of SMOS, these coldest points willmainly come from cold salty waters. Furthermore, high latitude situations seemfavorable with smaller atmosphere influences, lower ionospheric activity and lowsensitivity of the brightness temperature to the salinity in cold waters. Ocean param-eters driving brightness temperature at L-Band are sea surface salinity, temperatureand sea surface roughness related to wind speed. Using suitable data bases, stable(spatially and temporally) areas in terms of salinity and temperature can be isolated.Adding the criterion of wind speed variability makes possible the identification ofthe most stable ocean areas.

A second calibration can be performed over hot and cold continental targets. Thecold target proposed is the Dome Concordia of Antarctica. This area is temporallystable in brightness temperature as the annual cycle in physical temperature has

28 K.D. McMullan et al.

negligible impact on L-Band emission. A corresponding hot target is the AmazonianRain Forest. The heavily vegetated parts of the forest provide a viable approxima-tion to a black body target at L-Band because of certain radiative properties in themicrowave spectrum which make them especially amenable to use as hot referencetargets.

The geolocation accuracy can be tested through an analysis of SMOS data mapsin the vicinity of well-known features such as isolated islands.

Validation is the process of assessing, by independent means, the quality of thedata products derived from the system outputs. The scope of the validation is toestimate the SMOS Level 2 product accuracy. SMOS validation has to demonstratewith statistical significance that SMOS-derived products satisfy mission require-ments. Data sets for comparison with SMOS must be of a known quality and mustextend over significant geographical areas spanning various geophysical conditionsand providing sufficient spatial and temporal coverage. The SMOS validation planis based on using specific targets, realistic synthetic scenes and eventually real datacollected during campaigns.

Recently completed campaigns have concentrated on the impact of sea-surfacestate on the quality of the radiometric signal over the ocean. The effect of foam,roughness, temperature, and also the sun and galactic glints need also to be consid-ered. Tower and aircraft observations are still required.

Over land, the main objective of the campaigns have been the observation of theinfluence of various vegetation canopies and their seasonal cycle and the influenceof surface roughness, dew and frost with ground based measurements. The analysisof complex surfaces and the issue of mixed pixels need to be addressed with aircraftobservations.

Future campaigns will concentrate on verifying the stability of emissions fromthe Antarctic Ice plateau in relation to the area size of a SMOS pixel and to a demon-stration of soil moisture and ocean salinity retrievals using demonstrators such asAMIRAS.

Smos Data Utilisation

Whilst there are numerous investigations planned serving a quality assessment ofthe mission itself, the general scientific user community for SMOS data can broadlybe classified into the following categories, namely oceanographers, land scientistsand hydrologists, and meteorologists.

In oceanography (Lagerloef 2000, Koblinsky et al. 2003, Font et al. 2004, 2008),the density of sea water is dependent on its temperature and salinity where thedensity is the main driving variable in the three-dimensional global ocean circu-lation. Sea Surface Temperature (SST) has been measured globally for some timeby NOAA’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) instruments,however, salinity values so far are sparse and only local. In October 2007 the inter-national ARGO program (Array of Real-time Geostrophic Observations) achieveda global coverage of profiling floats that deliver three-dimensional distributions oftemperature and salinity but with poor horizontal and temporal resolutions. The

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 29

community of oceanographers is therefore looking forward to reliable global datasets of Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) to implement in their Global Ocean CirculationModels to improve the ingestion of the scarce in situ data. Even with the need forsevere averaging because of the noisy nature of the signal and interfering effectslike sea surface roughness on the one hand, and the weak dependence of the L-Bandbrightness temperature on salinity on the other, SMOS data are expected to meetthe requirements of the GODAE (Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment) for0.1 psu (practical salinity unit) in a 200 × 200 km2 box for 10 days. With this, re-gional topics like the seasonal variability of fresh water outflow from major riverslike the Amazon should be observable.

In land science and hydrology, the L-Band brightness temperature is strongly de-pendent on the water content to a depth of 3–5 cm in normal soil. From the humiditycontent of the uppermost centimetres one can derive the water content in the rootzone (Kerr et al. 2001, Calvet and Noilhan 2000, Wigneron et al. 1999), and henceinfer what is available to vegetation of different types to sustain health and growth.

The fluxes of water, in liquid or in gaseous form, between soil, vegetation and theatmosphere is the subject of intense research activities as it determines the couplingbetween biosphere and atmosphere. Such coupling is modelled in Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Transfer (SVAT) Models, established to better understand the impactof the biosphere on the weather and climate (Entekhabi et al. 1996).

Hydrologists are interested in how much water is stored in the soil as this isan important reservoir in the modelling of water distribution between precipitation,evaporation, and runoff into rivers and lakes. Hydrological models help to under-stand the flow of water under the different conditions and eventually raise warn-ings for dangers of flood, or, on the contrary, drought (Boulet et al. 2001, Pellenqet al. 2003, Entekhabi et al. 2004, Wagner et al. 2006).

Meteorologists are interested in the SMOS data as water vapour is a very activeagent in the atmosphere forming clouds, precipitation and hence closing the watercycle. At least over the interiors of continents, water vapour from the soil is themajor source available for driving the weather machine.

Therefore, institutions like the European Centre for Medium Range WeatherForecasting (ECMWF) or the French national weather service Meteo France willingest SMOS data. Initially, this will be done off-line in parallel to the existingforecasting service and the forecasting “skills” with and without SMOS data will becompared. If found useful after this trial period, SMOS data could be used opera-tionally, increasing the demand for follow-on missions of a similar kind.

Finally, data products at Level 1 (brightness temperature) and Level 2 (soil mois-ture and ocean salinity) respectively, will be available after launch for scientificinvestigation by registering through ESA’s “Announcement of Opportunity” web-site, http://eopi.esa.int/cat1. Of the numerous proposals received by end 2007, aninitial group of investigations will deal with the calibration of the instrument andprovisions for its long-term stability monitoring. This covers the analysis of dataacquired over Dome Concordia in Antarctica where a large and well instrumentedhomogeneous area is available. In such conditions of very dry snow, the L-Bandsignal is dominated by deep ice layers which are well decoupled from seasonalvariations of temperature and other conditions. Another example is the application

30 K.D. McMullan et al.

of the “Ruf Method”, which has been used successfully to monitor the stability ofthe TOPEX Microwave Radiometer (TMR) instrument but needs tailoring to thespecific needs of the SMOS mission (Ruf 2000, 2002).

For the future, scientific study and the corresponding social benefits of globalearth observation by satellites such as SMOS include:

� Reducing loss of life and property from natural and human-induced disasters� Understanding environmental factors affecting human health and well being� Improving management of energy resources� Understanding, assessing, predicting, mitigating and adapting to climate vari-

ability and change� Improving water resource management through better understanding of the water

cycle� Improving weather information, forecasting and warning� Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, coastal and marine

ecosystems� Supporting sustainable agriculture and combating desertification� Understanding, monitoring and conserving biodiversity.

Future Trends

Even before the launch of SMOS, studies are already underway for an operationalfollow-on mission (SMOS Ops). The need for a timely start-up of technology de-velopment activities and the maintenance of industrial expertise within Europe hasbeen recognized to ensure a smooth transition from the current SMOS mission to anoperational scenario if the opportunity arises.

Future SMOS-type missions will orbit an enhanced MIRAS instrument on animproved PROTEUS platform to achieve greater radiometric sensitivity, improvedrevisit time and finer spatial resolution.

Improved receiver technologies will be considered along with greater use ofdigital techniques and a higher level of Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit(MMIC) integration. Important system design aspects will also be evaluated follow-ing “lessons learned” from SMOS.

Finally, the inclusion of additional instruments to enhance the performance ofSMOS Ops such as a GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) Reflectrometryexperiment and a complementary X-Band Full Polarimetric Interferometric Ra-diometer (FPIR) are under consideration.

Conclusions

The SMOS mission is a direct response to the current lack of global observationsof soil moisture and ocean salinity. It will carry the first-ever polar-orbiting 2-Dinterferometric radiometer. The flight model satellite, developed by European space

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 31

industry, is scheduled for launch within the last quarter of 2008 with a planned life-time of 3 to 5 years. A second generation of SMOS satellites (SMOS Ops) is understudy to continue the supply of soil moisture and ocean salinity maps with improve-ments in pixel resolution and revisit time. Following the successful deployment ofSMOS in orbit and a satisfactory demonstration of its capabilities, it is hoped thatthe SMOS concept and design will form the basis of future soil moisture and oceansalinity missions for earth observation purposes and climate change monitoring andas a major contributor to operational meteorology.

Acknowledgments SMOS is the second Earth Explorer Opportunity mission to be developed aspart of ESA’s Living Planet Programme. The first call for Earth Explorer Opportunity missionswas issued in Summer 1998. In response to the announcement, 27 proposals were received. Out ofthe 27 proposals, two were selected for implementation following the advice of the Earth SciencesAdvisory Committee in late May 1999, namely CROYSAT (a mission to assess the polar ice)and SMOS, a joint ESA/French/Spanish programme sponsored by Dr. Yann Kerr (Lead Investi-gator/Land), CESBIO, Toulouse, France and Dr. Jordi Font, (Co-Lead Investigator/Ocean), ICM-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain (Kerr et al. 1998). Dr. Manuel Martin-Neira has been the chief proponentfor the SMOS mission at ESA since mission inception.The SMOS Mission responsibilities are sub-divided as follows:

� The overall mission is under ESA responsibility and executed in cooperation with CNES andCDTI

� The PROTEUS platform is provided by CNES� The payload is procured by ESA� Satellite System Engineering and assembly, integration and test (AIT) costs are shared between

ESA and CNES� Satellite control is provided by CNES based on existing PROTEUS Ground Segment elements� Payload scientific data processing is developed under CDTI funding and located and operated

by ESA at Villafranca.

The MIRAS instrument was manufactured by a consortium of European space industry under theprime responsibility of EADS CASA Espacio, Spain and integrated and tested at CASA facilitiesin Madrid and at ESA/ESTEC in the Netherlands. The PROTEUS platform was manufacturedby THALES ALENIA Space, France with overall satellite assembly, integration and testing atTHALES ALENIA Space in Cannes.

Appendix

The Corbella Equation

The visibility equation used in radio-astronomy for five decades (Thompson et al.,1988) is not valid for arrays with elements spaced at a fraction of a wavelength –asin MIRAS- because of antenna coupling. Dr. Ignasi Corbella of the PolytechnicUniversity of Catalonia derived the general formulation of an interferometer in(Corbella et al. 2004) of which the traditional visibility equation is the limiting casefor large spacings. Moreover, the Corbella equation leads to the Bosma theorem(Bosma, 1967) when an interferometer is enclosed inside a black body.

32 K.D. McMullan et al.

The polarimetric formulation of the Corbella equation was developed within acontract for ESA entitled MIRAS Demonstrator Pilot Project 3 and reads as follows:

V pqi j (u, v) = 2kB

√Bi B jαiα j

1√�

pi �

qj

×

∫∫

ξ 2+η2≤1

Fα,pn,i (ξ, η)Fβ,q∗

n, j (ξ, η)T αβ

B (ξ, η) − δαβ Tr√1 − ξ 2 − η2

ri j

(−uξ + vη

fo

)e− j 2π(uξ+vη) dξ dη

(1)

where V is the visibility function, p and q are the polarisations (in the antenna refer-ence frame) that are selected in each of the two receivers i and j involved in a particu-lar baseline, (u,v) the baseline components normalized to the wavelength �o = c/fo,fo being the center frequency of the instrument (nominally fo = 1413.5 MHz inMIRAS), (ξ, η) the direction cosines, kB = 1.38 × 10−23 J/K the Boltzmann con-stant, B the equivalent noise bandwidth of the receiver, α the peak voltage gain ofthe receiver (including antenna losses) –not to be confused with the polarisationsuperscript–, � the solid angle of the corresponding antenna and polarisation, Fα,p

n

the normalised voltage antenna pattern in α polarisation when p polarisation is se-lected, T αβ

B the brightness temperature in αβ polarisation, Tr the receiver physicaltemperature (assumed the same for all receivers) when an isolator is used at theinput, tilde-r the fringe-washing function and δαβ the Kronecker delta.

Equation (1) has been written using Einstein summation convention, commonlyused in tensor algebra. According to this convention, an implicit sum is to be carriedout over any repeated indices on the right hand side of an equation which do notappear on the left side. In Equation (1) the α and β indices are repeated on theright and do not appear on the left, and therefore we have to sum over those indicesfor the values they can take, p and q. The following example illustrates Einsteinsummation convention, where the same selected polarisation p is assumed in bothreceivers:

Fα,pn,i Fβ,p∗

n, j

(T αβ

B − δαβ Tr

)≡

F p,pn,i F p,p∗

n, j

(T pp

B − Tr) + F p,p

n,i Fq,p∗n, j T pq

B + Fq,pn,i F p,p∗

n, j T qpB + Fq,p

n,i Fq,p∗n, j

(T qq

B − Tr)

(2)

where F p,pn and Fq,p

n are the co- and cross-polar normalised voltage antenna patternsrespectively, when the p polarisation is selected.

The Corbella equation describes fundamentally and fully the behaviour of anaperture synthesis microwave radiometer like MIRAS. It predicts that antenna errorsare critical since they scale with the temperature contrast between the brightnesstemperature of the target T αβ

B and the receivers physical temperature Tr . This makesocean salinity retrieval very challenging unless antenna errors are well controlledbecause the temperature contrast over the ocean is large.

SMOS – Earth’s Water Monitoring Mission 33

Therefore, it seems absolutely necessary to have an in-orbit validation of the on-ground characterised antenna patterns. Here Corbella’s predictions can be turnedinto an advantage, as from them it is expected that cold sky views can provide awealth of information about the antenna patterns and a means of validating themin-flight because of the high target-instrument temperature contrast.

Acronyms

CDTI Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (Spain)CNES Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (France)ESA European Space AgencyLEO Low Earth OrbitLICEF Lightweight and Cost Effective Front-endMIRAS Microwave Imaging Radiometer with Aperture SynthesisOS Ocean SalinitySM Soil MoistureSMOS Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity.

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D. Entekhabi et al, “The Hydrosphere State (Hydros) Satellite Mission: an Earth system pathfinderfor global mapping of soil moisture and land freeze/thaw”, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens.,vol. 42, pp. 2184–2195, 2004.

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Kerr, Y. et al, SMOS (MIRAS on RAMSES), Proposal in answer to the Call for Earth ExplorerOpportunity Missions (Reference: COP 16), November 30th, 1998.

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India’s EO Pyramid for Holistic Development

V. Jayaraman, Sanjay K. Srivastava and D. Gowrisankar

Abstract The Indian Earth Observations (EO) Programme, encompassing the space,ground and the applications segment, has practically demonstrated various rolesthat EO could play in catalyzing the developmental process of a nation at variouslevels. The present in-orbit Indian EO constellation of operational satellites and theplanned missions have been a part of India’s EO strategy to have specific thematicmissions to meet the land & water resources management, cartography applications,and oceanography & atmospheric science and management requirements besidesmeeting the needs of the disaster management support programme. A unique insti-tutional framework, namely the National Natural Resources Management System(NNRMS) under the aegis of Planning Commission, Government of India steersthe whole EO programme in India. While such a strategy is primarily public goodsservices oriented, it also creates enough space for a closer cooperation with industryand academia to form a formidable EO triad. The country has demonstrated innova-tively how to put to use the EO for addressing the most fundamental national priori-ties such as food security & poverty alleviation, creation of natural assets and also inbuilding the physical and social infrastructure, providing inputs for weather and cli-mate science as well as in tackling natural disasters in all phases. While addressingsuch goals, the convergence of EO with geospatial technologies enabled creationof comprehensive spatial data infrastructure as national repository to help identify-ing environmentally degraded wastelands and reclaiming the culturable wastelands;identifying sources of drinking water especially in hard rock terrain and suitablesites for ground water recharge; taking up watershed development in a holistic man-ner linking the livelihood of the populace with soil and water conservation; irrigatedcommand area management addressing various issues including salinity and alka-linity; dissemination of agricultural crop acreage and yield estimates; bio-diversitycharacterization at landscape level; and disaster management such as flood mappingand agricultural drought assessment.

V. Jayaraman (B)Directors, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)Hyderabad, Indiae-mail: vjay@nrsa.gov.in

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 2, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

37

38 V. Jayaraman et al.

India has successfully demonstrated many such innovative applications, takingthe EO based services to ‘the last’ in the social hierarchy, essentially the poor andmarginalized. In the recent times, India has envisaged setting up Village ResourceCentres in the backward and inaccessible rural areas of the country. In this pro-cess, Indian EO programme has aligned itself well with various activities under theBharat Nirman programme such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme;Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP); National Urban Renewal Mis-sion (NURM); National Watershed Development Programme for Rainfed Areas(NWDPRA).

Keywords Earth observation · Indian remote sensing satellites · NNRMS · GIS ·Natural resources repository · FASAL · ICT- Information & CommunicationTechnology · Institutionalisation · Applications

Introduction

India, being largest democracy with more than 1.3 billion population, is one of thefastest growing economies in the world with current annual Gross Domestic Prod-ucts (GDP) rate of about 8% and has second largest pool of science & technologyhuman resources. But it also has about 25% of poor and about 35% of illiteratesamong its populace. Even with the opportunities like opened up economy, globali-sation, development in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), Indiaalso has the following threats: growing digital, economical & knowledge divides,marginalisation of poor, etc. Though India is making notable progress in the hightechnology areas such as Space, Atomic Energy, Information and Bio-technology,challenges like poverty alleviation, ensuring food security through sustainable de-velopment are to be addressed. The facts that (i) About 150 Mha of land area (out of329 Mha) is affected by wind and water erosion; (ii) About 6000 MT of soil is lostthrough soil erosion by water every year; (iii) Undependable, unevenly timed anddistributed rainfall; etc., further stress the importance of sustainable development ofnatural resources.

With development in human resources and technological fields, India has man-aged to address many of the problems and now transformed to food self-sufficiencyfrom ‘ship-to-mouth’ existence ushered through Green (food grain), White (milk),Yellow (oil seeds) and Pink (medicine) revolutions. Even with a highly pluralis-tic set-up in terms of language, physiography, etc., India could march towards aconnected country through electronic and physical infrastructure. A silent knowl-edge revolution is also taking place in India in the globalised environment andentrepreneurship culture is getting evolved as signs of developments. The devel-opments in Space technology and associated developments in Earth Observation

India’s EO Pyramid for Holistic Development 39

(EO) and satellite communication technology have contributed significantly in thesepositive transformations.

Background

Over the years, the Earth observation from space has become an indispensable toolfor providing information on natural resources and environment on various spa-tial and temporal scales, not possible from other sources of monitoring. The IndianEO programme evolved over the last three decades, using synergistically the spacecapability provided by both the INSAT and the IRS systems, ably supported bythe air-borne systems as well as a planned network of ground systems, is primarilyapplication driven (Kasturirangan, 2003; ISRO, 2007). A unique institutional frame-work, namely the National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS) un-der the aegis of Planning Commission, Government of India addresses the prioritiesand the gap areas identified by the user agencies, and continually aligns with thestate-of-the-art advances made in the EO technologies & techniques and facilitatesthe adoption and absorption of the advanced products and services into nationaldevelopmental priorities.

The Indian EO programme, thus, envisages its strategy in tune with the overallgoals set by the Indian space programme to serve as a strong enabler for socialtransformation, a catalyst for economic development, a tool for enhancing humanresources quality, and a booster to strengthen the national strategic needs. With theseobjectives, the Indian EO programme has transitioned over the years from the earliergeneral-purpose application missions to thematic series of satellites, broadly ad-dressing the thematic applications in three streams, viz., (i) RESOURCESAT seriesof satellites addressing agriculture and integrated land and water resources develop-ment and management (including the microwave RISAT missions); (ii) CARTOSATseries of satellites addressing large scale mapping and cadastral applications; and(iii) atmospheric/ocean series of satellites addressing land-atmosphere-ocean inter-actions and meteorology applications. Disaster management is yet another applica-tion, which takes cognizance of the convergent technologies and uses the inputs ofsatellite communication, satellite remote sensing, and meteorology to enable timelydelivery of operational products and services.

The diversity of uses of EO demands working together with knowledge partnersin the government, industry and academia. With the advances in imaging technolo-gies, and enabling techniques & delivery systems, and the convergence of diver-gent technologies in the current information era, the recent emphasis of Indian EOprogramme is towards working with the community from the earlier working forthe community concept. Thus, the strategic objectives and the thrust of Indian EOprogramme are to sustain and strengthen further the already established services to-wards societal developmental applications, and the programme profile of the comingyears will be to further enhance these well-established services to the community ina most effective way.

40 V. Jayaraman et al.

Present Constellation of Indian EO Satellites

The Indian EO programme evolved from experimental satellites to operational satel-lites and to present-generation of theme-specific satellites, presently has one of theworld’s largest constellations of remote sensing satellites, with current constellationof five satellites in operation (Table 1). A few geostationary satellites in INSATseries (with imagers for coarse resolution & higher repetitivity mapping and alsofor meteorological applications), and aerial remote sensing capability with high-resolution digital camera and laser terrain mapper (for local area detailed surveys)further augment the above. Satellite/aerial remote sensing payloads and the INSATmeteorological payloads together provide an immense imaging capability to the na-tional and global community.

Indian EO satellite constellation provides data at various spatial, temporal res-olution and is operationally used in India for many applications of direct socialrelevance such as water resources management (including the ground water), envi-ronmental degradation (desertification, deforestation, and soil erosion) and in foodsecurity applications (estimation of crop acreage and yield, crop suitability analy-sis), and in many land and water resources developmental applications (watersheddevelopment, command area development).

The recently launched RESOURCESAT-1 provides multi-spectral data at 5.8 m(LISS-IV); 23.5 m (LISS-III); & 56 m (AWiFS) spatial resolution with a few days toa few weeks revisiting capability, thus, offering better scope for resources

Table 1 Present constellation India’s earth observation satellites

Satellite (year) Sensor Broad Specification

IRS 1D (1997) WiFS 188 m spatial resolution, 2 bands, 7 bitsradiometry, 810 km swath

LISS III 23.5 m (70.5 m in SWIR) spatial resolution, 4bands, 7 bits radiometry, 141 km (148 kmin SWIR) swath

PAN 5.8 m spatial resolution, 6 bits radiometry,70 km swath

OCEANSAT-1 (1999) OCM 360 × 236 m spatial resolution; 8 bands; 12bits radiometry, 1420 km swath

MSMR 50–150 km spatial resolution; 4 frequencies;1360 km swath (currently products are notavailable)

RESOURCESAT–1(2003)

AWiFS 56 m spatial resolution, 4 bands, 10 bitsradiometry, 737 km swath

LISS III 23.5 m spatial resolution, 4 bands, 7 bitsradiometry, 141 km swath

LISS IV 5.8 m spatial resolution, 3 bands, 10 bitsradiometry, 23 km swath (electronicallysteerable within 70 km or 70 km PAN inred band)

CARTOSAT-1 (2005) PAN (Fore & Aft) 2.5 m spatial resolution, 10 bits radiometry,30 km swath, Fore-Aft stereo

CARTOSAT-2 (2007) PAN 0.8 m spatial resolution, 1 band, 10 bitradiometry, 9.6 km swath

India’s EO Pyramid for Holistic Development 41

management. While CARTOSAT-1 is offering high-resolution panchromatic data(2.5 m) in stereo mode, making it possible to generate high resolution Digital TerrainModel (DTM) for various applications, CARTOSAT-2 is an advanced remote sens-ing satellite with a single panchromatic camera capable of providing scene-specificspot imageries for cartographic applications. The camera is designed to provide im-ageries with better than one metre spatial resolution and it will have high agility withcapability to steer along and across the track. Today, Indian EO data is received bymany ground stations around the world on a commercial basis and operationallyused in many applications.

India’s EO Applications in tune with National Priorities

Earth Observation has proved to be an integral part of natural resources mapping,monitoring & management as well as environmental assessment at global, regionaland local levels due to its unique capabilities like synoptic view, multi-resolution &multi-temporal data coverage, etc. EO systems provide data in support of wide rangeof information needs on Earth parameters required for improved understanding witha multitude of observing platforms and sensors from global to local scale, con-tributing to research on various Earth System processes (Navalgund, 2006). Ben-eficiaries are a broad range of user communities including national, regional, andlocal decision makers; authorities responsible for implementation of internationalconventions and protocols; business, industry and service sectors (Jayaraman, 2002;NRSA, 2004).

Earth observation data in conjunction with field data and other collateral informa-tion, appropriately integrated in the Geographical Information System (GIS) havebeen extensively used to survey and to assess various natural resources like agricul-ture, forestry, minerals, water, marine resources, etc. In resources survey and man-agement, EO data is operationally used to prepare thematic maps/information onvarious natural resources like groundwater, wastelands, land-use/land-cover, forests,coastal wetlands, potential fishery zone mapping, environment impact assessment,etc. Many of the above applications are carried out in tune with national priori-ties set forth by the Government of India and with active involvement from users.The priorities like (i) Ensuring food security and alleviating poverty; (ii) Improvingphysical and social infrastructure; (iii) Building natural resources assets; (iv) Sup-porting disaster management; (v) Improving services through weather & climatestudies; (vi) Providing health care & education, are adequately addressed by IndianEO programme.

Indian EO Programme Strategy – A Three-Pronged Approach

The Indian EO programme is coordinated at national level by the Planning Commit-tee of National Natural Resources Management System (PC-NNRMS) with Sec-retary level members from various user departments with a mandate “to integrate

42 V. Jayaraman et al.

Fig. 1 Indian EO programme addresses National priorities through institutional framework ofNNRMS

the data obtained through remote sensing into the existing system with appropriatetechnical, managerial and organisational linkages”. NNRMS is envisaged to providenecessary guidance/support to the user community at Central, State, Academic aswell as Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to take up various projects ofdirect relevance to national development, by integrating remote sensing & GIS intothe conventional practices (Fig. 1). Towards enabling the adoption, adaptation andabsorption of the remote sensing & GIS inputs into the operational user projects,Department of space (DOS) as the nodal agency of NNRMS carries out necessarypilot and pre-investment studies besides providing necessary seed money to set-upappropriate infrastructure, and training & education to build-up necessary humanresources capacity at the user end, particularly in the States.

Furthering the goals of NNRMS and supporting information needs of the nationby establishing a reliable observation/imaging infrastructure are the key drivers forthe Indian EO programme.

Considering the changing technological and applications dimensions in the coun-try and elsewhere, the NNRMS currently focuses its activities on a 3 prongedstrategy with (a) user funded projects meeting the objectives/goals of the userdepartments/agencies both at the national and regional/local scale; (ii) convergentapplications, taking cognizance of the convergence of technologies, integratingsatellite communications and remote sensing applications for disaster managementand Village Resource Centres (VRC) with the concept of reaching the communitydirectly, and (iii) organising the spatial databases with GIS capabilities and working

India’s EO Pyramid for Holistic Development 43

towards a Natural Resources Repository (NRR) with a front-end NNRMS Portal fordata and value added services. It is envisaged that such an integrated approach withcloser inter-related horizontal and vertical connectivity will provide an organiseddata and value added services directly for grass-root level development.

User Driven Applications

With the above in perspective, NNRMS through its high-power Standing Commit-tees and many user departments/agencies have been carrying out EO operationalapplication projects such as biennial forest cover mapping by the Forest Survey ofIndia; the Potential Fishery Zone mapping by the Department of Ocean Develop-ment; Crop Acreage Production Estimation (CAPE)/Forecasting Agricultural Out-put using Space-borne, Agro-meteorological and Land observations (FASAL) bythe Department of Agriculture & Cooperation (Dadhwal et al. 2001: see also thebox below); Wasteland mapping by the Ministry of Rural Development, Biodiver-sity Information system and characterisation by the Department of Bio-Technology(Roy & Behera, 2001); Hydrogeomorphological mapping by the National DrinkingWater Mission under the Ministry of Rural Development (NRSA, 2003); Coastalzone mapping and snow & glacier mapping by Ministry of Environment & Forest;Geomorphologcial mapping by Geological Survey of India; Sedimentation and wa-ter logging mapping of major reservoirs by Central Water Commission as well asthe recent initiative of National Urban Information System by the Ministry of UrbanDevelopment to cite only a few examples, not to speak of many other funded/in-house projects at Centre/State Government level. Besides the above, there have beenenhanced activities in meteorology related activities, cartographic applications, par-ticularly after the formation of high-powered Standing Committees in these areasrecently.

EO for forecasting Agricultural Output

Timely import and export decisions on foodgrains and trading in futureshighly depend on accurate forecasts of production and its link with demand.In order to address such issues, a remote sensing based the nationwide mis-sion called pre-harvest Crop Acreage and Production Estimation (CAPE)was launched in late 80s covering the major cereals, pulses and oilseeds.CAPE provides pre-harvest crop statistics with 90/90 accuracy at state level.Later the capability was developed for in-season multiple crop forecastingsystem, which could provide advance information on the possible shortfalls,if any, in production of major crops. The CAPE experiences were used todevelop Forecasting Agricultural Output using Space-borne Agrometeorologyand Land-based Observations (FASAL). Integrating econometrics, agromete-orology and land-based observations, FASAL captures even the unforeseen

44 V. Jayaraman et al.

minor impacts of unusual high temperature during harvesting period of thecrop and revises the forecast accordingly apart from highlighting the areasfrom where shortfalls are expected. The advantage lies in timelines, as FASALpre-harvest forecasts come at different stages in a crop season. FASAL, as anintegral component of the Ministry of Agriculture, has been helpful in takingdecision on import and export related matters in agricultural trade primarilyby virtue of providing in-season multiple forecasts. For example, FASAL timelyresults of last season 2005–06 helped the country to take well informed andtimely decision about wheat import of 5.5 Million tones. Further, NationalWheat Production for the season 2006–07 using multi date RESOURCESATAWiFS data up to February 18, 2007 forecast at state-level, the decrease of 3.4percent in Haryana State; an increase of 10.2 per cent in Bihar State and 18.0per cent acreage in Rajasthan. It is important to highlight following aspectsof FASAL forecasts, which address the criticality of information support formajor decisions:

� In-season information on shortfall and surpluses in agricultural produc-tion facilitate the decisions with regards to the trade, procurements, pricesetc,

� The information with regards to the shortfalls and surpluses in agriculturalproduction from a particular region viz., State or districts enable planningmovement of goods and services to address them.

� FASAL forecasts provide an alternate and comprehensive approachfor collection of agricultural statistics and thus play supplemen-tary/complementary role to the traditional systems.

� FASAL acknowledges the need of integrated approach for generating theinformation, rather than a standalone system.

Natural Resources Repository

Indian EO programme recognises the importance of organising the spatial databaseswith GIS capabilities created through many applications projects into a repositorywhere from the users can easily access the information. Towards this, the IndianEO programme is planning to setup a Natural Resources Repository (NRR) with afront-end NNRMS Portal for data and value added services.

As part of the NRR programme, NNRMS has launched an initiative for sys-tematically generating national level databases by conducting (i) periodic Natu-ral Resources Census at 1:250,000 and 1:50,000 scales (ii) Large Scale Mappingapplications at 1:10000 scale (iii) Disaster Management System Support integrat-ing remote sensing, GIS and Global Positioning System (GPS) along with Satel-lite Communication, (iv) enhanced Meteorology & Oceanographic Applicationsthrough improved weather and climate models/forecasting using densification of

India’s EO Pyramid for Holistic Development 45

EO observation network both onboard and on the ground, and (v) encouraging EOScience applications.

The Natural Resources Census (NRC) under the NRR essentially addresses car-rying out of periodic inventory of land-use/land cover and highlight the changes.Bringing out Large-Scale Maps at 1:10,000 scale using the high-resolution satelliteremote sensing data as well as the aerial photography is another important area iden-tified under the NNRMS. Geo-referencing of cadastral maps (see the box below)with the high resolution satellite imagery and providing GIS query options haveopened up many grass-root level applications. Creating a Natural Resources DataBase (NRDB) architecture taking care of the horizontal and vertical networking,data formats and standards under NRR, is yet another activity taken up to reap thefull benefits these organised databases at various levels. The NNRMS portal servesas the front-end for the NRR, enabling the users to interact and obtain the neededdata for their applications.

Pursuing high quality research in meteorology and oceanography using satelliteinputs from the Kalpana, INSAT-3D, OCEANSAT-2 and Megha-Tropiques missionsto arrive at the tropical specific forecasting models is yet another priority identifiedunder NNRMS. The thrust area of work will be in the retrieval of parameters fromsatellite data and validation and their use in the application themes of monsoondynamics, numerical weather prediction, ocean state forecasting, tropical cycloneintensity analysis and tracking. It is expected to carry out these efforts jointly withthe knowledge centres across the country focusing on the integration of space obser-vations to achieve breakthrough in forecasting capabilities of weather and climate.Towards densifying the observational network on ground to provide in-situ datafor appropriate integration with the weather models, development of AutomaticWeather Stations (AWS) and Doppler Weather radars (DWR) has also been taken upwith the help of industry, besides launching the meso-scale modelling such as Re-gional Climate Model (RCM) projects. With these concerted efforts on the satelliteand the ground segment as well as the close interactions with the expert centres, itis expected that in the coming years, the weather and climate applications will peakand the country will have a viable meso scale weather forecast system in place.

Cadastral Referenced Database (CRD) Project

A cadastre is normally a parcel based and up-to-date land information systemcontaining a record of interests in land (i.e. rights, restrictions and responsi-bilities). It usually includes a geometric description of land parcels linked toother records describing the nature of the interests, and ownership or controlof those interests, and often the value of the parcel and its improvements.In India, the cadastral map for each village is available on larger scalesfrom 1:4000 to 1:10,000. These maps depict the survey boundaries with sur-vey numbers, cultural features like transport network and natural featureslike drainages etc. The cadastral maps are generally prepared using plane

46 V. Jayaraman et al.

table and chain surveying. These maps are drawn to a true area projectionor Cassini projection. These maps have to be brought under standard pro-jection/coordinate system for effective linkage of the other maps and actionplans generated in the GIS environment. To bring the cadastral maps in thestandard projection, these maps have to be georeferenced using high resolu-tion satellite data. One of the ISRO Centres, Regional Remote Sensing ServiceCentre at Nagpur has developed a methodology for geo-referencing of village(cadastral) maps and successfully implemented in the state of Chhattisgarh.Realising the benefits and utility of the deliverables of this methodology, theDOS has initiated a nationwide project, i.e., generation of digital Cadas-tral Referenced Database (CRD) project, as one of the main elements of theNNRMS-NRR Programme. The scope of CRD Project includes computerisa-tion of the analog village (cadastral) maps, geo-referencing of these mapsusing high-resolution satellite data and generation of value added productsfor micro-level planning requirements. For value addition, the spatial infor-mation generated using remote sensing & GIS techniques and socio-economicdata collected through ground survey are used The application potentials ofCRD Project include:

� Micro-level and parcel level planning, implementation, monitoring and as-sessment of the impact of developmental activities

� Crop identification at parcel level & water levy assessment� Crop insurance� Land value assessment� Efficient settlement of compensation claims� Smart cards for farmers to facilitate e-governance and e-banking� Land acquisition and rehabilitation in infrastructure projects

Convergent Applications

Disaster management truly brings in convergence among remote sensing, satellitemeteorology and satellite communication. Efforts have been made to strengthen allthese segments to respond to a disaster situation more comprehensively by address-ing the different phases of its management cycle (Table 2). As part of NNRMSactivities, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of ISRO has been providingon operational basis timely information to the decision-makers on all major floodsand drought events in the country using remote sensing data. One of the significantamong them was the periodic monitoring of the artificial Paracheu Lake in the Sutlejriver basin outside the country. In case of the recent tsunami event, information usinghigh resolution satellite remote sensing and aerial photography was made availableto the Tamil Nadu State Relief Commissioner to enable him to carry out detaileddamage assessment and to plan relief and rehabilitation.

India’s EO Pyramid for Holistic Development 47

Table 2 EO products for disaster risk reduction

Remote sensing & GIS based Deliverables

Disaster Theme Pre-Disaster During-Disaster Post-Disaster

Flood Chronic flood proneareas/flood-plainzoning

Flood inundationmap, flooddamageassessment

Detailed damageassessment, floodcontrol works,river bank erosionand damages

Drought Integrated land andwater managementplans (long termplan)

Drought assessmentin spatial format,damageassessment

Drought mitigationmeasures

Cyclone Satellite basedMonitoring inputto forecast models

Impact assessment Detailed damageassessment

A Decision Support Centre (DSC) for Disaster Management Support has beenestablished recently at NRSC. Using CARTOSAT data extensively, efforts are onto complete a National Database for Emergency Management (NDEM) particularlyfor disaster-prone districts in the country, not only for vulnerability assessment butalso for emergency management covering natural as well as man-made disasters.Towards developing satellite based Virtual Private Network (VPN) for emergencycommunication, efforts are on to connect all State Emergency Operation Centres(SEOCs) to NRSA, Ministry of Home and other disaster management agencies inthe country (Madhavan Nair, 2003; Jayaraman, 2004).

Besides the above, based on the experience gained over the years in deliveringspace-based services in the areas of remote sensing, GIS, GPS, telemedicine andtele-education services through the INSAT and IRS systems, Department of Space(DOS) has initiated a programme to set up Village Resource Centres (VRC) in asso-ciation with NGOs/Trusts and concerned State/Central agencies (see the box below).

Village Resources Centre (VRC)

The driving force of Indian space programme has always been taking the ben-efits of space technology to the society through technological intervention,community empowerment and delivery mechanism. In this background, VRCare set up across the country with a view to integrate its capabilities in satel-lite communications and satellite based earth observations to disseminate avariety of services emanating from the space systems and other IT tools toaddress the changing and critical needs of the rural community. This projectaddresses a need based single window delivery system for providing services

48 V. Jayaraman et al.

in the areas of education, health, nutrition, weather, environment, agricul-ture and livelihoods to the rural population and to empower them to facethe challenges. The VRC is a totally interactive VSAT (Very Small ApertureTerminal) based network. VRCs are being set up in association with grassroot level organisations, who have a strong field presence and experience ofmobilising communities to act for development with proven track record.

The kind of services delivered at the VRCs include tele-education –focusing on vocational training in support of alternate livelihood, sup-plementary teaching to rural children, non-formal and adult education;tele-healthcare – focusing on preventive and curative healthcare at primarylevel; information on land and water resources derived from high-resolutionIRS images – for better management of the land resources; interactive advi-sories to villagers – wherein experts at knowledge centers discuss with themon cropping systems, optimization of agricultural inputs (seeds, water, fer-tilizer, insecticides, pesticides, etc.), producer oriented marketing opportuni-ties, crop insurance, etc; tele-fishery – providing satellite derived informationand advisories on Potential Fishing Zones (PFZ) in those VRCs located incoastal tracts; e-Governance – information and guidance to local people onvillage-oriented governmental schemes on agriculture, poverty alleviation,rural employment, social safety nets and other basic entitlements, animalhusbandry and livestock related, micro-finance related, etc; and local weatherand agro-meteorology advisory. Over 460 VRCs set up across different regionsof the country are already benefiting millions people on a day-to-day basis.The VRCs are also being populated across all the rural/semi-urban tractsin India.

Emerging EO Applications in India: New Paradigms

The NNRMS, in more than two decades, has captured the sectoral dynamics ofagriculture, rural development, environment and forestry, bio-diversity, water re-sources, ocean and meteorology sectors, and thus played a role in building rurallivelihoods in terms of natural resources management. It has been part and parcelof the country’s endeavor to sustain the productivity gains in irrigated plains anddeltas. The real challenge of natural resources management however lies in the rain-fed regions with nearly two-thirds of the country’s cultivated land, which laggedfar behind due to the historical reasons. It has been equally challenging for EO todeliver products and services, which could be helpful in bringing about rapid andsystematic development of these regions to remove mass poverty, reduce regionaldisparities and increase present and future carrying capacity of the resource base.Some of the notable highlights include how EO inputs are put to use for buildingthe physical and social infrastructures in support of expanding the scope of rurallivelihoods, creation of natural assets and preserving their diversity.

India’s EO Pyramid for Holistic Development 49

One of the major lessons of natural resources management has been a livelihoodsperspective driven by participatory approaches. This requires that natural resourcesmanagement programmes have clearly spelt out goals and benchmarks in terms ofenhanced potential to create livelihoods and income. The learning has also drivenEO applications in India from prescriptive to participatory and ‘actionable’ in sup-port of building rural livelihoods. The EO applications graduated from mapping totheme integration, followed by the development of decision support tools and finallyleading towards developing the products and services where stakeholders have theirown voices and ownership. A case study is analyzed below illustrating the notion ofworking with community (Ranganath, 2006).

“India lives in villages, particularly where there are large tracts of arid and semi-arid areas with poor farmers battling with low productivity and sub-standard livingconditions. Most of these farmers depend heavily on rainfall for agricultural produc-tion and sustenance. An innovative programme of participatory watershed develop-ment project (Sujala in Karnataka State in Southern part of India) is implemented infive drought prone districts covering an area of around 0.5 Mha, and benefiting morethan 400,000 households. Remote sensing &GIS products have been operationallyused in Sujala project from the early stages of watershed prioritization, database andquery system development to project action plan generation. The unique feature ofthe project is the way remote sensing, GIS and the Management Information System(MIS) are dynamically linked with the impact assessment both in terms of develop-ment of natural resources as well as socio-economic indicators. The approach ofintegrating these tools and techniques has been participatory through communitythemselves.

The mid-term assessment on the impact of the Sujala Watershed DevelopmentProject carried out has indicated very encouraging trends. The average crop yieldshave increased by 24 percent over the baseline. The average ground water level hasincreased by 3 to 5 feet. Shift to agro-forestry and horticulture, and reduction in non-arable lands has also been observed. Annual household income from employment,income generating activities and improvements in agricultural productivity has in-creased by 30 percent from a baseline. The ‘extra mile’ was prototyping a systemensuring greater transparency, social mobilization, inclusive growth and capacitybuilding at the grassroots”

Yet another trend emerging in EO applications in India is expanding the outreachof EO products down the line to community level. With improvements in spatialresolutions some of the EO products are expanding their outreach to the communitylevel. The spatial maps produced as part of various EO applications have been inthe range varying from 1:250,000 to 1: 12,500 scale. The maps cater the needs inresponse to the Governmental services, for example, inputs to policy, developmentalplanning, monitoring and evaluation. In order to develop community centric appli-cations from EO data, it is important to integrate these with cadastral maps andcensus/survey data, associated with the ownership details pertaining to the parcelof land/fields as well as other attribute information. The high-resolution EO prod-ucts to the tune of 1:4,000 maps, produced by integrating cadastral, census/surveydata, serve the purpose of community requirements such as land record with spatial

50 V. Jayaraman et al.

attributes, land status and other relational attributes. Over the years, EO applicationstransitioned from spatial maps to information support and then from spatial infor-mation to community centric services. In the recent years, there have been severaldemonstrative community centric EO applications. A case study to demonstrate theinsights is highlighted below:

Chhattisgarh State of India has about 16 million rural population living in 16 dis-tricts spread over 20308 revenue villages. The poor and marginalized schedule casteand schedule tribe community comprises 44% of the population. They derive liveli-hood opportunities from natural resources. Hence, database of Natural Resources,Socioeconomy, Infrastructure and other collateral information was prerequisite forproper planning, implementation, impact assessment and livelihood support.

To deliver natural resources centric services, Rural development, Revenue andChhattisgarh Infotech and Biotech Promotional Society (CHiPS), an autonomousorganization under the Government of Chhattisgarh, has conceived in a collabora-tive program ‘Chhattisgarh GIS Project’ with the objectives of generation of naturalresources database for the State of Chhattisgarh on 1:50000 scale using IRS LISS-IIIdata, development of spatial database for road network using IRS PAN data andgeo-referencing of village (cadastral) maps using high resolution IRS PAN + LISS-III data. The project is funded from the Gram panchayats (village level governancestructure) through the ‘Basic Plan’, ‘Jawahar Gram Samrudhi Yojana’ and otherresources of panchayat(grassroots agency comprising village level elected represen-tatives), amounting to Rs.10,000 (US $ 240) per village, in two financial years. Infact, US $ 4.8 Million has been paid by community of these villages for geo-spatialservices. It is important to highlight that Chhattisgarh GIS project was implementedby involving community agencies, the Panchayats for development of products takinginto account their parcel of lands and their attributes (village cadastral etc).

Indian EO Pyramid

Essentially, any successful applications of high-technology such as Earth Observa-tion need a scientific foundation. Understanding the basic science issues and carry-ing out appropriate research & development studies; building that into an appliedresearch on specific areas of EO applications such as natural sciences, environ-ment, ocean and atmosphere; taking up the applied research into pilot demonstrationprojects; and making it as an operational service are the basic blocks in EO science,technology and applications domain (Fig. 2).

For a developing country like India with many challenges, there is a widespreadrecognition that EO science, technology & applications could provide appropriatesolutions, if the technological choices are appropriately made, adopted and absorbedin the quest towards national development. Obviously, the Indian EO pyramid willhave to integrate all these elements of science, technology and applications; devel-opment of sensors & modeling; deriving actionable products and services in a costeffective and affordable manner; and integrating them in operational applicationsmeeting the end-user requirements. Being targeted towards national development,

India’s EO Pyramid for Holistic Development 51

Fig. 2 India’s earthobservation Pyramid

the Indian EO programme is largely for providing public good services, which couldalso provide business opportunities for the industries as well as research opportuni-ties for the academia. To make them work, there is a need for an operational frame-work, which seamlessly integrates the EO science, technology & applications withthe government, industry, and academia. Such a vital linkage between the end-usersand the technology providers is enabled by NNRMS. It also enables the reach ofthe actionable products and services; in a top-down manner for the decision-makersand bottom-up manner for the community. Over the years, this unique concept withthe Department of Space providing the essential linkages between various elementsinvolved in the Indian EO Pyramid has enabled the EO services to extend to diver-sified areas ranging from Cartography to Climate. The concurrent development anddeployment of services from state-of-the-art sensors and satellites in both IRS andINSAT series of satellites, and the tapping of the complementary/supplementarydata sources from other international EO missions (CEOS, 2005), has further ce-mented these efforts.

Future EO Strategy

The Indian EO programme for the coming years envisages strengthening the currentapproach of having the three thematic series of satellites in the areas of land andwater resources management; cartographic applications; and ocean & atmosphereapplications with specific improvements carried out in the missions wherever es-sential. The strategy is therefore to provide continuity to workhorse missions likethe RESOURCESAT/RISAT series by enhancing the capabilities; look for advancedtechnologies and techniques to exploit and maximize the advances of the other twoseries of satellites towards meeting the end application requirements of the usercommunity.

52 V. Jayaraman et al.

As a part of this strategy, Indian EO programme envisages innovative technol-ogy development both for onboard and ground systems for various future satellitemissions; develop ‘actionable’ EO products and services and address the issues ofaccess, affordability, timely delivery, user-friendly format and style; develop appro-priate strategy for necessary capacity building in the user agencies and the deci-sion making bodies; encourage the government – industry – academia partnershipto enable core indigenous competence in critical areas; and position appropriatepolicies and institutional mechanisms for seamless integration of space technologyapplications in the national development. In this venture, Indian EO programmelooks forward to work with the international space agencies as part of the GlobalEarth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) to derive mutual benefits of societalimportance.

Indian EO Missions in the Coming Years

Periodic inventory of natural resources, generation and updation of large scalemaps, disaster monitoring and mitigation, improved weather forecasting at betterspatial and temporal scales, ocean state forecasting, facilitating infrastructure de-velopment and providing information services at the community level for bettermanagement of land and water resources continue to be the thrust areas of appli-cations for the Indian EO programme. In order to address these thrust areas, thefollowing differentiated Indian EO missions with thematic goals set forth in the ear-lier years, have been planned, viz., operational polar orbiting RESOURCESAT-2,CARTOSAT- 3, OCEANSAT-2, and RISAT-1; experimental polar orbiting SARALand low-inclination orbiting Megha Tropiques in cooperation with CNES; and withthe geo-stationary INSAT systems with Imagers and Sounders (Fig. 3). In addition,it is planned to have microwave remote sensing satellites with mutli-polarisationand multi-mode capabilities in L-, C-, and X- bands. It is also planned to use thecomplementary and supplementary data from the other international missions toaugment the data sources to meet the increasing demands of the user community inthe country.

Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT), planned for launch in middle 2009, will havenight and day imaging capability as well as imaging under cloudy conditions.RISAT will complement the band of electro-optical sensors onboard Indian remotesensing satellite launched so far.

OCEANSAT-2, envisaged for providing continuity to OCEANSAT-1, has beenapproved by the Government and is planned for launch in middle 2009. It will carryOcean Colour Monitor, Ku-band Scattterometer and a piggy-back payload, namely,Radio Occultation Sounder for Atmospheric studies developed by Italian SpaceAgency. The satellite will help in locating potential fishing zones, forecasting seastate and in studies related to coastal zones, climate and weather. The Governmenthas also approved the design and development of RESOURCESAT-2 to providecontinuity of services of RESOURCESAT-1, which is planned to be launched by2009.

India’s EO Pyramid for Holistic Development 53

Fig. 3 India’s forthcoming EO missions

Fig. 4 Road map of Indian EO programme

54 V. Jayaraman et al.

Towards providing improved repetitivity and coverage, particularly for disastermanagement applications, it is planned to have a Geo-stationary High-ResolutionImager (Geo-HR Imager) to provide multiple acquisition capability. In addition, aconstellation of electro-optical and microwave remote sensing satellites in LEO willprovide sufficient capability for disaster management applications.

In order to derive maximum benefits from the above planned missions, theIndian EO programme is also planning to address corresponding improvementson the ground segment. The emphasis will be towards multi-mission acquisitionand processing; effective delivery mechanisms; web-based services; mission ori-ented outreach activities; development of freeware tools for data products accessetc. (Fig. 4).

Conclusion

Indian EO programme with a strong application back up mainly driven by nation’sdevelopmental priorities and with well-knit institutional framework, evolves inno-vative concepts to address need of man and the society. With the emphasis shiftingfrom the earlier paradigm of working for the community to working with the com-munity, Indian EO programme aiming to reach the last mile in social hierarchy, thepoor and the marginalized section. In doing so it lays strong foundation in buildinga prosperous nation at the ‘first mile’, the villages as emphasized by MahathmaGandhi, “Just as the Universe is contained in the self, so is India contained in thevillages”. Further, the vision of Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the father of Indian SpaceProgramme, of building a self-reliant and indigenous space programme for the bet-terment of quality of life of the common people is getting crystallized as demon-strated by various applications directly reaching the common man. The India’s EOranging from Cartography to Climate missions, backed by three-pronged strategyfor applications and putting them to use down the line with top-down and bottom-upapproaches has established its ‘niche’ in terms of having an end-to-end capability.Indian EO programme over the last 20 years, thus preserves the pre-eminent positionand global leadership in reaping the benefits of space technology at grass-root level.Considering the fact that India is a fast moving information and knowledge societywith increased emphasis on IT driven transparency in e-governing, ISRO has takenquite a lot of initiatives to generate through systematic survey, archive and makeavailable the actionable EO products and services in a public domain for the ben-efits of entire Indian EO community covering from policy makers to commercialindustries. Essentially, while the Indian EO programme aims at the public goodservice as the primary objective, it provides enough business opportunities for theprivate industry, and research opportunities for the academia. By integrating spacetechnology benefits in general and EO benefits in particular as part and parcel ofvarious developmental processes, Indian EO programme thrives to be part of everybody’s every day’s life.

India’s EO Pyramid for Holistic Development 55

Acknowledgments The authors are grateful to Mr Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO/Secretary,Department of Space for having given ideas of developing community centric EO applications andalso the opportunity to conceive this manuscript. The authors also thankfully acknowledge contrib-utors from ISRO family and the entire Indian EO community comprising Central/State GovernmentDepartments, Academia, Private Entrepreneur, Non-Governmental Organizations, etc, who havebeen helpful in taking India’s EO to a greater height.

Acronyms

AIBP Accelerated Irrigation Benenfit ProgrammeAWiFS Advanced Wide Field SensorAWS Atmospheric Weather SystemCAPE Crop Acreage and Production EstimationCEOS Committee of Earth Observation SystemsCRD Cadastral Referenced DatabaseDOS Department of SpaceDSC Decision Support CentreDTM Digital Terrain ModelDWR Doppler Weather RadarEO Earth ObservationFASAL Forecasting Agricultural Output using Space-borne,

Agro-meteorological and Land ObservationsGDP Gross Domestic ProductGEOSS Global Earth Observation System of SystemsGIS Geographical Information SystemGPS Global Positioning SystemICT Information & Communication TechnologyINSAT Indian National SatelliteIRS Indian Remote Sensing SatelliteISRO Indian Space Research OrganisationLISS Linear Imaging Self Scanning SensorNDEM National Database for Emergency ManagementNGO Non-Government OrganisationNNRMS National Natural Resources Management SystemNRC Natural Resources CensusNRDB Natural Resources Data BaseNRR Natural Resources RepositoryNRSA National Remote Sensing AgencyNURM National Urban Renewal MissionNWDPRA National Watershed Development Programme for Rainfed AreasPAN PanchromaticPFZ Potential Fishing ZonesRCM Regional Climate ModelRISAT RADAR Imaging Satellite

56 V. Jayaraman et al.

SEOC State Emergency Operation CentresVPN Virtual Private NetworkVRC Village Resources CentreVSAT Very Small Aperture TerminalWiFS Wide Field Sensor

References

CEOS (2005). Earth Observation Handbook, Committee of Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS),CEOS Secretariat, Paris, France from http://www.eohandbook.com).

Dadhwal V. K., Singh R. P., Dutta S. & Parihar J. S. (2001). Remote sensing based crop discrimi-nation and area estimation: A review of Indian experience. Tropical Ecoogy, 43, 107–122.

ISRO (2007). Annual Report 2006–07. Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Departmentof Space, Government of India, Bangalore, India, from http://www.isro.org/rep2007/Index.htm.

Jayaraman, V. (2002). Earth Observations – Indian Perspectives; Paper presented at the ISPRSCommission VII Symposium on Resource and Environmental Monitoring, Hyderabad, India.

Jayaraman, V. (2004). EO for Disaster Management: A Perspective based on India’s Experiences,Paper presented at the UNESCAP Group of Expert Meeting on Space Information Productsand Services for Disaster Management, November 17–19, 2004, Beijing Normal University,Beijing, China.

Kasturirangan, K. (2003). Space for Development: A Vision for India, Paper presented at the 90thIndian Science Congress, January 3–7, 2003, Bangalore, India.

Madhavan Nair, G. (2004). Space for Disaster Management: Indian Perspectives, Paper presentedat the 55th International Astronautical Congress, October 4–8, 2004, Vancouver, Canada.

Navalgund, R. R. (2006). Indian Earth observation system: An overview. Asian Journal of Geoin-formatics, 6, 17–25.

NRSA (2003). Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission (Tech. Rep. No. NRSA/HD/RGNDWM/TR: 02:2003). National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Department of Space,Hyderabad, India.

NRSA (2004). Annual Report 2004–2005. National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Departmentof Space, Hyderabad, India, from http://www.nrsa.gov.in/Index.htm.

Ranganath, B. K. (2006, November). Application of Remote Sensing and GIS to watershed Plan-ning and M&E: The Experience of Karnataka Watershed Development Project. Paper presentedat the Workshop on Global Sustainable Development week learning Program, Washington DC,USA.

Roy, P. S. & Behera, M. D. (2002). Biodiversity assessment at landscape level. Tropical Ecology,43 (1), 151–171.

Shifting Paradigms in Water Management

Paxina Chileshe

Abstract This chapter analyses the application of space technology in informingwater management and explores the use of technology with respect to meeting agri-culture and domestic water demands. It distinguish between the space technology,which is applicable in the initial planning stages and informs water management,and the technology installed or utilised in the agriculture and domestic water sec-tors. It underscores the complementarities of the various types of technology and thelevels at which they are applicable to improve water management for the day to dayuses of water. It is written from the perspective of a water user and relates the end useof water to contemporary uses of space technology in water management. The chap-ter is based on water management research conducted in the rural, peri-urban andurban areas of Zambia, Southern Africa. The chapter traces some of the paradigmshifts in water management from the colonial era to the “expert driven” era. Theexpertise focus thrives in the information age, which places increasing emphasis onthe adaptation of management techniques to technology options and their potentialcontribution. The limited information and technology applied in the colonial era andthe national building eras impacted the capacity of water management and the de-velopment of the resource. In the era of a liberalised economy and the implied flowof information and transfer of technology, water management is expected to be moreproactive and responsive to user demands and more readily informed by the experts.

Keywords Agriculture · Domestic water · Paradigm shifts · Technology selection ·Water management

Introduction

Water management occurs at various levels and involves numerous actors applyinga variety of technologies. Each typology of technology contributes to the holisticmanagement of water resources desired for the sustainable use of natural resources.

P. Chileshe (B)Copperbelt University, Kitwe, Zambiae-mail: Paxina.chileshe@oba.co.uk

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 3, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

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58 P. Chileshe

This volume focuses on the use of space technology in various fields. In water man-agement, space technology can be used in the location, assessing and monitoringof water resources; contributing to the planning and allocation of the resources.Planning is an initial stage in water resource management, albeit end water usehas occurred for centuries before the information required for integrated and co-ordinated planning could be obtained in the contemporary formats. The availabilityof information on water quantity, quality and potentially competing uses impactsthe decision making processes in water management, which on a day to day basispredominantly occurs at the grassroots level, the end use. This chapter explores thetechnology choices made at various levels of water resources management. It depictsthe levels of decision making starting with the planning stage and ending with endwater use.

The planning stage, where space technology can be applied as described in thischapter is often at a national level where information on water quantity and qualityis often targeted. In Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) the planningstage is shifted to the basin level. Space technologies such as GIS and remote sens-ing that are currently used in the planning stages of water resources management atbasin level can beneficially feed into the grassroots management model of the waterresources.

The models applied in water management have undergone progressive changeswhether traditional or non traditional. These changes are informed by experienceand lessons learnt from particular occurrences such as extreme weather events, in-creases in demand for water resources as a result of population increase or industrialactivity and water supply challenges resulting from variability in weather and its im-pact on water resources. The changes in non traditional water management are im-pacted by the available technology and information at a particular time. Traditionalwater management adjusts in a more autonomous manner, which is often slowerthan non traditional management. In this chapter the focus is thus on non traditionalwater management, which eventually influences the traditional water managementin the long term. It focuses on the grass root level management and the technologychoices made at these levels.

The sectors selected in this chapter are domestic water management and agri-cultural water management. In the context of African water management, thesesectors illustrate some of the paradigm shifts in water management and the roleof technology. They also illustrate some of the unexpected outcomes of the tech-nology selected in the domestic water sector and small scale agriculture irrigation;particularly in the community water supply and irrigation projects undertaken asintervention in Africa.

Space Technology in Water Management

Information on the quantity, availability and quality of water resources is an inte-gral part of the resources management and the decision making processes. Spacetechnology such as remote sensing, GIS mapping, and space borne platforms can be

Shifting Paradigms in Water Management 59

used to quantify water resources and also map trends in the resources with respectto time and climatic changes. These techniques can be used to map recharge anddischarge areas in semi-arid regions. Their application informs decision makingand policies in water management as illustrated by the results from the EuropeanSpace Agency (ESA) TIGER Initiative launched in 2002 (http://www.esa.int [Ac-cessed on 25th May 2008]). The initiative is aimed at assisting African countriesovercome the problems faced in the collection, analysis and dissemination of waterrelated geographic information by exploiting the advantages of the Earth Observa-tion technology. The expected results include the support of improved governanceand decision making, specifically the timely and accurate information for IntegratedWater Resources Management (IWRM); a contribution to enhancing the institu-tional, human and technical capacity and fostering sustainability. The initiative hasproduced a variety of environmental maps to provide local policy makers with thenecessary tools for effective water resource management in countries such as Zam-bia, South Africa, Algeria, libya and Tunisia. The maps produced analyse the soilmoisture content, existing surface and ground water resources, suitable dam loca-tions and land cover. The data is obtained from the multispectral MERIS sensor onESA’s Envisat satellite. Access to the maps allows the authorities to calculate therisk of flooding and erosion and also to strengthen integrated water managementpractice. The authorities are also able to analyse the impact of urban expansion andother factors such as climate change on the water resources. The information pro-vided by initiatives such as the ESA TIGER generate valuable information to shapewater management practices. The capacity building accompanying them requiresstrengthening to ensure sustainability of the progress made and also maintenanceand ownership of the information systems created.

In other studies conducted on the potential use of space technology in water man-agement Leblanc et al. elaborate on the calibration of the ground water model withremote sensing and GIS, which improves knowledge of the location and intensity ofthe recharge and discharge processes (Leblanc et al. in Serrat, E (ed), 2003). Suchknowledge would enable an assessment of the volumes of water available in par-ticular locations and the processes influencing them hence enhancing planning andallocation of resources based on availability. Remote sensing and GIS data has alsobeen applied to locate ground water dependant ecosystems. The combined technol-ogy is used to produce a ground water dependant ecosystem probability rating mapfor the Sandveld region in Western Cape, South Africa (Munch and Conrad 2007).The maps developed contribute to maintaining the ecosystems and nature reserve.Degradation caused by the over abstraction of water resources can also be avoidedusing the maps thus moving a step towards the equity and sustainability of the naturereserve as envisaged in the South African Water Policy.

Jayaraman et al. give an account of space borne platforms utilized in efficientdisaster management illustrating the use of communication satellites to aid disasterwarning, relief mobilisation and telemedicinal support. Earth observation satellitesprovide basic support in pre-disaster preparedness programmes, in-disaster responseand monitoring activities, and post-disaster reconstruction (Jayaraman et al., 1997).The reportedly increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters compound the

60 P. Chileshe

value added by the use of space technology in natural resources management. Thesupport provided through the technology potentially minimises the long term ad-verse impact of the disasters particularly on human lives. Other than in disasterwarning, on the African continent space technology is applied to monitor waterbodies such as Lake Chad, which has reportedly progressively reduced in spatialcoverage due to increasing drought, climatic change conditions, and human factorssuch as the lack of regulation and massive bad irrigation practices (Leblanc et al. inSerrat, E (ed), 2006). The study on Lake Chad utilised Shuttle Radar TopographicMission (SRTM) data to supplement the existing topographic data. The SRTM dataproduces sharper images of the regional topography thus providing some insightinto the debates about the nature and extent of late quartenary Lake Chad. Thedata collected reveals ancient drainage networks, improves the knowledge of cli-mate change and contributes to the reconstruction of quaternary paleohydrologyin tropical Africa (Leblanc et al., 2003). The techniques applied in the monitoringexercise can be adopted in other locations where water bodies have excessive andoften competing demands and assist in predictions of future needs and location ofalternative water resources. The historic perspective also assists the planning forfuture needs and the identification of adaptation measures to climate change.

On a global scale, satellite radar altimetry has been a successful technique formonitoring the variation in the elevation of continental surface water, such as inlandseas, lakes, rivers, and more recently wetland zones. Using this technology the sur-face water level is measured periodically depending on the orbit cycle of the satellite(Cretaux and Birkett, 2006). These cases illustrate the application and technologicalprogressive use of space technology such as GIS, remote sensing, SRTM and earthobservation satellites in the management of water resources. The technology is ap-plied to obtain information and analyse it to contribute to the holistic managementof the water resources. The technology is also applied in monitoring and mitigationof natural disasters. The use of these techniques on the African continent and theeffective transfer of the knowledge bases provide opportunities for sustainable de-velopment, equitable allocation of water resources, mitigation strategies for climatechange and also saving the lives and possessions or personal investments of theAfrican populations (Hodge 2006). The scientific basis of the technology makes itmore adaptable to quantitative forms of water resources management such as pre-dictability of the natural disasters and the quantification of the natural resources.

Quantification is an initial step of management and planning. On the supply side,quantification of resources assists the determination of whether water is scarce orplentiful in a particular location. Scarcity occurs in different orders. First orderscarcity is the scarcity of the water resources (Ohlsson 2000). Second order scarcityrefers to the social resources required to successfully adapt to first order scarcity.It is the lack of economic and social adaptive capacity to manage a resource suc-cessfully according to the actors’ definition of success. The second order naturerevolves around society and its responses to scarcity. Perceptions of scarcity differ indifferent societies, locations and regions. The work done by Mehta (2001) in Kutch,India is only one example of the different social constructs of scarcity. She buildson the work done by Leach and Mearns (1996) about environmental narratives and

Shifting Paradigms in Water Management 61

concludes that “while water scarcity is a “real” enough problem with biophysicalmanifestations, it can also be manufactured in a way to serve the interests of thepowerful actors like bureaucrats, politicians and farmers”. The quantification of wa-ter resources and the consequential attempts to match the supply and demand of theresources implies a minimum amount of water is required on a national scale, belowwhich the water is thought to be scarce.

Water Scarcity

Scarcity indicates limitations in supply or an imbalance in supply and demand forwater resources. It produces opportunities for cooperation or competition and some-times conflict over the water resources. A significant number of studies focus on thescarcity of water resources and methods of addressing them (Turton et al., 2001;Feitelson and Chenoweth, 2002). To assess the second order scarcity the demandside is explored primarily through the various water uses in a particular location andactors involved in the control, allocation and use of the resources. Technology can beused to allocate water for various demands and also to make more efficient and effec-tive use of the water resources. Water uses are often classified as primary secondaryand tertiary in some countries. Primary water use includes domestic water and waterfor livestock while the secondary water uses are commercial uses and tertiary arethose including energy demands where alternatives may exist. Technology can thusbe applied on both the supply and demand side of water resources management.On the supply side it can be used to locate, measure and monitor water resources.While on the demand side it can be applied to reduce usage and increase efficiencyand effective use. It thus presents opportunities for addressing water scarcity.

Falkenmark defined water scarcity as “occurring when the annual per capita wa-ter supply of a country is less than 1700 m3. Below 1000 m3 per capita a countrywould be facing water scarcity where water shortages threaten economic devel-opment and human health and well-being”, see Fig. 1. Khroda uses Falkenmark’swater scarcity quantification to define a water stressed system as “one in whichdegradation is taking place or where there is a threat to its capacity to continueproviding adequate water supply in quantity and quality to households, communitiesand nations” (Khroda 1996). He goes on to note that water as a resource must beculturally defined because water by itself is not productive: its use requires someminimum level of social infrastructure for it to be productive. Winpenny defineswater scarcity as the imbalance of supply and demand under the prevailing insti-tutional arrangement and/or prices; an excess of demand over available supply; ahigh rate of utilisation compared to available supply, especially if remaining supplypotentials are difficult or costly to tap (Winpenny 1994). She goes further to statethat water scarcity is a relative concept and difficult to capture in single indices.She refers to water stress as the symptoms of water scarcity e.g. growing conflictbetween users and competition for water, declining standards of reliability and ser-vice, harvest failures and food insecurity. These definitions illustrate the shift from

62 P. Chileshe

The concept of Water Stress: available on World Water Council Website http://www.worldwatercouncil.org

Fig. 1 Water stressed regions Source: WaterGap 2.0 – 1999

a purely quantified assessment of water resources to a more qualitative assessmentof the responses to the results of quantification.

Some authors have criticised the quantitative focus of Falkenmark’s definitionsthough others conclude that quantitative definitions can be used as a starting pointand are useful in some cases especially in drawing attention to possible crises (Win-penny 1994). Given some of the predictions on levels of scarcity and the populationsexpected to be living in water stressed areas by 2025 the second order scarcity willrequire concerted regional efforts to address particularly on the African continent.Scarcity is a localised and sometimes seasonal phenomenon. Actors adapt to itslong term occurrence or cope with its short term occurrence. The long term andshort term nature of water resources scarcity are linked to increasing demand pat-terns and also changes in the supply of the resources. The latter is further linked tohuman settlement, resource use and climatic changes. Climate change is no longera disputed occurrence, though its actual causes may still be. Increasingly there is aninternational consensus on the need for mitigation and adaptation strategies. Spacetechnology can be applied to map trends in climate and also inform the mitigationand adaptation strategies. Other phenomenon that impact climate change such asdesertification and deforestation can also be mapped using remote sensing and GIS.

Climate Change Impacts

Climate change represents one of the concerns with increasing centrality in globaldiscourse and particularly the African continent due to its effects on natural re-sources, health, and general well being of the populations and on development. In

Shifting Paradigms in Water Management 63

Africa the concern is paramount because the socio-economic development dependson the preservation and use of natural resources. Thus Climate Change adaptationshould ideally be integrated within sustainable development policies, strategies andnational planning given the needs of the African countries. Africa is viewed as avulnerable continent where adaptation mechanisms and mitigation measures mustbe incorporated into socio-economic development making the process more sustain-able. This however has implications on the type of fuels used and in essence the tech-nology adopted in the development process. At the 2007 UNFCCC Climate ChangeConference, COP 13, one of the main items for discussion on the agenda was thetransfer of technology between the various parties and particularly the African con-tinent. Climate change affects the quantity and quality of water resources. In somelocations the quantity increases at particular times of the year while in others itreduces. Extreme weather events also impact the timing of replenishment of groundwater and surface water resources. Thus with climate change water managementand the use of the resources have to be adapted to suit the flow of the resources.In the areas where water resources are reduced or the quality of water is adverselyaffected and thus demand increases for a limited amount of resources of suitablequality, addressing second order scarcity becomes increasingly important.

Integrated Water Resource Management

A proposed solution to addressing second order scarcity is the Integrated WaterResources Management (IWRM), which is a participatory planning and implemen-tation process that brings actors together. It utilizes an intersectoral approach todecision-making, where authority for managing water resources is employed re-sponsibly and actors have a share in the process. According to the Global WaterPartnership IWRM Toolbox the strategic objectives are efficiency, equity and envi-ronmental sustainability. Some of the principal components of IWRM include:

� managing water resources at the basin or watershed scale� optimizing supply by conducting assessments of surface and groundwater

supplies and analyzing water balances� managing demand by adopting cost recovery policies� providing equitable access to water resources through participatory and transpar-

ent governance and management� establishing improved and integrated policy, regulatory, and institutional

frameworks such as the polluter-pays principle and market-based regulatorymechanisms.

IWRM is thus a holistic approach to water resources management promotingdialogue among the actors and also multi and cross disciplinary. It requires bothhuman and capital resources, which are often limited in the African context.

64 P. Chileshe

African Water Management Challenges

The role of natural resources in the development of Africa as a continent increasesthe need to build capacity to realise the potential of these resources. The challengesof increasing the contribution of water resources development and use include; in-creasing levels of access to safe water, increasing levels of beneficial use of waterresource and the amounts under managed conditions and increasing per capita waterstorage capacity. These factors would also result in water security for social andeconomic development and reduced vulnerability to water related disasters. Africahas a significant number of shared river basins, which require regional cooperationto ensure equitable and sustainable use and an increase in the effectiveness of watergovernance (African Development Bank 2006). Space technology use in the quan-tification of the resources and mapping the changes in the regional basin coverageenables regional cooperation in the management of the water resources. The chal-lenges in managing and optimising the development of African water resources arecompounded by the depletion and contamination of water resources in some loca-tions as a result of human settlement and exploitation of the water resources. Otherenvironmental factors such as climate change, desertification, flooding and erosionalso adversely impact the quality and quantity of water resources. The informationand knowledge base in most countries is often inadequate and the monitoring andevaluation system unreliable for meaningful use in strategic planning and develop-ment (African Development Bank 2006).

Information and knowledge provide opportunities for effective planning and in-formed choices in development. Technology in general plays a crucial role in in-formation and knowledge creation and development as well as tackling the supplyand demand sides of water uses. It enables the quantification of water resources,the enhancement to bring about water use in terms of availability and a suitablequality. However, the selection and use of technology enabling water use resultsin structures of domination and in some cases supports particular actors and theirknowledge frameworks over others (Jabri 1996; Latour 1997). In this respect wehave to cautiously apply technology and be aware of its ability to create and cementparticular structures that may disadvantage some actors. In the following sectionsthe chapter explores the use of technology in the management of agricultural anddomestic water.

Paradigm Shifts in Water Management

In most southern African countries, particularly those colonised by the British,the colonial administration developed water resources strategically. In Zambia theadministration focused on the development of water resources in the belt wherecommercial farmers were located, along the initial line of rail from Livingstone tothe Copperbelt (Greenwood and Howell in Tordoff 1980). The farmers were pre-dominantly settlers attracted by the availability of water resources (Hall 1965). The

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colonial government obliged them to obtain water rights for abstraction of surfacewaters while the ground water was classified as a private resource based on theinvestment necessary before its use. The approach in water management was mainlyautonomous and the responsibility lay with the end user. The colonial governmentprovided a suitable investment environment for farmers to purchase the technol-ogy to abstract water and bring it to the surface. It also usually had a policy offree hold on the land with the aim of creating an enabling investment environment(Tordoff (ed) 1974). Supply of both surface and groundwater resources exceededthe contemporary demand for water in these locations. The opening of the miningindustry particularly on the Copperbelt Province, increased the demand and marketfor the commercial crops and domestic water.

The mining industry attracted workers from various countries within SouthernAfrica. The colonial government entrusted the mining firms with the responsibilityof supplying domestic water to the work force it attracted (Tait 1997). Thus thetechnical and financial capacity of the mining firms was applied in developing theinfrastructure to supply domestic water in the urban centres. The Local Authoritiesin these and other urban centres also provided services that included water supplyto the urban residents that were not employed by the mining sector. The miningcompanies and other parastatals provided a form of private sector participation indomestic water supply and management. However, the participation could onlybe legitimised in particular townships where their employees resided (Tait 1997;Tordoff (ed) 1980).

In the colonial paradigm the state developed water resources for commercialagriculture and urban areas by providing the right investment opportunities andissuing directives for the private sector. The commercial white settler farmers andthe settlers in the urban locations with mining activity were the main beneficiariesof the water resource development policies in this era. The state encouraged privateproperty regimes through freehold lease land policies and maintained the traditionalland ownership in areas outside the line of rail. Thus the vast rural areas where the in-digenous populations were predominately located were ignored in the developmentof infrastructure for domestic and agricultural water supply. Technology use in watermanagement was limited to the urban areas and commercial farming areas. Spacetechnology was not utilised in the decision making processes of water managementat this time possibly due to contemporary unavailability of the technology and theabundance of the resources compared to the demand.

State Centred – National Building Era

The colonial era was often followed by a time of national building, which in somecountries such as Zambia resulted in a one party state. The independent state con-tinued to use the resources from the parastatals, such as the mining firms, to developthe water supply system in most urban areas. It complemented this by providingpublic funds to install infrastructure in some previously rural areas and subsidise

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the cost for the consumer in non parastatal townships. It left the rural areas to theautonomous development of water resources with limited central planning influ-ence. The end user in rural areas sourced their own domestic water and water forother livelihood activities such as watering livestock and gardening. The separationof the rural and urban approaches in water management and supply was maintainedeven with the growth of the peri-urban areas. These areas were usually physicallylocated around the urban centres (Tait 1997). The high population density in theseareas and lack of sufficient water supply infrastructure and sanitation services re-sulted in increasing incidences of water borne diseases. The standard of water sup-ply in peri-urban areas was officially modelled on the low cost urban areas thuscommunal water taps were installed using the state intervention through NGO anddonor funded projects. The policy of state intervention through projects was initiallyaimed at rural areas that are often disadvantaged in the allocation of the allegedlylimited public funds (Government of the Republic of Zambia 1994).

The sectors historically prioritised by the government for allocation of publicfunds are undoubtedly linked to the economic and social policies and the politicalphilosophy. During the second republic, from the early 1970s to 1991, the Zambianamalgamated ideology of Humanism mixed components of socialism, capitalismand populism (Tordoff (ed) 1980; Fortman de Gaay 1969). It induced particularexpectations from the citizens guided by its man centred approach. It implied theuse of Zambia’s resources for the benefit of the people including the resources fromthe parastatals to provide subsidised services. Its socialist orientation resulted inmost residents receiving these services without paying for them or at least paying farbelow the cost of supply. The parastatals that provided the services usually deductedthe subsidised cost from employee salaries. The employers saw the subsidised ser-vices as a community service for the benefit of their workers and their families.

In the one party state paradigm the state continued to make use of the private sec-tor technical capabilities but also increased the areas with Local Authority managedwater supply systems. It expanded the beneficiaries of the water resources devel-opment to include the indigenous populations in some rural areas and the growingperi-urban areas. It attempted to bring more land under its control by convertingsome of the traditional land into state land and limiting the lease hold to 99 years.It also attempted to strike a balance between communal property and private prop-erty regimes through the settlement programmes, self help schemes and commercialfarming blocks. The use of technology was rolled out to include more areas duringthe national building era in an effort to increase equality in the living conditionsof the citizens. Similar to the colonial era, the use of space technology in this pe-riod was also non existent probably due to the same reasons for its non use in thecolonial era.

Liberalised Economy – Technocratic and Expert Era

The Zambian government liberalised the economy soon after the multiparty elec-tions in 1991. The process involved the privatisation of most parastatals and im-

Shifting Paradigms in Water Management 67

plementation of neoliberal fiscal monetary policies. In the liberalised economyInternational Financial Institutions and donor agencies encourage the private sectorto participate in service provision. To legitimise participation they argue that theprivate sector is able to provide efficient services compared to the public sector(Taylor 2004; Marvin and Laurie 1999). The private sector participation allegedlyreduces the burden on the government and frees up resources by removing subsidiesto local populations. However, this forces them to pay for some services and sup-posedly allows more expenditure for national obligations like health, education andbilateral debt repayments.

In the liberal economy paradigm the state attempts to withdraw from providingservices through the Local Authorities aiming to commercialise the urban water sec-tor supply. It encourages the private sector to participate in providing services withthe objective of improving the standards. It continues to draw up separate strategiesfor water resource development in the rural and urban areas, clearly emphasising theformer depends on NGO and donor funding while the latter depends on commercialmodels. The strategies imply the urban populations benefit from public funds whilethe rural and peri-urban populations wait for external intervention.

Technology promotion is embedded in private sector participation in the watersector and thus water management at the grass roots level. It is also embedded in therecognition of water as a scarce and economic good following the promulgation ofthe Dublin principles. The principles form the basis of the National Water policiesand strategies to develop water resources for various uses in urban, peri-urban andrural areas. The use of space technology in the quantification of Zambian waterresources can be traced to 1991, when a national water resources master plan wasdrawn up. The plan required the quantification of the resources and accounting of thevolumes utilised for various uses. Since 1992 various studies using GIS technologyhave been undertaken in various parts of Zambia. The exercises attempt to createa database of water quantity and quality and locate water sources in various areasthus potentially informing the decision making in allocation and development ofwater resources. The GIS generated maps of water resources can also be poten-tially used in collaboration with the tribal maps of Zambia to map the typology ofwater management and decision making. The tribal areas often apply customarylaws and related decision making procedures while the areas in the urban settingapply common law. The maps can be applied as tools in grass roots water resourcemanagement that take into account the local intricacies in peri-urban and rural areas.

Agriculture, Livestock, Industry

In many African countries the rural populations make up the majority of the pop-ulation. These areas are dependent on agriculture as one of the main economicactivities. As such in most African countries the government through its agenciesor NGOs often sets up irrigation schemes for small scale farmers. Agriculture coin-cidentally uses the most amounts of water on a national scale compared to other uses

68 P. Chileshe

such as industry and domestic uses. In Zambia these irrigation schemes are initiallyproposed as resettlement areas for interested and willing citizens. The schemes arepart of the self help and self sufficiency agricultural development policy to keepsome residents in the rural areas and control the migration from rural to urbanareas, while simultaneously encouraging retired urban workers to return to the ru-ral areas (Bates 1976). Since the 1990s the model of self help has been extendedto include poverty alleviation and thus income generation for the rural residents(Schacter 2000). The schemes are also allegedly demand driven with the local usersproposing the installation of infrastructure through their application for communityprojects to NGOs and the relevant government agency.

The various actors apply specific knowledge and theoretical frameworks(Mosse 2003, Long 2001). The implementers of the schemes require a consensusfrom the community, specify the technology installed, layout the membership of thescheme and shape the expectations of the project; Figs. 2 and 3 illustrate some ofthe technology applied. The applied frameworks result in specific responses fromthe local actors who redeploy them for their own uses. The redeployment manifeststhrough the more popular and vocal members of society furthering their interestsusing the interactions with the project teams and other local actors. It often entailsdivergent results from those expected by the implementation teams and policy mak-ers. It stems from the different expectations and objectives from the projects betweenthe local actors and the project implementers that are often external actors.

The knowledge frameworks applied in the selection of technology cater to thecompetencies or speciality of the project implementer. The technology itself is em-bedded in the implicit choices made by the project teams (Olivier de Sardan 2005,Latour 1997). Its implicit nature acknowledges that often the technology choices areonly seen as non optimal after installation. Factors that may have been overlooked,such as limited long term maintenance capabilities and hence the project becomingunsustainable, are eventually revealed (Garb 2004). The selection process of thetechnology rarely involves the local actors indicating the power relations that implythe project teams have the knowledge and expertise to solve the problems of the localpopulations. Any consultation ends with the final decision being based on arguments

Fig. 2 Treadle pump in asmall scale farm

Shifting Paradigms in Water Management 69

Fig. 3 Primary andSecondary Irrigation canals

of costs and models that have been used in other locations. A variety of other factorsdetermine the decision making in community irrigation schemes (Mabry (ed) 1996).A few NGOs working with communities attempt to use traditional technologies,which often cost less and are easier to maintain.

Commercial farmers often operate individually, obtaining water abstraction li-cences from the national water development board or have local water boards thatregulate the use of common water bodies such as aquifers. Technological choicesare individually made based on use of the water resources, source of water and thefinancial resources available.

Domestic Water Supply

The choice of technology in the urban areas is embedded in the actor knowledgeframeworks of urban living standards. These frameworks imply independence, indi-viduality and symbolise the affluence of the location, which is linked to the will-ingness and ability to pay for the service and the standard of service expected.However, these symbols are affected by the capacity to operate and maintain thetechnology whether by the community or a water supplier. The technology installedalso impacts the social organisation within a community. It possesses underlyingresponsibility for the end user as a community or an individual. Thus it supportsa particular structure of social organisation within the communities, independenceand individuality in urban areas and communal relations in peri-urban and ruralareas. The local social organisation allows the modes of resource appropriation tobe analysed (Trottier 1999). Each point has regulations for access affected by thetheoretical frameworks of the actors installing the technology emphasising the po-tential benefits of analysing local access modalities and their transfer; Figs. 4 and 5show some of the technology and infrastructure installed.

The individual taps are mostly found in the high and medium cost urban residen-tial centres connected to the main reticulation system that is managed by the LocalAuthority or a Commercial Utility. The individual connection usually restricts the

70 P. Chileshe

Fig. 4 Communal Tap in aPeri-Urban Area

use of a particular tap to the household where it is located. The occupant pays thebill and monitors the use of their tap. The supply is usually constant at the individualtaps and the quality of water meets the standard set by the responsible institution atnational level; it is usually supplied by trained personnel at established institutions.The type of water source is related to the location and the end uses. It is also relatedto technological suitability; most rural residents prefer boreholes and protected wellsas these are easier to maintain and are considered dependable sources of clean water.

The selection of technology in domestic water projects resembles the procedurefollowed in irrigation projects. The decision is more biased towards technical con-siderations and long term mechanical durability. The technical considerations some-times result in the installation of technology that cannot be maintained by the localactors without assistance from external actors such as urban water suppliers. Hence,the selection of technology supports a structure of domination that empowers theurban water supplier with local actors depending on them, effectively making thelocal actors more vulnerable to decisions made by the water supplier in the operationof the water scheme. The technology installed in water supply includes individualtaps, communal taps, boreholes and protected wells.

Fig. 5 Borehole with awindlass in a rural area

Shifting Paradigms in Water Management 71

Communal taps are installed in high density, low cost urban, areas where ar-guably the individual connections were deemed unfeasible or costly. The criterionfor feasibility and affordability is based on the affluence of the residents in theseareas. Communal taps are cheaper to install and maintain compared to individualconnections. Their use is determined by the residential proximity to the point andpayment by each user. Communal taps ideally increase the interaction at communitylevel since the residents negotiate and agree on the tap opening times. The residentsalso collaborate to prevent vandalism to the infrastructure in their areas. However,the collaboration makes use of already existing neighbourly relations. The boreholesand protected wells are based on the same principles of communal interaction andcommunity cohesion in rural and peri-urban areas.

Technological Biases

The infrastructure installed in community water projects maintains the local actordependency on external intervention through the technology proposed by the projectimplementers (Olivier de Sardan 2005). The implementers often determine the tech-nology choices in a project based on their knowledge and theoretical frameworksdiscussed in an earlier section. Their decision making criterion includes technicalcapacity, productive efficiency and available capital. The budget is a recogniseddelivery constraint in most projects as any money not spent is returned to the fi-nancier. The return of unspent finances drives the determination to install the moreexpensive technology, which is supposedly more durable. In the domestic waterprojects the technology has moving mechanical parts that need maintenance andperiodic replacement. The project implementers train local actors to carry out thesetasks but the materials and spare parts have to be acquired from urban locations. Insome cases the dependency supports the continuous role of the commercial supplierin the local water resource management.

In irrigation schemes, the project implementers often encourage local actors toapply for cement lined canals. The water distribution usually uses gravity. However,like the mechanical parts, the lined canals also require maintenance. The fieldwork-ers encourage lining based on their theoretical and knowledge frameworks. Theyapply the productive economic argument that cement lining reduces the wastage ofwater through seepage. Wastage here refers to the return of water to a dischargebody or to the atmosphere without it being used in the farming activity. Incidentally,the increased operations and maintenance costs usually require external interven-tion to raise capital for purchasing the cement, hence supporting the structure ofdependency on external actors by the local actors.

The perception of water as an economic good, as emphasised in the Dublin prin-ciples is a focus point for most of the National Water Policies in Africa that providea road map for the development and use of national water resources. Often at thenational level, priority in allocation is given to those consumers who can afford topay for the resources used and whose uses are economically beneficial as determined

72 P. Chileshe

by the allocating authority. The ability to pay for the resources guarantees access andis also a transfer mechanism for access in urban locations. In rural and peri-urbanlocations where most users lack the ability to pay for treated water, the resourcesare represented as a social good and a human right. Thus payment is not oftena manifestation of the modes of appropriation. It is superseded by manifestationssuch as neighbourly relations, kinship and clientelism. Collective action such as theformation of a committee to manage resources and liaise with development agentsare mechanisms of ensuring access to water. Access and use are the most recognisedform of resource appropriation at the grass roots level. The individual is the focusof the urban and some peri-urban strategies while the community is the focus in therural and some peri-urban strategies.

The structures supported by the selection of technology particularly in commu-nity project implementation, whether consciously or unconsciously, often disad-vantage the local actors (Olivier de Sardan 2005; Uvin 1998). The education andsensitization in the community projects supports the structures of domination bythe external actors who hold particular knowledge and theoretical frameworks thatimplicitly appear to be superior to those held by the local actors.

Conclusion

The sustainability desired in development and the use of natural resources, particu-larly interventions that aim to ensure positive change require the concerted efforts ofvarious actors, local and external and the minimisation of the negative impacts em-bedded in the application of knowledge frameworks and the resulting technologicalchoices. This can be phrased as a rescaling of the spaces in which the frameworksand technology interact and influence the water management practices.

As populations increase, economic activity increases and thus the demand onwater resources increases, more efficient and effective use of water resources isforecasted. However, the effective and efficient use does not necessarily result inthe exclusion of some actors and their frameworks in resource management. Someof the potentially excluded local actors have historically autonomously developedadaptation measures to limited water resource availability and the climatic changesthat may cause the limitations. As such these measures offer opportunities for thenon traditional technologies to interact with them and result in beneficial change formost actors.

Undoubtedly the space technologies will continue to inform the planning stagesof resources management and map the trends in resource availability. The increasedavailability of the technology, in locations such as Africa where climate changemitigation and adaptation measures are essential and have a huge potential to posi-tively impact and sustain development efforts, determines its potential contribution.In an age where information and the expertise of teams and individuals play a morecentral role in decision making, space technology is an apt tool in water managementdecision making.

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Mapping is a tool increasingly used in managing of resources and forecastingareas of scarcity and water stress. It is also a useful tool in monitoring trends andpatterns in resource availability and hence changes use patterns. In the foreseeabletimes of water resource increasingly localised scarcity and increased competitionamong users, mapping can be used as a tool to determine the allocation of resourceson a functional level and also on a structured level of appropriate actor interactionin the management of the resources. The scientific nature of the space technologywould require some form of adaptation to the local level to make it available forthe grass root decision makers to use. The interaction of the scientific tools andsocial decision making processes illustrate the multi disciplinarily approach that isessential in water resources management.

Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank the financiers and the research team of the SecondOrder Water Scarcity in Southern Africa research project and the participants in the research fromthe various locations in Zambia.

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Operational Oceanographyand the Sentinel-3 System

Miguel Aguirre, Yvan Baillion, Bruno Berruti and Mark Drinkwater

Abstract The field of Operational Oceanography has matured significantly over thelast 30 years, and the advent of satellite oceanography has accelerated the develop-ment of robust numerical ocean forecasting capabilities. This chapter provides anoverview of what is operational oceanography, how it has evolved, and what dataneeds of todays’ users of operational oceanography can be satisfied. The chaptercontinues with a description of present developments in operational oceanography,mainly in the framework of the joint European Union/European Space Agency ini-tiative Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and concentrates in therecent initiation of the implementation of the European space mission Sentinel-3.The Sentinel-3 overall mission architecture and the satellite are described in de-tail. Special emphasis is made on the instrument that the satellite carries and theoperational products that it will deliver. Some global land applications, which willalso be covered by Sentinel-3, are also mentioned. The chapter finishes with someconclusions.

Keywords Operational oceanography · Remote sensing · satellites · Oceandynamics · Ocean color · Ocean temperature · Ocean altimetry

What is Operational Oceanography?

Operational Oceanography (LeTraon et al. 1999) is the long-term and routinedelivery of forecasts over the Oceans with a consistent quality and a very high levelof availability. Operational oceanographers produce these forecasts using large,computer run numerical models which assimilate measurement data in order tomimic the physical and biological state and dynamics of the oceans. These modelsare fed with data provided by satellites and by in-situ observing instruments likebuoys and drifters. The models are run and regularly fed with new data, with theresulting state estimates and forecasts distributed to the users. Users may utilise the

M. Aguirre (B)European Space Agency-ESTEC, Noordwijk, the Netherlandse-mail: Miguel.Aguirre@esa.int

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 4, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

75

76 M. Aguirre et al.

output of the models directly, or they can use them as input to more sophisticatedvalue-adding services, for example; more efficient or lower risk ship routing—taking currents, sea-state and hazardous sea state and weather into account; ormonitoring of oil spills or harmful algae blooms for provision of bathing or aquacul-ture alerts. Chile is the largest producer of farmed salmon with exports accountingfor 1 Billion USD per year. In 2004 the industry reported an estimated 50 MillionUSD loss per year from Harmful Algal Blooms.

Operational oceanography products and derived service fulfill a clear social andeconomic need and they can be used as tools to help in the decision-making of pub-lic or private institutions. Operational oceanography products can be used to savelives, to protect infrastructure and to increase the economic efficiency of activities

Fig. 1 Colorful summer marine algal bloom fills much of the Baltic Sea in this image captured byMERIS instrument in ESA’s Envisat satellite on 13 July 2005 (ESA 2006)

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System 77

Fig. 2 Analysis of the sea surface temperature of the Mediterranean Sea for the 10 of April of2008. The service is near real time; Google Earth based and open access through the web (Ifremer-ESA 2008)

related with the ocean and the coastline. Operational oceanography is followingwith some delay the path followed by operational meteorology in the past. As in thecase of meteorology, the delivery of operational oceanography products requires thecooperation of many autonomous actors and the use of many complex systems. Thecapability to deliver Operational Oceanography services is a emerging property ofthe cooperation of these independent and complex systems.

How Does Operational Oceanography Forecast the Oceans?

The oceans can be divided in a large number of small cells that interact. The laws ofphysics related to the dynamic of fluids govern the interactions between these cells.These cells will have tracer properties like: temperature and salinity, together withdynamical characteristics governing exchanges between cells such as the velocityof the water and many others. If it is possible to define the properties of all the cellsat an initial instant, numerical models may be employed to predict the evolution intime of these properties. Based upon data acquired at frequent intervals, such modelsare able to predict the evolution by simulating the behavior of these cells, underconstraints provided by the law of physics, by the initial ocean state characteristicsprovided by measurement data, and by boundary conditions like the geography ofthe coast and the intensity and direction of winds or currents.

One of the most important parameters to monitor and predict is how the dynamicsof the ocean will evolve. This relies on characterization of the geographical distri-bution and strength of currents and how they will evolve. By redistributing wateraround the globe, ocean currents distort the ocean surface from the equilibrium

78 M. Aguirre et al.

position that the sea-surface would adopt in case the whole ocean would be at rest.This theoretical surface is called the ‘Geoid’ and it constitutes the absolute refer-ence or equipotential surface of the Earth’s gravity field. Any differences betweenthe local water level and the reference Geoid represent geopotential heights. Theseso-called “anomalies” in sea-level may be mapped, and the shape contours or slopein sea-level (i.e. sea surface topography) may be used to determine the movement ofthe ocean at any point, and thus the ocean currents. This implies that the fundamentalobservations required to predict the dynamics of the ocean are precise observationsof local sea-level anomalies. Today, instruments carried by satellite radar altimetersprovide measurements of the local sea level height, while their difference from thelocal geoid allows sea-level anomalies and thus dynamic topography of the ocean tobe calculated.

Radar altimeters determine the sea-surface height and sea-level anomalies bysending a radar signal to the ocean and measuring the time needed for the signalto return. This delay gives the distance from the satellite to the water level. Thesedistances can be converted into sea-level anomalies, or ‘dynamic topography’ ifthe absolute position of the satellite with respect to the Earth ellipsoid referenceframe and/or Geoid is known and if the total delay is corrected for atmosphericeffects—water vapor contents—that also produce delays.

Satellites are excellent tools with which to provide a systematic, homogeneousand global data set, and provided that a sufficiently large number of radar altimetersis available it is possible to initialize all the cells of the ocean circulation modelswith their corresponding sea level anomaly data. If the dataset is comprehensive andsufficiently timely, and if the data are of good quality and if the physics of the modelis correct, the prediction of the models will be reliable. Data on ocean temperature,salinity and biological activity also provide supplementary information that can be

Fig. 3 Satellite orbit, satellitesea-level range and dynamictopography. The DynamicTopography is directly relatedto ocean currents

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System 79

incorporated to the models. The ocean models also require meteorological data:winds, air temperature, air pressure and others to provide the basic forces withwhich to drive the dynamics of the interaction between the ocean the atmosphere.Good quality atmospheric data improves the quality or skill of ocean prediction,whilst by the same token good ocean data may help to improve the quality of Atmo-spheric predictions. This increment on the accuracy of atmospheric predictions willbe a supplementary social and economic advantage to be derived from operationaloceanography.

The Cooperative Nature of Operational Oceanography

Operational oceanography has been defined in the previous section as the resultof the cooperative effort of many independent systems. To provide the operationaloceanography services the following elements are compulsory:

� Radar altimeters flying at low inclination with an orbit optimised to provide pre-cise, tide-free reference measurements of ocean dynamic topography anomalies

� Radar altimeters flying at high inclination with an orbit optimised to provide adense network of measurements to fill-in the measurement gaps of the referencealtimeters flying at low inclination

� Navigation satellites, like GPS, to provide the absolute position of the oceano-graphic satellites, allowing conversion of the distance from the satellite to thewater surface into a measurement of the anomaly of the sea level with respect tothe Geoid.

� Supplementary calculations to obtain a very precise orbit determination of theflying path of the radar altimetry satellite after supplementary processing of theradar altimetry satellite data with the GPS satellite data.

� Atmospheric pressure and wind velocity measurements to provide the dynamicinteraction between the atmosphere, the ocean circulation and the ocean level—lower atmospheric pressure corresponds to a raise in level of the ocean surface.

� Models of the ionosphere and of the water vapour contents of the atmosphere tocorrect for the radar signal delays imparted by the total electron content and thewater vapor.

� Data from different missions and in-situ data to allow inter-calibration and re-finement of the measurements

� Dynamic ocean circulation models that integrate all the information and producethe predictions

� Value adders that will augment the information content of the ocean predictions,for example with data on: geography, local population or economic value at risk

� Data distribution networks for relaying the predictions to the users

Conventional radar altimeters send electromagnetic pulses downwards duringflight along their orbital path; that means, they produce a track of measurementsof received echoes across the Earth’s surface. To be able to produce a dense network

80 M. Aguirre et al.

Fig. 4 Meshing of the orbital tracks of the accurate reference low inclination radar altime-ters (black) and the dense complementary coverage of high inclination radar altimeters (blue)(Dorandeau et al. 2006). Both tracks combine to provide a dense set of accurate measurement

of range measurements adequate to feed the dynamic ocean circulation models, it isnecessary to fly a constellation of satellites. The orbits (Fig. 4) of the two types ofradar altimeters mentioned above—low inclination and high inclination—is chosenfor the best possible synergy between them. The best combinations include one‘reference’ low inclination polar-orbiting satellite providing the overall frame andseveral high inclination polar-orbiting satellites providing enough data to fill ade-quately the dynamic ocean circulation models

GPS satellites are needed to provide an absolute reference frame to the distancemeasurements provided by the radar altimeter. This combination allows conversionof a relative distance measurement into an absolute sea-level anomaly measurementwith which to derive ocean currents. Sea-level anomalies are required to an accuracyof a few centimeters. This requires that the reference frame provided by the GPSsatellites must be at the centimeter level. This value is much more demanding thanthe requirements on GPS positioning precision. Space dynamics specialists havedeveloped special tools that allow them to extract the necessary supplementary ac-curacy from the GPS data to determine the orbit traveled by the radar altimetry satel-lites to the required centimeter level precision. This activity is called Precise OrbitDetermination and requires complex supplementary calculations that take time overa duration corresponding to an orbit arc or number of successive satellite orbits. Thelonger the time used, the higher the prediction: precisions of the order of 10 cm inminutes and of the order of 1 cm in a matter of several hours (Montenbruck 2006).

The derivation of the sea-level anomaly data also requires the creation of reliablecommunication links to receive the necessary information on the atmosphere andionosphere to be able to compensate for the geophysical features that would generatesources of error. It is necessary to compensate for the delay in the traveling of theradar signals—produced by ions or water vapor—and for the changes on the naturalposition of the water level—produced by atmospheric pressure or winds.

The cooperation between independent space agencies is also necessary to estab-lish long-term intercomparable data sets that are compulsory to analyse long termtrends in sea-level rise.

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System 81

The nature of operational oceanography requires the establishment of a com-plex network of long-term cooperative relations. This network requires mutual helpbetween fully independent actors that could at any moment withhold cooperation.On the other hand, the overall result of the cooperation is in the benefits of all theactors. Actually this same scenario has happened before in the development andfirm establishment of operational meteorology as a highly successful multi-nationalendeavour. In the other hand, the users of operational oceanography will need time,money and confidence to build the know-how necessary for the optimal utilisationof the data provided by the satellites. Users will also exercise caution until they seecommitments to ensuring robust, high-quality satellite datastreams. That means thefirm establishment of operational oceanography requires the long-term commitmentby some key actors to provide confidence to everybody on the future long termavailability of such a complex system of systems.

Recent Developments on Operational Oceanography

The European Union (EU) and the European Space Agency (ESA) started a fewyears ago a set of connected activities where satellites are used to bring to soci-ety social benefits in the area of the environment and of civilian security. This setof connected activities is called Global Monitoring for Environment and Security(GMES 2006). This large European endeavor includes activities related to: satel-lites, ground processing, data distribution networks, and users tools. These activitiesare performed and funded by independent actors and ESA is the leading agent forthe implementation of the Space Segment of GMES. On top of the GMES related

Fig. 5 Global sea level rise obtained by analysing data from 6 different radar altimetry spacemissions (Scharroo 2008) provided by ESA, NOAA, NASA, CNES and USA DoD

82 M. Aguirre et al.

developments NASA and NOAA are developing new satellites and new groundprocessing tools also driving in the direction of establishing a robust operationaloceanography network. These activities include the continuation of the long line ofhighly successful USA-France ‘low inclination’ radar altimetry satellites that startedwith Topex-Poseidon and continued with Jason. China is also going to put into orbitsatellites carrying radar altimeters. All these approved and proposed satellite andon-ground programmes are providing a greater credibility to a scenario where thelong term availability of data is ensured. This scenario provides confidence to theusers in developing new tools and new methods to deal with the future availabilityof data.

The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) is an international bodycharged with coordinating international civil spaceborne missions designed to ob-serve and study the Earth (CEOS 2008). This committee acts as forum for inter-change of opinion within the actors and it sponsored recently a symposium, whichpublished recommendations on the way ahead. Figure 6 provides the foreseen long-term space mission scenario.

This scenario demonstrates that the availability of both types of radar altimeters:high inclination for data density and mid inclination for high accuracy is ensured inthe mid term future. The symposium also recommended the development of wide-swath altimetry to provide better performance in the longer-term future.

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Ocean Surface Topography Constellation Roadmap

Jason-1 Fr./USA

ENVISAT ESA

High accuracy SSH from mid-inclination orbit

CRYOSAT-2 ESA

GFO US

Medium accuracy SSH from high-inclination sun-synchronous orbit

Jason-2 Europe/USA

Jason-3 Europe/USA

Jason-CS/Jason-4 Europe/USA

Swath altimetry from high-inclination orbit (several orbit options)

SWOT/WaTER-HM USA/Europe

Saral/AltiKa India/France

Jason-CS successor Europe/USA

In orbit Approved Planned/Pending approval Needed

Orbit to be assessed

Sentinel-3B, -3C, -3DSentinel-3A Europe

HY-2B, -2C, -2DHY-2A China

ERS-2 ESA

0908

Fig. 6 Ocean Surface Topography Constellation Roadmap of space missions to be flown on thenear and mid term future (CEOS Secretariat 2008). It includes: dense track high inclination SSH(Sea surface height equivalent to dynamic topography), high accuracy mid inclination and a possi-ble new class of swath missions able to provide more data

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System 83

User Needs

As part of GMES, the EU and ESA performed activities in order to establish theneeds of the operational oceanography users. These needs have been collected inseveral documents. The most important is the GMES fast track marine core ser-vice implementation plan (Ryder et al. 2007). This document established the wayahead to create an end-to-end system able to delivery operational oceanography.The system is centered around the availability of satellites with an specified levelof quality and the availability of structures able to run operationally dynamic oceanassimilation models. The document also requested at least two satellites in high in-clination and at least one satellite in mid inclination. The document also documentsmeasures to implement the operational oceanographic ocean dynamic assimilationsystem in a Marine Core Service (MCS). These efforts related to the establishmentof the adequate on-ground data processing network have been federated inside theMERSEA (MERSEA 2008) and MyOcean 6th and 7th Framework Programme largeintegrated projects of the EU.

The MCS shall:� Acquire data from the ground segment of the space based observing systems and

in-situ networks� Assemble these into quality controlled thematic datasets. Much of this to be car-

ried out in near real time� Run numerical ocean models in near real time to assimilate the thematic data

and generate the ocean analysis and forecast. This shall be done in a permanentrepeating cycle

� Undertake off-line reanalysis for special uses like sea-level rise monitoring� Prepare products suitable for external service provision

Within the MCS, operational oceanography services are being developed in theaforementioned successful MERSEA integrated project and through the ESA GSEMarcoast (gmes-marcoast.com) and Polarview (www.polarview.org) Projects. TheMCS shall deliver regular, systematic products on the surface topography and seastate and ecosystem characteristics over the global ocean and the European regionaland shelf seas. The Sentinel-3 derived information will be assimilated in models innear-real-time to routinely provide the best available operational estimate of the stateof the ocean, together with forecasts (from days to weeks) and reanalyses (hindcastsof ocean state over long time-series in the past). The “fast track” component of theMCS is mainly focused on ocean dynamics parameters and on primary ecosystemcharacteristics (mainly related to the near-surface layer) but also include sea icemonitoring and oil spill detection capacities.

ESA had been performing activities related to operational oceanography dur-ing many years. The research activity “Definition of scenarios and roadmap foroperational oceanography” (Le Traon et al. 2005) allowed ESA to establish a setof requirements for the satellites that would fulfill the functions assigned to the‘high inclination’ satellites in the scenario presented in the previous text. This

84 M. Aguirre et al.

identification of functions allowed ESA to write a ‘Mission Requirement Docu-ment (Drinkwater 2007)’ (MRD) for them. These high inclination ESA satellitesare called GMES ‘Sentinel-3’.

Sentinel-3 Mission Objectives

The Sentinel-3 system design responds specifically to the need to deliver routineoperational services to policy makers and marine and land service users in thegeneral categories outlined in Table 1 The GMES Sentinel-3 system will enablethe realisation of valuable information services to the European Union and itsMember States in the frame of the GMES programme based on routine opera-tional monitoring of the ocean and land surfaces. The Marine Core Service (MCS)Fig. 7 and the Land Monitoring Core Service (LMCS), have been consolidatinga number of services whose future continuity and success depends on operationaldata flow from the GMES Sentinels. The Land Monitoring Core Service (LMCS)is currently being developed in the Geoland 6th Framework Programme largeintegrated project (www.gmes-geoland.info) and through ESA GSE projects suchas Forest Monitoring (www.gmes-forest.info), Global Monitoring for Food Security

Table 1 Sentinel-3 mission required products

GMES Initial Service S-3 Requirement

Marine and Coastal Environment sea-surface topographymesoscale circulationwater qualitysea-surface temperaturewave height and windsediment load and transporteutrophication

Polar Environment monitoring sea-ice thicknessice surface temperature

Maritime Security ocean-current forecastingwater transparencywind and wave height

Global Change Ocean global sea-level riseglobal ocean warmingocean CO2 flux

Land cover & Land use change land use mappingVegetation indices

Forest Monitoring forest cover mappingFood Security early warning regional land-cover mapping

drought monitoringHumanitarian Aid land use mappingAir Pollution (local to regional scales) aerosol concentrationRisk Management (flood and fires) burned scar mapping

fire detectionGlobal Change Land forest cover change mapping

soil degradation mapping

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System 85

Fig. 7 Role of the Marine Core Services on the end-to-end delivery of operational oceanographyservices (Desaubies Y et al., 2006). The Marine Core services act as integrator of the data pro-vided by all the space and on-ground instruments delivering optimal predictions on ocean state andevolution. These predictions will be converted in customized products by specialized downstreamservice providers

(www.gmfs.info), and the disaster mitigation and humanitarian relief RESPOND(www.respond-int.org) service. LMCS is focused primarily on exhaustive high-resolution European-scale land cover/land use mapping complemented by a landmonitoring component based on daily land-cover mapping, vegetation characteris-tics and fire monitoring at continental and global scale. Taking into account the dy-namics of vegetation characteristics requires a product update frequency from daysto weeks to months, and comprehensive global observations with the best revisitfrequency possible (especially to minimise observation contamination by clouds orhigh aerosol loadings).

The evolution of LMCS at European scale includes vegetation monitoring linkedto Common Agricultural Policy requirements such as agro-environmental measures,and review and monitoring of EU policies (e.g. water framework directive, biodi-versity strategy, common agricultural, regional policies) and also for reporting obli-gations under international treaties (e.g. the Kyoto Protocol), in line with nationalland-cover/land-use inventories in the Member States. For the LMCS the GMESSentinel-3 observation capacity is relevant for the global-scale high-frequency re-visit component (e.g. crop production monitoring and food security, and forest covermapping and change monitoring). The associated relevant mission requirements arelinked to the characterisation of land surface biophysical parameters including landcover, Leaf Area Index, fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation,and burnt areas, as well as parameters such as the Land Surface and Active Fire Tem-perature. Meanwhile, these global vegetation data, together with the atmosphericcorrection by products (e.g. aerosol optical depth), will provide critical input data fornumerical weather forecasting, global climate models and in climate and greenhousegas monitoring.

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In order to meet the user needs, the Sentinel-3 satellite data will support theoperational generation of a generalised suite of high-level geophysical products,including as priority:

� Ocean, Ice, Land and Inland water Surface Topography� Sea-Surface Temperature� Ocean Colour� Land Surface Biophysical Properties� Land Surface Temperature

The primary goals identified above drive the design towards a mission concept,which can routinely and uninterruptedly (i.e. operationally) deliver robust productswith well-characterized accuracy and confidence limits. In turn, this has led to theidentification of some improvements with respect to past missions and instruments,which through their technology and data processing heritage have guided the designof the Sentinel-3 system.

Sentinel-3 Mission Architecture

In response to the user requirements, the Sentinel-3 system has been defined tosupport in a long-term sustainable operational fashion four core observing missions:surface topography, ocean colour, ocean and land surface temperature and land sur-face optical monitoring at medium resolution. Being an operational mission, it isbased on the use of demonstrated observing techniques and existing data processingheritage. The Sentinel-3 mission aims at providing remote sensing data in routine,long term (20 years of operations) and continuous fashion with a consistent qualityand a very high level of availability for supporting operational oceanography andglobal land applications.

Figure 8 provides the overall architecture of Sentinel-3 plus all the other elementsnecessary for the delivery of operational products including the already mentionedMarine Core Services, the value addes the need for Precise Orbit Determination(POD), and the need for the data delivered by the mid inclination radar altimetersatellite Jason.

The surface topography mission to be fulfilled by Sentinel-3 has a primary objec-tive to provide accurate, high density altimetry measurements from a high inclina-tion orbit with long exact repeat cycle, to complement the JASON (CNES, 2008)mid inclination ocean altimeter series. Ocean topography measurements supportmeso-scale circulation and sea-level monitoring as well as measuring significantwave height which is essential to operational wave forecasting. In addition, seaice measurements similar to the CryoSat (ESA 2008) mission (though from aslightly different orbit) are supported. The altimeter configuration, a single-antennaradar altimeter with aperture synthesis processing for increased along-track spatialresolution, balances continuity and improved performance needs. Among others, itwill extend observations to inland waters and coastal zones. The altimeter will be

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System 87

Fig. 8 Sentinel-3 Arhitecture and supplementary elements necessary to provide OperationalOceanography products

supported by a Precise Orbit Determination (POD) system and microwave radiome-ter (MWR) for correcting accompanying water vapor induced propagation delayerrors. The altimeter will be able to track over a variety of surfaces: open ocean,coastal sea zones, sea ice and inland waters. The optimal mode of tracking willdepend of the surface over-flown, with changes pre-programmed in the satellite tominimize data loss.

The Ocean and Land Color Instrument (OLCI), based on the ENVISAT MERISinstrument, fulfils ocean color and land surface cover mission objectives. TheSea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR), based on the ENVISATAATSR instrument, in turn supports the ocean and land surface temperature obser-vation requirements. Unlike AATSR, SLSTR implements a double scanning mech-anism for a much larger swath, providing almost horizon-to-horizon coverage andallowing for the synergetic use of both OLCI and SLSTR instruments over the broadregion of swath overlap.

The Sentinel-3 satellite is a low Earth orbit satellite that includes a medium-sized spacecraft, large swath/medium spatial resolution optical instruments and aradar altimeter system. The orbit selection, the optimised satellite mechanical con-figuration and its flight attitude result from intensive mission analysis studies andsystem trade-offs performed during the definition phase in collaboration with ESAsystem team, leading to an improved system capacities (with respect to ENVISAT)including features such as the altimeter SAR mode, and additional spectral bands forthe optical payload. The satellite is compact and is compatible with small launchersof the type VEGA or Rockot. The satellite accommodates six different payloads

88 M. Aguirre et al.

with specific sizes, interfaces, severe Earth and calibration field of view constraints,thermal requirements for radiators cold space access. This large number of payloadsdrives the satellite configuration. The resulting satellite architecture is depicted inFig. 9 in stowed configuration and in Fig. 10 in deployed configuration.

The sun-synchronous polar orbit chosen is at 814 km altitude (14 + 7/27 rev-olutions per day) with a local equatorial crossing time of 10:00 a.m., as a com-promise between optical instrument and altimetry needs. The present baseline oftwo simultaneously-orbiting satellites supports full imaging of the oceans in lessthat 2 days after taking Sun-glint contamination into account (see Table 2), whilstdelivering global land coverage in just over 1 day at the equator.

MERIS 2 instrument

SLSTR instrument

Ocean Colour products

Landproducts

SLSTproducts

Surface Topographyproducts

Altimeterinstrument

Radiometerinstrument

PODsystem

Proc

essi

ng c

hain

bas

ed o

n M

ER

IS 2

da

ta o

pera

tiona

l fro

m d

ay 1

Processing chain based on SLSTR data operational from day 1

Processing chain based on altimeter, radiometer and POD system data operational from day 1

Processing chain based on MERIS 2 data operational from day 1

Hybrid processing chainCombining SLSTR and MERIS 2 data

To become operational after TDB months of validation

Fig. 9 Sentinel-3 derivation of mission products from the instruments it carries

Fig. 10 Sentinel-3 stowedconfiguration

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System 89

Table 2 Satellite features

Launch mass 1240 kg

Main body dimensions(stowed conf., includingappendages)

Height (X): 3.854 mWidth (Y): 2.270 mLength (Z): 2.245 m

Pointing type GeodeticAbsolute pointing error < 0.1 degPointing knowledge < 0.05 degObservation data (average) 103 Gbit/orbitPLTM downlink data flow 300 Mbit/s

Structure

Boxed structure made of aluminium sandwich panels (externalpanels) and CFRP skin with aluminium honeycombsandwich both for load carrying structures (central tube andstiffeners) and optical support structure.

Thermal Control

Passive control with SSM radiators.

Active control of the Bus centralised on the SMU.Autonomous thermal control management for most of the

sensors.

Power Supply

Unregulated power bus, with a Li-ion battery and GaAs solararray.

Solar Array 1 wing, 3 panels, 10.5 m2, ∼1800 W EOL,Average power consumption in nominal mode: up to 1100 W

Mechanisms

Stepper motor SADM.

Synchronised Solar Array Hold-down and Deploymentmechanism.

AOCS

3 axis stabilized

Gyroless in nominal mode, thanks to a high performanceMulti-Head Star Tracker and GNSS receiver.

Use of thrusters only in Orbit Control Mode.

Propulsion

Mono-propellant (Hydrazine) operating in blow-down mode

Two sets of four 1 N thrusters/Propellant mass: ∼90 kgData Handling and

SoftwareCentralised Satellite Management Unit (SMU) running

applications for all spacecraft sub-systems processing tasks,complemented by a Payload Data Handling Unit (PDHU) forinstruments data acquisition and formatting beforetransmission to the ground segment.

Communications

S-band TTC for spacecraft sub-systems plus X-band TM forinstruments telemetry.

Authentication for satellite TC and Encryption for observationdata TM.

Sentinel-3 Satellite

The selected configuration satisfies the optical and topography payloads instrumentsfield of view and pointing needs, the basic need of all sensors being to be Earth-pointed. In addition, the OLCI and SLSTR instruments also require a Sun-lookingcalibration, to be performed preferably before or after the picture-taking sequence.Considering the descending node Sun-synchronous orbit selected, the instrumentcalibration may occur when the satellite flies over the South pole, with a direct

90 M. Aguirre et al.

consequence on the satellite orientation with respect to its velocity vector. Consid-ering the attitude of the satellite with respect to the sun due to the 10:00 LTDN orbit,the—Y lateral face of the satellite is constantly oriented toward the cold space. Thiscold face is devoted to the optical sensors (OLCI, SLSTR) and SRAL electronics.

The satellite main characteristics can be seen in Table 2 (Baillion Y et al. 2007):

Sentinel-3 Optical Instruments

OLCI

OLCI is a push-broom spectrometer benefiting from MERIS heritage with a split ofthe FOV in 5 sub-assemblies (cameras). Sentinel-3 configuration includes 5 camerasdepointed to the west to limit the sun-glint effect and thus comply with the missionrequirement of global revisit. Each camera is constituted of a Scrambling WindowElement to comply with the polarisation requirement, a Camera Optical Sub Assem-bly for the spectral splitting of the different wavelengths, a Focal Plane Assembly(FPA) with a CCD for the signal detection and a Video Acquisition Module (VAM)for the monitoring of the analogical signal. Each camera optical sub assembly in-cludes its own grating and provides the 21 spectral bands expected by the mission.The control of the instrument is realised by a common electronic (OEU), whichassumes the function of Instrument Control, Power Distribution and Digital Process-ing. A calibration assembly including a rotation wheel with five different functionsfor Normal viewing, Dark current, spectral and

The OLCI instrument design (see Figs. 12 an 13) benefits from MERIS heritage.The configuration is based on the split of the field-of-view into 5 cameras, mountedon a common structure with the calibration assembly. Each camera optical sub as-sembly includes its own grating and provides the minimum baseline of 16 spectralbands required by the mission together with potential for accommodating optionalbands for improved atmospheric corrections. In addition, the instrument has been

Fig. 11 Sentinel-3 deployedconfiguration

Satellite cold face (–Y)

satellite flightdirection (–X)

earth direction (+Z)

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System 91

Sun Baffle

Calibration Mechanisms

Radiator

Baseplate

Earth apperture hole

Fig. 12 OLCI external configuration

Fig. 13 OLCI internal configuration

depointed to the west in order to mitigate sub-glint contamination. The OLCI has anapproximate mass of 150 kg and a volume of 1.3 m3.

OLCI is an “autonomous” instrument with simple interfaces with the spacecraft,thus allowing an easy integration and minimising the development risks.

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SLSTR

The SLSTR measures Sea and Land Surface Temperature, with performance equiva-lent to or exceeding that of the ENVISAT AATSR. The SLSTR design and develop-ment are based on the re-use of AATSR concept. Its detectors cover the visible andthe infrared spectrum, including thermal (TIR) and short wave (SWIR) infrared. TheSLSTR uses rotary scan mirror mechanism(s) to produce a wide swath. It features∼1 km spatial resolution at nadir for TIR channels and 500 m spatial resolution forvisible and SWIR channels. As in AATSR, it has dual-view capability—inclinedforward and near-vertical nadir—to provide robust atmospheric correction over a750 km swath. The nadir and forward views are generated using separate scan-ners to allow for a wider swath than possible with the single conical scan ATSRdesign. The channels selection (1.6, 3.7, 10.8 and 12 �m in the IR and 0.55, 0.66and 0.85 �m in the visible) include the AATSR and ATSR-2 channels for conti-nuity. Additional channels at 1.378 and 2.25 �m enhance cloud detection, besidesbeing used for new products. SLSTR instrument is dedicated to the measurementof Sea and Land Surface Temperature, with equivalent ENVISAT A/ATSR baselineperformance. Consequently, wherever possible, the SLSTR proposed design anddevelopment are based on the reuse of ATSR concepts, supported by existing andqualified technologies. The proposed sensor design is based on the following mainconcepts:

� Photo Conductive detectors with two elements for TIR channels and on smallmulti-element arrays of Photo Voltaic detectors for the other channels. Infrareddetectors are operated at 80 K.

� A dual view capability (inclined backward and near-nadir) to provide ATSR-stylerobust atmospheric correction over a 750 km swath.

� Both Backward and near nadir views share common focal plane optics and de-tectors in such a way as to ensure spectral and radiometric probity of the designand the resulting data.

� Rotary scan mirror mechanisms to produce a wide swath running at constantangular velocity. A flip mirror mechanism is foreseen to manage the swappingbetween the two views

� Ground Sampling Distance at nadir for the TIR channels is ∼1 km, while it is500 m for Visible and SWIR channels.

� The complete suite of AATSR and ATSR-2 spectral channels in order to maintaincontinuity with the previous sensors.

� Accurate and stable in-flight calibration performed by means of suitable onboardradiometric sources.

The instrument (see Fig. 14) includes on-board radiometric sources for accurateand stable in-flight calibration. The infrared detectors are cooled to 80 K using activecooling.

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System 93

Nadir view

Oblique view

–Y radiator

Blackbody

Fig. 14 SLSTR external configuration

The instrument is integrated on a single plate with its control electronics andcooling radiators. The SLSTR mass is approximately 90 kg.

Sentinel-3 Topography Instruments Package

The topography payload is composed of the SAR Radar Altimeter (SRAL), theMicrowave Radiometer (MWR) and the Precise Orbit Determination (POD) equip-ment, namely a GNSS Receiver supplemented by a laser retro-reflector (LRR). Theirpurpose is to determine very accurately the height of the Earth surface, and in par-ticular the sea surface height relative to a precise Earth reference frame. The radaraltimeter determines the range between the satellite and the surface by transmittingmicrowave pulses, which hit the surface of the Earth and return back after a certaindelay. This time delay is derived very precisely after on-ground processing of thealtimeter data. Knowing the speed of the propagation, the delay is then convertedinto range. However, the propagation speed through the atmosphere is variable.The ionosphere and the troposphere introduce additional delays dependent on thedensity of electrons in the ionosphere, the density of gases (dry troposphere) andthe moisture content (wet troposphere) in the troposphere. The wet tropospheredelay is removed using the MWR data. The MWR determines the amount of watercontained in the propagation path of the radar pulses. The RA transmits pulsesalternatively at two different carrier frequencies. Comparing the relative delay ofboth measurements, the frequency-dependent part introduced by the ionosphere isthen derived and compensated for. The influence of the dry troposphere (density

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Fig. 15 SAR Radar Altimeter package

of atmospheric gases) is less variable and can be determined sufficiently accu-rately using meteorological data and models. In order to achieve the ultimate aimof precision measurement of the surface height relative to the terrestrial referenceframe, accurate measurements of the satellite location are needed. To this end, ageodetic-quality GNSS receiver, complemented by the laser retro-reflector, are in-cluded and guarantee the overall centimetre accuracy required for the Sentinel-3topography mission.

SAR Radar Altimeter (SRAL)

The SRAL instrument is a dual-frequency, nadir-looking microwave radar whichemploys technologies inherited from the CryoSat and Jason altimeter missions. Themain range measurements are performed in Ku-band, while a second frequency atC-band is used to compensate the effects of the ionosphere.

A conventional pulse-limited, low-resolution mode (LRM) employs an autono-mous closed-loop echo tracking technique, and is the primary operational mode forobserving level surfaces with homogeneous and smooth topography, like that ofthe open ocean or the smooth central ice-sheet plateaux. Other applications requiretopography data over more variable surfaces, so two features are implemented inSentinel-3 SRAL which can be used independently or in combination: the SARmode, similar to that of the CryoSat SIRAL instrument, and the open-loop track-ing mode. In the SAR mode, the horizontal spatial resolution is enhanced in the

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System 95

Table 3 SRAL features

LRM SAR

Ku-band C-Band Ku-band C-bandFrequency (GHz) 13.575 5.41 13.575 5.41Bandwidth (MHz) 350 320 350 320PRF (Hz) 1650 (average) 275 (average) 17800 (burst) 157 (average)Pulse length (us) 49 49 49 49Tracking window (m) 60 66 60 66RF power—peak (W) 7 32 7 32Antenna beamwidth (◦) 1.28 3.4 1.28 3.4Data rate (Mbits/s) 0.1 11800 (uncompressed)Power (W) 86 95Mass (Kg) < 60

along-track direction. This is achieved by a high pulse repetition frequency (about10 times higher than in LRM) and by processing the received echoes on-groundby exploiting the Doppler information. This mode will be mainly used over sea-iceand ice-sheet margins, as well as in-land water and coastal ocean. The open-looptracking mechanism is mainly used over discontinuous surfaces (like land-sea tran-sitions) or fast varying topography (i.e. ice margins). In this mode, the trackingwindow of the SRAL is controlled based on the a-priori knowledge of the surfaceheight, from existing high resolution global Digital Elevation Models (DEM), com-bined with knowledge of the location of the satellite from the GNSS receiver. Themain advantage is that the acquisition of the measurements is continuous, avoidingthe data gaps typical of closed-loop tracking, which has difficulties to track rapidtopographic changes experienced at coastal margins or in mountainous regions.

Microwave Radiometer (MWR)

The MWR measures the thermal radiation emitted by the atmosphere and the seasurface, and permits the determination of the wet troposphere induced propagationdelay experienced by the altimeter pulses. The baseline design of the microwaveradiometer includes 3 channels, each addressing a different geophysical parameter.The lowest frequency channel at 18.7 GHz—where the troposphere is transparent—is mainly influenced by the sea-surface reflectivity. This allows separation of theatmospheric signal from the sea-surface contribution in each of the other twochannels. The second channel at 23.8 GHz is for tropospheric water vapour de-termination, while the third channel at 36.5 GHz addresses the influence of non-precipitating clouds. The observed signals are calibrated by comparison to a sta-ble and precisely known reference noise source, which in the MWR is based onthe noise injection concept. The MWR mass is approximately 26 kg and its powerconsumption is 38 W.

96 M. Aguirre et al.

Precise Orbit Determination (PoD) Equipment

The POD equipment provides the satellite altitude over a reference frame to anaccuracy of 2 cm after post processing. It consists of a geodetic Global NavigationSatellite System (GNSS) receiver and a laser retro reflector (LRR).The GNSS re-ceiver is designed to operate with the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellitesfor the first generation of the Sentinel 3 and with the GPS and the Galileo satel-lite systems for the following generations. The receiver can track up to 12 GNSSsatellites at the same time. The signals transmitted by the navigation satellites aredisturbed by the ionosphere through electromagnetic interaction, in a similar manneras the altimeter pulses. This effect is corrected through a differential technique thatuses two signals at different frequencies in the range between 1160 and 1590 MHz.The GNSS receiver produces an on-board (i.e. real-time) position to around 3 maccuracy in satellite altitude. This is needed to control the operation of the open-loop tracking mode of the SRAL and is also used for platform navigation. Groundprocessing provides the satellite altitude to a < 8 cm accuracy within 3 hours foroperational applications and 2 cm after some days. The mass of the GNSS receiveris approximately 11 kg and the power consumption is 20 W.

The laser retro reflector (LRR) is a small, passive optical device consisting of anumber of corner cube mirrors designed to reflect laser signals from Satellite LaserRanging stations. Laser tracking provides ranging to an accuracy of < 2 cm and willbe used in the commissioning phase and regularly during the mission to validate thePOD solutions. The LRR mass is approximately 1 kg.

Satellite Programmatics

The Sentinel-3 (Aguirre et al. 2007) satellite concept is technically mature. There-fore, at unit and subsystem levels, the major part of the qualification is achieved ona Proto Flight Model, even if partial STM and EM will provide prequalification ondedicated aspects for an even better risk mitigation. The instruments design and de-velopment plans consider EM and PFM models. The satellite development is basedon a Proto Flight approach. It is structured around the following satellite models,built from lower level items:

� A Virtual EM, incrementally constituted from a digital avionic test bench. EMunits are successively integrated. Avionics, system performance verifications andpreliminary electrical compatibility checks are performed on this model.

� A Proto Flight Model to complete the full functional and performance qual-ification of the spacecraft, including redundancy chains, under environmentalconditions.

The definition phase has been closed by February 2007 after a successful SystemRequirements Review. The start of the implementation phase is scheduled for Midof October 2007 for a launch in End 2012.

Operational Oceanography and the Sentinel-3 System 97

Conclusions

The successful evolution of the concept of operational oceanography over the last5–10 years has led to the development of a critical mass in ocean forecasting capa-bilities as well as the establishment of successful operational services. Operationaloceanography will:

� Improve atmospheric weather forecasting by providing a better understanding ofglobal ocean processes that govern weather patterns.

� Improve coastal zones monitoring required by aquaculture, sea-defenses andtourism in response to growing population pressure

� Provide global open ocean and ice monitoring services necessary to assess thehealth of the oceans

� Allow the verification of numerous conventions, which embody the requirementsfor measuring various ocean parameters globally in a concerted, systematic way.The Kyoto Protocol, the Framework Climate Convention, the European WaterFramework Directive, the Biodiversity Convention and the EU Marine Strategy,make obligatory for states to monitor and manage the exploitation of the marineand coastal environment

� Provide marine safety and security solving problems associated with marine pol-lution, shipping accident sand passenger vessels safety

� Operational missions are the only way to provide the long term, consistent qual-ity data-bases required to study the regulating effect which ocean processes exerton climate and how climate change

Thanks to the framework provided by the GMES programme Operational Ocean-ography is becoming a well-established reality. GMES is providing a long termframework for flying the satellites needed to feed with data the future EuropeanMarine Core Service where the satellite data will be assimilated in conjunction withother in-situ data sources into numerical models producing ocean state estimationsforecasts. The outputs from the numerical models are used to generate value-addeddata products for special applications, often at regional or local level

The mission Sentinel-3 makes a considerable contribution towards fulfilling therequirements of the users to deliver data for operational oceanography and also willcontribute for the delivery of global land services.

References

Aguirre M, et al., 2007, Sentinel-3 The ocean and medium resolution land mission for GMESoperational services, ESA Bulletin 131 August 2007

Baillion Y, et al., 2007, GMES SENTINEL 3: A long-term monitoring of ocean and land to supportsustainable development, IAC-07-B.1.2.04

CEOS Secretariat, 2008, Conclusions of the CEOS Ocean Surface Topography ConstellationStrategic Workshop Assmannhausen, Gemany. January 29–31, 2008

CEOS, 2008, Committee on earth observation satellites http://www.ceos.org/pages/overview.htmlCNES, 2008, Jason altimetry mission for the oceans observation http://132.149.11.177/JASON/

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Desaubies Y, et al., 2006, Towards GMES Marine Core Services, the Mersea Consortium on ECFP-6 GMES Marine Service Day, Brussels May 2006

Dorandeau J, et al., 2006, Sentinel-3 definition optimization of Sentinel-3 orbit and data samplingfor meso-scale observation CLS-DOS-NT-06-085, CLS, 5 July 2006

Drinkwater M, 2007, Sentinel-3 Mission Requirements Document, CNES 2008EOP-SMO/1151/MD-md, ESA February 2007

ESA, 2006, harmful algal blooms monitored from space in Chile, http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMUS5AATME index 1.html#subhead1, 13 June 2006

ESA, 2008,Cryosat ESA ice mission description in http://www.esa.int/esaLP/LPcryosat.htmlGMES, 2006, Global Monitoring for Environment and Security http://www.gmes.infoIfremer-ESA, 2008, Medspiration/Marcoast regional sea surface temperature products available in

24 hours. http://www.medspiration.org/data access/kml/10 April 2008Le Traon P, et al., 2005, Definition scenarios and roadmap for operational oceanography. Final

report to ESA contract 18034/04/NL/CB, April 2005LeTraon, P-Y, et al., 1999, Operational Oceanography and Prediction – a GODAE Perspective,

OceanObs’99 Conference, San Raphael, FranceMERSEA, 2008, Marine environment and security for the European area, ocean and marine appli-

cations for GMES, in http://w3.mersea.eu.org and in http://strand1.mersea.eu.org/Montenbruck O, 2006, GNSS system requirements for Sentinel-3, SEN3-DLS-SPC-010, DLR,

24 November 2006Ryder P, et al., 2007, GMES fast track marine core service, executive summary of the strategic

implementation plan, document GAC/2007/2, ESA-EU GMES Advisory Council 2007Scharroo R, 2008, CEOS Altimeter Constellation Workshop, Altimetrics LLC, January 2008

Advanced Space Technology for OilSpill Detection

Maral H. Zeynalova, Rustam B. Rustamov and Saida E. Salahova

Abstract Environmental pollution, including oil spill is one of the major ecologi-cal problems. Negative human impacts demands to develop appropriate legislationswithin the national and international framework for marine and coastal environmentas well as the onshore protection. Several seas, for instance the Mediterranean, theBaltic and the North Seas were declared as special areas where ship discharges arecompletely prohibited (Satellite Monitoring, LUKOIL).

In this regard environmental protection of the Caspian Sea has a priority status forAzerbaijan as a closed water basin ecosystem. This area, as a highly sensitive areain the World requires permanent ecological monitoring services where oil and gasfrom the subsurface of the Caspian Sea is developing almost more than a century.This status of the Caspian Sea is expected to be retention at least for the comingfifty years.

Remote sensing is a key instrument for successful response to the onshore andoffshore oil spills impacts. There is an extreme need for timely recognition of theoil spilled areas with the exact place of location, extent of its oil contamination andverification of predictions of the movement and fate of oil slicks.

Black Sea region is expected to have a dramatic increase in the traffic of crude oil(mainly from the Caspian region). The main reason for these changes is the growthof oil industry in both Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. The real substantial changes intanker movements and routs are not clear till now.

A necessity for a continuous observation of the marine environment comes aforewhen clarifying the tendencies of changes in the concentration of the particularlydangerous polluting substances as well as the behavior of different kinds of pollutingsubstances in the detected area i.e., creation of a system for monitoring the pollution(L.A. Stoyanov and G.D. Balashov, UNISPACE III, Varna, Bulgaria).

The exploration of geological and oil production started in the shelf of theCaspian Sea a long time ago. The Caspian Sea is a highly sensitive region on eco-logical and biodiversity point of view. Oil dumps and emergency oil spill have an

M.H. Zeynalova (B)Institute of Botany, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Baku, Azerbaijane-mail: maral zeynalova@yahoo.com

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 5, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

99

100 M.H. Zeynalova et al.

extremely bad influence on the marine and earth ecosystem and can lead to theecological balance.

Certainly the general issue of oil and gas pipeline safety includes aspects of nat-ural disasters and problems related to the environment. After successful construc-tion of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzrum gas pipelinethese aspects especially became very important for Azerbaijan and definitely, for theregion. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Crude Oil Export Pipeline comprises a regionalcrude oil export transportation system, approximately 1750 in overall length.

Generally, oil spill monitoring in the offshore and onshore is carried out bymeans of specially equipped airborne, ships and satellites. Obviously, daylights andweather conditions limit marine and aerial surveillance of oil spills.

Keywords Space technology · Space image · Oil spill · Detection

Introduction

Generally, oil spillage is categorized into four groups: minor, medium, major anddisaster. Minor spill neither takes place when oil discharge is less than 25 barrels ininland waters nor less than 250 barrels on land, the offshore or coastal waters thatdoes nor pose a threat to the public health or welfare. In case of the medium spillthe spill must be 250 barrels or less in the inland water or from 250 to 2 500 barrelson land, offshore and coastal water while for the major spill, the discharge to theinland waters is in excess of 250 barrels on land, offshore or coastal waters. Thedisaster refers to any uncontrolled well blowout, pipeline rupture or storage tankfailure which poses an immediate threat to public health or welfare.

Satellite-based remote sensing equipment installed in the satellite is used formonitoring, detecting and identifying sources of accidental oil spills. Remote sens-ing devices include the use of infrared, video and photography from airborne plat-forms. In the mean time presently a number of systems like airborne radar, laser flu-orescence, microwave radiometer, SAR, ERS 1, ERS 2, ENVISAT and LANDSATsatellite systems are applied for the same purposes. Currently more than a dozensatellites are in the orbit producing petabytes of data daily. Detailed description ofthese satellites, major characteristics of sensors can be summarized as follows:

� Spatial resolution of sensors ranges from 1 meter (e.g. IKONOS) to several kilo-meters (e.g. GEOS);

� Satellite sensors commonly use visible to near-infrared, infrared and microwaveportions of electromagnetic spectrum;

� Spectral resolution of satellite data ranges from single band (Radarsat) to multi-bands (e.g. MODIS with 36 bands);

� Temporal resolution (repeat time) varies from several times a day (e.g. Meteosat);� The majority of satellites are sun synchronous and polar orbiting, crossing the

equator at around 10 a.m. local time during their descending pass;

Advanced Space Technology for Oil Spill Detection 101

� Digital data are available in both panchromatic (black and white) and multi-spectral modes.

Using the recent advanced space technology, the following methodology can beapplied for the oil spills detections:

� Development of oil spill detection methods for the purpose of practical oilspill surveillance related to the space imagery with application of any weatherconditions;

� Adaptation of the observation to other systems to predict the oil spill spread di-rection and flow rate characteristics, determination the pollutant contaminations;

� Development of appropriate data and user interface.

There is a need for effectively direct spill countermeasures such as mechan-ical containment and recovery, dispersant application and burning, protection ofsites along threatened coastlines and the preparation of resources for the shorelineclean-up.

As it is mentioned in the beginning, the remote sensing is one of the main meth-ods for an effective response to the oil spills environmental monitoring. Timelyresponse to an oil spill requires rapid investigation of the spill site to determineits exact location, extent of oil contamination, oil spill thickness, in particular.

Policy makers, managers, scientists and the public can view the changing envi-ronment using the satellite images. Remote sensing is the discipline of observingthe Earth’s surface without direct contact with the objects located at the surface. Itallows obtaining information about the planet and human activities from a distancewhich can reveal interesting features that may not be possible or affordable fromthe ground level. One of the applications of remote sensing is water and coastalresources. It is essential to undertake the following aspects while using the remotesensing method:

� Determination of surface water areas;� Monitoring the environmental effects of human activities;� Mapping floods and flood plains;� Determination of the extent of snow and ice;� Measuring glacial features;� Mapping shoreline changes;� Tracing oil and pollutions.

The fact that remote sensing allows multi-temporal analysis is also very impor-tant. This means that an area of interest can be monitored over time so that changescan be detected. It allows analyzing phenomena like vegetation growth during dif-ferent seasons, the extent of annual floods, the retreat of glaciers or the spread offorest fires or oil spills (Vhenenye Okoro, 2004).

Remote sensing is a useful method in several modes of oil spill control, includinga large scale area of surveillance ability, specific site monitoring and advantagesof technical and technological assistance in emergency cases. There is a signifi-cant capacity of providing essential information to enhance strategic and tactical

102 M.H. Zeynalova et al.

decision-making, decreasing response costs by facilitating rapid oil recovery andultimately minimizing impacts.

Observation can be undertaken visually or by using remote sensing systems. Inremote sensing, a sensor other than human vision or conventional photography isused to detect or map oil spills.

Oil Spill Detection

Oil production and transportation is started on the offshore “Azeri – Chiraq –Guneshli” oilfield, located at the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. Thereforedevelopment and implementation of onshore and offshore oil spill monitoring anddetection are highly important for the Caspian Sea basin countries. Figure 1 showsthe overall map of the Caspian Sea region countries.

Oil statistics of the major Caspian Sea oil producing countries are presented inTable 1.

For visual observations of oil spill from the air using the video photography arethe simplest, most common and convenient method of determining the location andextent (scale and size) of an oil spill. There are a number of sensors on surveillanceof the sea surface:

� Microwave radiometers which allow the determination of the oil thickness;� Ultraviolet and infrared scanners which allow to detect respectively very thin and

very thick oil films;� Laser fluorescence sensors which allow the determination of oil type.

Fig. 1 Overall map of the Caspian Sea region countries

Advanced Space Technology for Oil Spill Detection 103

Table 1 Statistical information of oil producing countries

Azerbaijan Kazakhstan

It is assumed that the Guneshli oilfieldwill meet the domestic needs and theexport volumes will be as fellows:

Currently the country meets its domesticneeds. Below are presented only theexport volumes from the Tengiz oilfield:

1997 – 1.90 m tones 1998 – 7.00 m tones1998 – 3.75 m tones 2005 – 35.0 m tones2003 – 10.00 m tones 2010 – 35.0 m tones2010 – 32.75 m tones

Application of remote sensing method for spilled oil can be discovered using ahelicopter, particularly over near-shore waters where their flexibility is an advantagealong intricate coasting with cliffs, coves and islands. For the spill response effortsto be focused on the most significant areas of the spill, it is important to take intoconsideration relative and heaviest concentrations of oil. Geographical positioningsystems (GPS) or other available aircraft positioning systems creates a positiveenvironment for localization of the oil location. Photography, particularly digitalphotography is also a useful instrument as a recording tool. It allows viewing thesituation on return to base. Many other devices operating in the visible spectrumwavelength, including the conventional video camera are available at a reasonablecost. Dedicated remote sensing aircraft often have built-in downward looking cam-eras linked with a GPS to assign accurate geographic coordinates.

In the open ocean spills show a less need for rapid changes in flying speed, direc-tion and altitude, in these instances the use of low altitude, fixed-wing aircraft provedto be the most effective tactical method for obtaining information about spills andassisting in spill response.

Oil spill detection is still performed mainly by visual observation which is lim-ited to favorable sea and atmospheric conditions and any operation in rain, fog ordarkness is eliminated. Visual observations are restricted to the registration of thespill because there is no mechanism for positive oil detection. Very thin oil sheensare also difficult to detect especially in misty or other conditions that limit vision.Oil is difficult to discover in high seas and among debris or weeds where it can blendin to dark backgrounds such as water, soil or shorelines. Huge naturally occurringsubstances or phenomena can be mistaken for spilled oil. These include sun glint,wind shadows and wind sheens, biogenic or natural oils from fish and plants, glacialflour (finely, ground mineral material usually from glaciers) and oceanic or reveringfronts where two different bodies of water meet. The usefulness of visual observa-tions is limited, however, it is an economical way to document spills and providebaseline data on the extent and movement of the spilled oil.

Estimation of the quantity of oil observed at sea is the main issue for the detectionof the oil spill. Observers are generally able to distinguish between sheen and thickerpatches of oil. However gauging the oil thickness and coverage is not always easyand it can be more difficult if the sea is rough. It is essential to view all such estimateswith considerable caution.

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Purpose of the remote sensing equipment mounted in aircraft is increasingly usedto monitor, detect and identify sources of illegal marine discharges and to monitoraccidental oil spills. Remote sensing devices except infrared video and photographyfrom airborne platforms, thermal infrared imaging, airborne laser fluourosensors,airborne and satellite optical sensors use satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR).Advantages of SAR sensors over optical ones is their ability to provide data in poorweather conditions and during darkness. Remote sensing method operates detectingproperties of the surface such as color, reflectance, temperature or roughness ofthe area. Spilled oil can be detected on the surface when it modifies one or moreof these properties. Cameras relying on visible light are widely used and may besupplemented by airborne sensors which detect oil outside the visible spectrum andare thus able to provide additional information about the oil. The most commonlyapplied combinations of sensors include Side-Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) anddownward-looking thermal infrared and ultraviolet detectors or imaging systems.

A number of remote sensors placed on Earth observation satellites can also detectspilled oil as well. Optical observation of spilled oil by the satellite requires clearskies, thereby limits the usefulness of such system. SAR is not restricted by thepresence of cloud, thus it is a more useful tool. However with radar imagery, it isquite difficult to be certain if an anomalous feature on a satellite image is causedby the presence of oil. Consequently, radar imagery from SAR requires expert in-terpretation by suitably trained and qualified personnel to avoid other features beingmistaken for oil spills. However, there is a growing interest of developing SAR todeploy on satellite platforms. Oil on the sea surface dampens some of the small cap-illary waves that normally are present on clean seas. These capillary waves reflectradar energy producing a “bright” area in radar imagery known as sea clutter. Thepresence of an oil slick can be detected as a “dark” area or one with the absence ofsea clutter. Unfortunately, oil slicks are not the only phenomena that can be detectedin similar manner. There are many other interferences including fresh water slick,calm areas (wind slicks), wave shadows behind land or structures, vegetation orweed beds that calm the water just above them, glacial flour, biogenic oils and whaleand fish sperm. SAR satellite imagery showed that several false signals are presentin a large number of scenes (Bern et al., 1993; Wahl et al., 1993). Despite theselimitations, radar is an important tool for oil spill remote sensing since it is the onlysensor capable of searching large areas. Radars, as active sensors operating in themicrowave region of the electromagnetic spectrum are one of the few sensors thatcan detect at night and through clouds or fog (Schnick S, InSAR and LIDAR, 2001).

Oil Spill Monitoring and Data Development

The Method of Oil Spill Monitoring

Due to the operation of the oilfield “Azeri – Chirag – Guneshli” (ACG), locatedin the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea oil production was increased. From

Advanced Space Technology for Oil Spill Detection 105

the beginning of 1997 development of ACG up to December, 1st, 2006 AzerbaijanInternational Operating Company (AIOC) could extract a crude oil from interior ofthe Caspian Sea already 81,25 million tons of oil where oilfield “Chirag” produced51,06 million tons.

The pipeline will extend the capacity and as a result of this it is a need of creatinga reliable monitoring system for the more sensitive areas with the greatest oil spillrisk.

Exploration work and oil production began on the Caspian Sea shelf a long timeago. The Caspian Sea is characterized by an extreme ecological sensitivity and ahigh biodiversity. Oil damps and emergency of oil spill are an extremely bad influ-ence for the offshore and onshore ecosystems of Absheron peninsula and can leadto an ecological disturbance.

Aerial surveys of large areas of the sea to check the presence of oil spills arelimited to daylight hours in good weather conditions. Satellite imagery can helpgreatly in identifying oil spills on water surface.

The current challenge to remote sensing and GIS-based investigations is to com-bine data from the past and the present in order to predict the future. In the meantimeit is likely that a long term or integrative study will combine remote sensing datafrom different sources. This requires a calibration between remote sensing technolo-gies. Discrepancies in post-launch calibrations of certain remote sensing devicesmay cause artifacts such as surface area change, and so may the shift from oneremote sensing source to another. However, it is possible to integrate cartographicand multi-source remote sensing data into a homogeneous time series.

Remote sensing plays an integral role in environmental assessment. Remote sens-ing will never replace the field work and observations but it offers a great support inhuge areas as follows:

� Remote and difficult access areas like dense forests, glaciated areas, swamps,high elevation, etc;

� Areas undergoing rapid changes;� Countries with poor infrastructure and limited transportation;� Areas of active natural hazards and disasters: flooded areas, active volcanic re-

gions, forest fires, earthquake and landslide hazardous areas, etc;� Construction of a broad overview or a detailed map of a large area.

Remote sensing techniques can increase the speed in which one can analyze alandscape and therefore help make quick and focused decisions.

Among the available remote sensing technologies producing high spatial resolu-tion data, aerial photography was superior to space-borne data, despite the higherspectral resolution of the latter. However, digital air-borne multi-spectral imagerysuch as the Compact Air-Borne Spectrographic Imager (CASI) is at least as accu-rate as aerial photography for the same purpose and it is less expensive to obtainand therefore more cost effective. It is also important to proceed in the evalua-tion of new scientific application of more common imaging techniques such asvideo and photography from low-flying aircrafts. In space-borne remote sensing,the IKONOS satellite was the first one to challenge the very high spatial resolution

106 M.H. Zeynalova et al.

(1 m resolution) data obtained from air-borne remote sensing technology. The EROSsatellite has a spatial resolution of 1.8 m but no multi-spectral capability. However,its future sensors are reported to generate multi-spectral combined with a spatialresolution of 0.82 m. In the mean time imagery, the QUICKBIRD satellite leads thequality list of optical remote sensing with panchromatic imagery of 0.70 m spatialresolution and multi-spectral imagery of 3 m spatial resolution (W. Ziring et al.,Earth Mapping Information, 2002).

Required Parameters

Spatial resolution requirements are various but it is necessary to consider even formassive oil spills. It is well known that spills at sea from windrows with widths areoften less than 10 m. A spatial resolution is greater than it is required to detect thesespills. Furthermore, when considering oil spills, information is often required on arelatively short timescale to be useful to spill response personnel. The spatial andtemporal requirements for oil spills depend on what use would be given to the data.Table 2 estimates spatial and time requirements for several oil tasks (Brown andMervin, Ottawa, Canada).

At present time such opportunities are available on board the European SpaceAgency’s ENVISAT (radar ASAR) and ERS-2 satellites and the Canadian SpaceAgency’s RADARSAT satellite.

Oil spillage on the water surface forms oil sheen. When oil is forming a thinlayer on the sea surface it will damp the capillary waves. Due to the difference inbackscatter signals from the surface covered by oil and areas with the lack of oil,radar satellites may detect oil spill sheens at the sea surface.

Oil spills on radar images can be characterized by following parameters:

– form (oil pollution are characterized the simple geometrical form);– edges (smooth border with a greater gradient than oil sheen of natural origin);– sizes (greater oil sheen usually are slicks of natural origins);– geographical location (mainly oil spills occur in oil production areas or ways of

oil transportation).

Table 2 Spatial and time requirements for oil tasks

Task

Minimum resolutionrequirements

Maximum time duringwhich useful data can becollected (h)Large spill (m) Small spill (m)

Detect oil on water 6 2 1Map oil on water 10 2 12Map oil on land/shore 1 0.5 12Tactical water cleanup support 1 1 1Tactical support land/shore 1 0.5 1Thickness/volume measurement 1 0.5 1Legal and prosecution 3 1 6General documentation 3 1 1Lang-range surveillance 10 2 1

Advanced Space Technology for Oil Spill Detection 107

Besides an oil spillage area scanning of sheen thickness allows to define thequantity of the spilled oil. Depending on the temperature of water, properties ofoil (viscosity, density) thickness of oil spill layer will be different. A critical gapin responding to oil spills is the present lack of capability to measure and accu-rately map the thickness of spilled oil on the water surface. There are no operationalsensors, currently available that provide absolute measurement of oil thickness onthe surface of water. A thickness sensor would allow spill countermeasures to beeffectively directed to the thickest portions of the oil slick. Some infrared sensorshave the ability to measure relative oil thickness. Thick oil appears hotter thanthe surrounding water during daytime. Composite images of an oil slick in bothultraviolet and infrared sensors showed able to show relative thickness in variousareas with the thicker portions mapped in infrared and the thin portions mapped inultraviolet.

Oil spills on the sea surface are detectable by imaging radars, because theydamp the short surface waves that are responsible for the radar backscattering.The oil spills appear as a dark patches on radar images. However, natural surfacefilms often encountered in the coastal regions with biological activity also dampthe short surface waves and thus also give rise to dark patches on radar images.Whereas, the shape can identify oil spills. Furthermore, remote sensing can be inuse of initializing and validating models that describe the drift and dispersion of oilspills.

Figure 2 shows an example of oil spill of the Absheron peninsula oil spill takenby ENVISAT ASAR. This figure reflects a necessity of the permanent monitoringof the Caspian Sea for more sensitive areas.

Fig. 2 ENVISAT ASARimage in the Caspian Seanear the Absheron peninsulafor oil spill due to theoffshore oil production

108 M.H. Zeynalova et al.

Underwater stream and wind transfers the oil placed on the sea surface. Oil mov-ing speed makes approximately 60% from the underwater stream speed and 2–4%from the wind speed (Sh. Gadimova, Thailand, 2002).

The following demonstrates disadvantages of the radar satellite images:

– in some cases signatures of oil spill are difficult to distinguish a biogenic originand other sea phenomena;

– presence of wind have an essential influence on oil spill definition on the watersurface.

At a gentle breeze (0–3.0 m/s), the water surface looks dark on radar images. Inthis case oil sheens merge with a dark background of the sea and identification ofpollution becomes impossible. The speed of wind between 3–11 m/s is a sufficientsuitable case for identification of oil spills, slicks seem a dark on a light water sur-face. In the high speed of a wind oil spill identification will be inconvenient as theydisappear from images owing to mixing with the top layer of water.

For more optimum monitoring of sea oil spill is recommended to carry out thefollowing:

(i) analysis of sea surface currents;(ii) analysis of the information about the sea level, wave height and wind speed;

(iii) analysis of the meteorological information, allowing to estimate speed and di-rection of a spot.

Figure 3 shows southern of the Caspian Sea at the Volga estuary. This river carriesa heavy load of pollutants originating from fertilizers washed out from agriculturalfields and from industrial and municipal plants. They serve as nutrients for the ma-rine organisms which experience a rapid growth and then generate biogenic surfaceslicks. The oceanic eddies which become visible on the radar images because thesurface slicks follow the surface currents are very likely wind-induced. The mostremarkable feature on this image is the mushroom-like feature consisting of twocounter-rotating eddies.

This is one more example of application of space technology for environmentalmonitoring of the sea surface.

Except foregoing mentioned areas, an application of satellite monitoring forpipelines can include below indicated problems as:

� detection of oil/gas leaking;� no authorized intrusion into a safety zone of object;� detection of failures and an estimation of ecological damage;� detection and monitoring of pipelines moving (can be caused soil substance).

Table 3 demonstrates the basic parameters of used equipment for oil spill moni-toring.

Advanced Space Technology for Oil Spill Detection 109

Fig. 3 Southern of theCaspian Sea at the Volgaestuary (ERS-2 imageacquired 12 October 1993,imaged area: 100 km ×100 km)

Table 3 The basic parameters of used equipment

Title Satellite

Number ofspectralwavelength, �m

Spatialresolution, m Swath, km

Shootingrepetition

MODIS Terra Aqua 36 (visible, IR) 250, 500,1000

2300 1–2 times a day

SAR RADARSAT-1 1 (C channel,5.6 cm)

8. . .. 100 50 . . .. 500 One time in aday and 1 timewithin 6 days

ASAR ENVISAT 1 (C channel) 25 . . .. 150 56 . . .. 400 Not less than onetime within 5days

Remote Sensing and GIS – Integration of RemoteSensing Information

Remote sensing is broadly defined as the technique for collecting images or otherdata about an object from measurements made at a distance from the object. It canrefer, for instance, to satellite imagery, to aerial photographs or to ocean bathymetryexplored from a ship using the radar data. However, it is considered only opticalimages acquired by space-borne or air-borne sensors.

Over the last few decades remote sensing technology was used increasingly bythe scientific community to describe and monitor a variety of systems on a local orglobal scale. This technology evolved from pure visual imagery (e.g. panchromatic

110 M.H. Zeynalova et al.

aerial photographs) to multi-spectral imagery (e.g. thematic map). The spatial reso-lution improved and reached a level at which the quality of public available space-borne imagery challenges that of air-borne imagery for the first time.

GIS are in wide use as tools to digitize remotely sensed or cartographic datacomplemented with various ground-truth data which are geocoded using globalpositioning systems (GPS). GIS can help analyze the spatial characteristics of thedata over various digital layers. If sequential data are available, quantification ofspatial changes becomes possible through overlay analysis. GIS is an expandinginformation technology for creating database with spatial information which can beapplied to both human settlements (e.g. demographic databases) and to the natu-ral environment (e.g. distribution of populations and environmental factors). Mostimportantly, the combination of both types of database can ensure sustainable man-agement. GIS will continue to improve as an essential acquisition tool and analysistool respectively not only in the analytical description of spatial subjects, but also inenvironmental planning, impact assessment, disaster management and simply mon-itoring remote sensing (Dahdouh-Guebas et al. 2002b, 162(4)).

The integration of space imagery with geographic information systems allowaccurate geo-positioning of pipeline vector information to the local land use and to-pography representation becomes a very useful planning and decision support tool.Location of the linear elements infrastructure can be placed as a vector file over aone-meter spatial resolution satellite image and colored red. Sensitive environmentalareas are then identified as green through a land classification analysis on the GISproduct. Location of other elements on the surface like roads, agriculture areas andinfrastructures are also clearly distinguishable in case of the availability of the highspatial resolution of space imagery (Dahdouh-Guebas, F., N.: 2002a, 4(2), WiiliamE. Roper and S. Dutta, USA).

The main disadvantage of some new remote sensing technologies for instanceas IKONOS is their commercial nature and the very high process charged are alimiting factor that prevents the scientific community to access these data. This isparticularly true for developing countries and the republics of the former SovietUnion, the government of which may bear the high cost of aerial surveys. But makethe photographs available at a marginal cost to the local academic institutions, farbelow the price of satellite imagery with the same resolution.

Many publications exist on the effects of global change for marine environments,including oil spill effects. Apart from the integration of past and present data scien-tists should put a lot of efforts to the prediction of future scenarios and the establish-ment of early warning systems in order to help guarantee the survival of sustainableecosystems.

Vegetation as Tool for Oil Spill Monitoring

A definition of the most effective method for providing suitable and successfultransportation of oil and gas through the pipelines and solution of problems relatedto the ecology of environment is the main requirement aspect of oil and gas safety

Advanced Space Technology for Oil Spill Detection 111

transportation. Annually collects the statistical data which presents information onincidents as a result of intervention of the third party, ground landslides or spillageof methane. The purpose of investigations for finding out a new way of problemsolution is development of the new approach of management for the infrastructurewith use of satellite monitoring system. This approach allows pipeline operators tocarry out permanent monitoring indicated of pipeline status in any weather condi-tions and day.

Certainly general issue of oil and gas pipeline safety includes aspects of the nat-ural disaster and problems related to the environment.

Pollution of Soil by Hydrocarbon Raw Stockand its Biological Activity

Natural restoration of fertility of soil by oil pollution occurs for a longer term thanin case of other technogen pollution. The sharpl changes of the water penetra-tion owing to hydrofobization structural separateness are not moistened and wateras though “fails” in the bottom horizons of a profile of soil; humidity decreases(Minbayev V.Q., Kazan, 1986).

Oil and oil products cause practically full depression of functional activity offlora and fauna. Inhibitions is ability to live of the majority of microorganisms in-cluding them fermentation activity. Management of biodegradation processes of oilshould be directed firstly on activation of microbic communities, creation of opti-mum conditions of their existence (Ismayilov N.M., Soil Ecosystem, 1984). The bigheterogeneity of distribution of oil components in the soil of different areas of oil-field that depends on physical and chemical properties of concrete soil differences,quality and structure of the acted oil (Pikivskiy and Solnceva, Ecosystem, 1981) isindicated. As a result of this autopurification condition of an environment from toxicorganic substances technogen origins in landscape zones and areas become different(Glazkovskaya M.A., Priroda, 1979).

The soil with the possessing property of disperse heterogeneous body operatesas chromatographic a column where there is a level-by-level redistribution of com-ponents of oil. It demonstrates that oppression of plants begins when the quantity ofoil hydrocarbons (HC) in soil becomes 1 kg/sm2.

A small amount of HC (5 g/100 g ground) stimulates activity of microflora(Slavnina T.P., Krasnoyarsk, 1984). However process of nitrification inhibits anyconcentration of HC; nitrification is the most sensitive process on “oil” pollutionof soil (Dzienia Y.S., Microbiology, 1979). The most important conditions of thevigorous activity of microflora at the presence of oil pollution are also humidity andtemperature of soil (Harper Y.J., Soil., 1939).

Satin (Stellaria media L.), quack grass (Elytrigia repens L.), and cockspur(Echinochloa crusgalli L.). were discovered within the conducted investigation ina number of the oily polluted areas. This stability makes a possible of using of thesevegetations for side ration during the fetor cultivation.

112 M.H. Zeynalova et al.

Table 4 Influence of oil on germination of satin seeds (% from the control)

Stellaria media L., % Echinochloa crusgalli L., %

Days

Oil Doze, % 4 6 8 15 5 8 15

0 44 60 72 73 51 62 701 38 47 56 59 42 48 612 22 33 47 53 30 32 584 32 43 56 56 36 42 546 26 37 49 59 26 36 568 19 40 46 50 24 38 50

10 10 25 39 55 14 22 45

During the crop of seeds these vegetations in oily polluted soils shoots of a wheatgrass appeared on 3-rd, satin on 4-th and cockspur – on 5-th day (Table 4). Labo-ratory and field site visit investigations demonstrated that toxicity of the soil is indirect dependence on intensity and duration of pollution. It is discovered that thedegree of inhibition of growth and development of vegetation is proportional to theoil doze. So, oil pollution rendered negative influence on germination of a wheatgrass right after seeding of seeds in a soil. It explains both toxicity of the oil andacquirement by soil of waterproof properties.

The similar picture is observed with the satin seeds and cockspur (Table 5).Within 4 days satin shoots and through 5 – cockspur shoots the similar as well as awheat grass appeared disjointedly where the higher the concentration of oil there isa less a number of sprouts.

Inhibition actions of oil were observed at the level of pollution above than 2%.An energy germination which is taken into account within 3–10 days from the dateof crop in the control was equaled 100%. In process of germination of seeds withincrease in a doze of polluted subsistence this value decreases and at 20% pollutionof soil seeds of quack grass, satin and cockspur at all did not sprout.

Table 5 Growth and development of vegetative bodies of satin depending on a level of oil pollution(average statistical data is presented)

MorphologicalFeature

Days

0 1 2 4 6 8 10

The length of cone 92,65 36,57 26,7 22,75 15,00 16,33 15,87The number of leaf 7,9 4,9 4,29 3,75 3,46 3,67 3,8The length of leaf, mm 7,8 3,88 2,36 2,03 1,64 1,99 1,84The width of average leaf, mm 6,1 2,95 1,44 1,2 0,94 1,08 1,06The length of the main root, mm 47,10 14,05 11,43 9,38 9,53 5,67 5,93Overall length of root, mm 138,5 49,95 44,70 26,25 28,87 27,2 19,4The length of lateral root, mm 9,68 5,8 5,69 7,88 5,81 4,24 4,18

Advanced Space Technology for Oil Spill Detection 113

Remote Sensing as a Tool of Protection of the Linear Infrastructure

Remote sensing technology includes as sensors of imaging and non-imaging sen-sors data. Remote sensing and others geospatial information technologies provide aspatial and time basis for all stages of any possible terrorist threat. To these stageswould be including following phases:

Detection – new digital methods allow for the received data operative compar-ison spatial and temporal imaging and non-imaging information of the sensors foreffective detection and analyzing of possible threat. Processing and analyzing thereceived information, it is possible to find out the elements of the potential threatand terrorist targets.

Preparedness – personnel who involved for planning of emergency situationsrequire current, correct geospatial information which should be in interrelation withan existing database. The up to date data of remote sensing helps schedulers intheir work in planning the appropriate actions for prevention terrorist attacks, pre-diction, prevention and reduction of the risk action of the nature and other criticalsituations.

Prevention – elements found out by means of analysis of the geospatial informa-tion provide an opportunity acceptance of the appropriate decisions for preventionof terrorist actions and attacks. Caparisoning of this information with the additionalinformation related to the local place, for example, land cover, border of separateelements of the local place and water, and air space etc. may promote liquidation ofattempts of terrorist attacks.

Protection – remote sensing data in particular are very important for the analysisof vulnerability of the critical infrastructure of pipeline systems. Support technol-ogy of infrastructure for decision making as visualization of a stage and modelingof possible incident helps in protecting potential attacks and designing protectivetactics and strategy. Such technologies also promote to consider of interaction ofthe pipeline systems with others geographically connected critical infrastructure,such as systems of water supply, settlements, power stations, railways etc.

Response – efficiency of liquidation of consequences of natural disaster or hu-man factor is possible when rapid and operative analysis of images and other ac-quired data received through appropriate sensors before and after disaster is carriedout. Within such approach is possible to estimate a situation and make the rightdecision. It is necessary to note that it may promote for successful liquidation ofconsequences of natural disaster and also terrorist attacks as well.

As far as it is identified that it is considered to apply of two types of examinationpipelines for definition of leakages, so-called survey and patrolling. In the first casethe purpose is detection of leakages in instrumented equipment. In the pipelines,classifying as a high risk the monitoring of leakage is recommended to conduct fourtimes per year, as an average risk, two times and low risk, once a year.

The main pipelines on transportations of oil and gas are under the ground ap-proximately with 1 m depth. It is essential to take into account the following aspectsfor the zones in width of a route of 20 m along the pipeline:

114 M.H. Zeynalova et al.

� construction and ground works and excavation, imposing of cables, collectors,drainage systems and pipes, construction of buildings, under buildings, supports,etc.;

� hopper of soil, erosion, deep traces of the vehicles, flooded surfaces;� new bushes and trees, discoloring vegetation of higher than the pipeline.

The appropriate authority person, who is in responsible for the safety of thepipeline should inform and coordinate any work carried out within the scale of200 m for the both side of the pipeline. The system of detection of gas leakageshould be capable of identification the smallest dozes of gas leakage up to a stream0.01–10 m3/hr.

Application of Remote Sensing Methods

Table 6 provides a qualitative representation application of technology of remotesensing for monitoring the pipeline which is acceptable and suitable for the technicaland economic point of view. It is obvious, that full monitoring pipeline system needsapplication of various sensors and methods of gathering of information.

LiDAR (Light Detecting and Ranging) – LiDAR – operation of this device isbased on the laser radiation, working in a ultra-violet, visible or infra-red wave-length range. LiDAR systems found the wide application in the field of ecology ofthe environment. Presently experimental samples of the system are installed in thehelicopters for detection of the major leakages in pipelines during the transportationof oil and gas.

Thermography – the system is the optical converter of infra-red radiation to thevisible spectrum range. The spectral range determining their area of spectral actionthere are in an interval � = 3–5 �km and � = 8–12 �km which are corresponding tothe windows of transparency of the atmosphere. In case of the automated monitoringpipelines for transportation of oil and gas combination of radar and photographicsystems with thermographic methods allows assessment of the image with highaccuracy and this availability will increase a probability of detection and reducethe number of the false information.

Table 6 Availability of remote sensing for oil and gas pipeline monitoring

Sensor systemObjectrecognition

Leakage oil andgas detection

Earth movementmonitoring

LIDAR XThermography X YHigh-resolution optical systems X XHyperspectral sensors Y YImaging SAR systems X XInterferometric SAR X X

X = available basically, Y = possible suitable

Advanced Space Technology for Oil Spill Detection 115

Optical Systems of the high sanction – Optical systems of the high sanctionare applicable for any platforms. For registration of the information as the digitalimage is using a linear photosensitive semiconductor CCD systems with quantityof elements about 12 000. Using the similar systems, adjusting them on variouswavelength of spectrum it is possible of fabrication of multispectral complexes forthe wide wavelength of radiation.

Presently most widely used data of the satellite, as in special as well as in com-mercial purposes is the IKONOS satellite. The orbit of the satellite is at heightof 680 km from a terrestrial surface with width of a covering of the image about11 00 km. Operation of this system basically is the within the visible spectral rangethat limits the implementation of monitoring when the condition of weather is notapplicable for receiving the information. The fact is the work of IKONOS dependson the condition of atmosphere.

Hyperspectral Sensors – Hyperspectral sensors measure a degree of reflectionof natural and artificial objects with the high spectral resolution which allow toidentify different items existing on the surface of the ground. They are huge ele-ments on the surface of the ground (pigments of vegetation, minerals, rock, artificialsurfaces) give the different spectra of absorption. It allows carrying out the analysisand identification of images on the basis of the collected information.

Display SAR (Synthetic Radar of the Aperture) Systems – SAR systemsprovide the holographic image of the local place, scanned by radar. Selecting theappropriate frequencies of spectral lengths is possible to achieve the spectral areawhich is transparent for the atmosphere. In this case atmospheric influences may notbecome a handicap for carrying out a permanent monitoring the earth a surface anddetection of images. Change of resolution SAR demands of changing of the apertureand aerials of this system that limits its wide application.

Interferometric SAR – Interferometric SAR uses the phase information con-tained in the radar waves of two or more SAR images to develop terrain models anddetect ground surface movements in the centimeter range. With tandem operationof identical SAR satellites such as the combined flights of the European ERS-1 andERS-2 and the planned operations of Radarsat II and Radarsat III, images of thesame area can be recorded with very short intervals of one day (ERS) or even onlya few minutes (planned by Radarsat). As regards pipeline monitoring, this methodcould conceivably be in use of detecting subsidence following water abstraction andthe collapse of subterranean hollows or for monitoring slopes subject to slippage.

Remote Sensing Data Analysis

Investigation of the petroleum hydrocarbons on a plot and its analysis is advisable toconduct before and after the oil spill, to characterize changes in vegetative conditionthrough time. Figure 4 shows an example of the oil spill accident occurred due tothe third party intervention.

This area was used for further investigations as a spilled area indicated for along term ecological monitoring site (David Reister et al., partnership programme).

116 M.H. Zeynalova et al.

Fig. 4 Oil spilled area

An implementation of these studies started from the collection of remotely senseddata from ground, airborne and satellite and the results of all information werecombined.

Oil spill site has a plant canopy dominated by creosote bush (Larrea tridentata)shrub land. Qualitative field investigations indicated that upper plant canopy contactwith the diesel fuel was manifest as etiolation that resulted in a grey to white colorof the upper canopy and a white to slight reddening of the lower canopy graminoidsand litter, partial and complete defoliation of shrubs, apparent high mortality ofmuch of the above ground phytomass, including grasses, cactiods and biologicalcrusts and darkening of the orange-red alluvial soil. It was an evident that the spillboundary could be delineated on the bases of smell, as diesel was still volatizingfrom the soil. These features were still valuable evident one year after the release. Itis necessary to note that the canopy dominant, creosote bush is expected to recoverfrom the diesel spill. This aspect of plant physiology is significant for studies ofresilience in desert ecosystems.

Following application of the oil, vegetation damage was assessed visually viachanges in leaf color and leaf fall. It showed three main time frames for injuries:

� immediate� occurring during the initial growing season and� cumulative, occurring after the initial growing season

Virtually all aboveground foliage that came into contact with the oil was quicklycleaned up. Turgidity was immediately reduced and foliage appeared dead withinseveral days. The zone of contact was generally limited to the immediate areas andto areas of low relief in the pass of aboveground flowing oil (Jenkins et al., Arctic,1978).

In contrast, cottongrass tussock with a raised, upright growth form and speciesgrowing on areas of higher relief kept most of their aboveground biomass above theoil. These species continued to grow and flower despite their being surrounded byoil (Fig. 5).

Advanced Space Technology for Oil Spill Detection 117

Fig. 5 Cottongrass tussock growing on spill plot despite surrounding oil

The features of vegetation and natural growth as physical and biological param-eters depends of the oil spill interaction can be used a key instrument of spectralbehaviors of information within the data processing of space images for linear in-frastructures.

Remote Sensing Technology of Relevance to the Oil Spill Treaty

Oil Spill Monitoring – The Bonn Agreement, officially known as The Agreementfor Cooperation in Dealing with Pollution of the North Sea by Oil and Other Harm-ful Substance (1983) is an example of a rigorously enforced agreement within thecontext of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships(MARPOL). Under the Bonn Agreement, monitoring procedures were set up totrack oil spills to the ships of origin. Because oil slicks change the surface roughnessof water bodies under the windy condition that generally prevail on high seas andthis registers as changes in backscatter on radar instruments, SAR images proved tobe useful for spill monitoring. However, radar images generally give an unaccept-able number of false positives, so the technology is only applicable as a surveillancetool in conjunction with infrared and ultraviolet sensors, used for reconnaissanceand confirmation of potential slicks. Under the Bonn Agreement, photographic evi-dence is still required in order to bring a ship’s owner to prosecution.

From 2002, the International Maritime Organization is required vessel trackingtransponders on all commercial ships; this permits back-tracking of vessels to thescene of an oil slick several hours after the initial incident occurred. However, thepotential for a fully automated system is some ways off (Alex de Sherbinin andCh. Giri Rio de Janeiro, and October 2001). Opportunely and fast note in their owntreatment of the subject that the legal systems in most countries still require thetestimony of a person such as a coastguard officer, in addition to remote sensingimages and photographs.

118 M.H. Zeynalova et al.

Conclusion

Advances in information systems, satellites imaging systems and improvement soft-ware technologies and consequently data processing led to opportunities for a newlevel of information products from remote sensing data. The integration of these newproducts into existing response systems can provide a huge range of analysis toolsand information products that were not possible in the past. For instance, with thehigher resolution of the space imagery and change detection of the linear infrastruc-ture situational awareness and damage and assessment by impact of the variety ofreasons can be implemented rapidly and accurately. All this presented informationsources can be valuable in the response, recovery and rehabilitation phases of thepreparedness management issue.

The lack of periodically observation data for satisfaction needs in oil and gasspills is the main obstacle for the mentioned problem. In this regard satellite data canbe playing a significant place. For more success in this sphere spatial and non spatialdata would be integrated with the geographic information system. This system hasto be integrated for the regional scale covering the whole regions state around theCaspian Sea.

The presented above results show a sensitivity of parameters of various vege-tations to the influences of oil pollution. Such behavior opens an opportunity ofuse of those behaviors of vegetations for monitoring of the linear infrastructuresas environmental indicators. These indicators significantly could be in use as a keyinstrument within the data processing and interpretation of space images for safetyand security issues of the transportations of oil and gas pipeline infrastructure.

At the time available technologies for successful implementation of issues relatedto the pipeline safety were discussed. Depends of the existed huge of problems andtasks appropriate technology as well as system can be applied and carried out forthese purposes.

Acronyms

ACG Azeri-Chirag-GuneshliAIOC Azerbaijan International Operating CompanyCASI Compact Air-Borne Spectrographic ImagerGPS Global Positioning SystemsHC HydrocarbonsMARPOL Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from ShipsLIDAR Light Detection and RangingSAR Synthetic Aperture RadarSLAR Side – Looking Airborne Radar

References

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Advanced Space Technology for Oil Spill Detection 119

Carl E. Brown, and F.F. Mervin, “Emergencies Science Division, Environmental Technology Cen-tre Environment Canada”, Ottawa, Canada.

Dahdouh-Guebas F., Kairo J.G., Jayatissa L.P., Cannicci S., and Koedam N. (2002a) “An Ordina-tion Study To View Past, Present And Future Vegetation Structure Dynamics In Disturbed AndUndisturbed Mangroves Forests In Kenya And Sri-Lanka”, Plant Ecology, 162(4).

Dahdouh-Guebas, F., Zetterstrom, T., Ronnback, P., Troell, M., Wickramasinghe A., and Koedam(2002b) “Recent Changes in Land-use in the Pambala-Chilaw Lagoon Complex (Sri-lanka)Investigated Using Remote Sensing and Gis: Conservation of Mangroves vs. Development ofShrimp Farming”, in f. Dahdouh-Guebas (ed), Remote Sensing and GIS in the Sustainable Man-agement of Tropical Coastal Ecosystems, Environment, Development and Sustainability, 4(2),pp. 93–112.

Dzienia Y.S., and D.W.S. Westlake (1979) “Crude Oil Utilization by Fungi” Canadian Journal ofMicrobiology, 24.

Gadimova Sh. (2002) “Use Of Space Technologies For Detection And Observation Over PollutionOf A Coastal Zone”, United Nations Regional Workshop on the Use of Space Technology forDisaster Management for Asia and the Pacific, Thailand.

Glazkovskaya M.A. (1979) “Autopurification Ability Of The Environment”, Priroda, 3.Harper Y.J. (1939) “The Effect Of Natural Gas The Growth Of Micro-Flora”, Soil Science, 48.Ismayilov N.M. (1984) “Microbiological and fermentative activity of the oily contaminated soil”,

Journal of Restoration of the oily contaminated soil ecosystem. Moscow.Jenkins T.F., L.A. Jonson, C.M. Collins, and T.T. McFadden (1978) “The Physical, Chemical and

Biological Effects of Crude Oil Spills on Black Spruce Forest”, Interior Alaska. Arctic, 31(3),pp. 305–323.

Minbayev V.Q. (1986) “The Problem of Land Cover in Petroleum Production Regions”, Kazan.Okoro V. (2004) “Pipeline Vandalisation And Oil Spillage Monitoring Using Remote Sensing: A

Case for Nigeria” National Workshop on Satellite Remote Sensing, Nigeria.Pikivskiy U.I., and N.P. Solnceva (1981) “Geochemical Transformation Of Sod-Podzol Soil Under

Influence Of Oily Flow”, Journal of Man-caused flow of substances of landscape and conditionof ecosystem. Moscow.

Reister D., R. Washington-Allen, and A. Stewart., (2001–2004) “Remote Sensing for Environ-mental Baselining and Monitoring”, Final Report, US DOE FEW FEAC320 Natural gas andoil technology partnership program.

Roper E. W., and S. Dutta. (2006) “Oil Spill and Pipeline Condition Assessment Using RemoteSensing and Data Visualization Management Systems”, George Mason University, 4400 Uni-versity Drive, MS 5C3, Fairfax, VA 22030, S&M Engineering Services, 1496 Harwell Ave.,Crifton, MD USA 21114–2108.

Kostianoy A.G., Lebedev S.A., Soloviev D.M., and O.E. Pichuzhkina (2005),“Satellite Monitoringof the Southeastern Baltic Sea”, Annual Report 2004 of LUKOIL. Lukoil-Kaliningradmorneft,Kaliningrad.

Schnick S, and Tao V. (2001), “Application of LIDAR Technology For Pipeline Mapping AndSafety” Proceeding of ISPRS WG III2, Workshop on Three-dimensional Mapping from InSARand LIDAR. Canada.

Sherbinin A., and Ch. Giri. (2001) “Remote Sensing in Support of Multilateral EnvironmentalAgreements: What Have We Learned from Pilot Applications?” Prepared for presentation atthe Open Meeting of the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Research Com-munity, Rio de Janeiro, 6–8 October.

Slavnina T.P. (1984) “Influence Of The Oily And Oily Substances To The Soil Properties”, Melio-ration of the Siberian lands, Krasnoyarsk.

Stoyanov L.A., and G.D. Balashov “Monitoring Of Oil Pollution In The Black Sea”, Gef Black SeaEnvironmental Programme, UNISPACE III Proceedings, Emergency Response Activity Centreon the Environmental and Safety Aspects of Shipping, Research Institute of Shipping, Varna,Bulgaria.

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Wahl, T., K. Eldhuset, and A. Skoelv (1993) “Ship Traffic Monitoring And Oil Spill DetectionUsing Ers-1.” Proceedings Conference of Operalization of Remote Sensing, ITC. pp. 97–105.The Netherlands.

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Part IIInnovative Tele-Heath Applications

and Communication Systems

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutionsfor Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine

S. Pandya

Abstract Beginning with a brief review of the dawn of the Space Age and thehistorical context that spurred such tremendous technological achievement, thischapter explores the use of space technologies in the context of their applicabilityto medicine on Earth. Space missions have become increasingly ambitious, callingfor ever-more rigorous technologies to ensure functionality, survival and safety. Thenecessity for highly accurate, reliable and advanced technologies in space scienceand manned spaceflight has resulted in impressive advances in imaging, new ma-terials and computer technologies. These advances have in turn been spun-off forapplication in medicine, a field that similarly demands highly precise, durable equip-ment. The chapter explores such medical spinoffs in the context of three categories:diagnostics & imaging, treatment & management and safety. Meanwhile, the needto understand human adaptation and physiological response in the harsh space en-vironment has spawned an immense pool of research on the subject, the knowledgeof which has also been applied towards understanding disease processes, treatmentsand management strategies on Earth. Topics explored here include spinoffs as theyrelate to particular aspects of the space environment, specifically radiation exposure,physiological response to micro-gravity, pressure, temperature & atmosphere, nutri-tion & diet and psycho-social issues. Special attention is given to telemedicine andits spinoffs, owing to its potential to address issues of healthcare accessibility andglobal development. These latter two topics are further explored in two case studiesat the end of the chapter. Ultimately, space technologies are shown to be highlyrelevant and beneficial in day-to-day medicine on Earth, and continue to advancethe limits of accuracy, efficiency and survival on Earth.

Keywords Space medicine · Spinoff technology · Telemedicine · Healthcareaccessibility

S. Pandya (B)University of Alberta, Sherwood Park AB, T8B 1C9 Canadae-mail: pandya@ualberta.ca

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 6, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

123

124 S. Pandya

Introduction

Few human endeavors can capture the public imagination like space explorationcan. After all, the adventure, the grandeur and feats of scientific and technologicalachievement are of a level previously unseen in the history of human exploration.Nor do these advancements exist in a vacuum, so to speak. Given the level of dura-bility and portability necessary to endure the harsh and weightless space environ-ment, space technologies are developed to the highest levels of precision. Thesequalities can in turn be translated to apply to demanding terrestrial environments.This is particularly true for medicine, given its same necessity for reliable technol-ogy. After all, institutes like NASA and the American National Cancer Institute havea common need for cutting-edge technologies in the fields of informatics, minimallyinvasive detection, diagnosis, and disease and injury management. As such, spacetechnologies intended for space medicine and for other purposes have since beentailored, or ‘spun-off,’ to apply to terrestrial medical needs.

This is reflected in the number of research institutes that have arisen since thefirst days of manned spaceflight. In the competitive days of the Cold War, both theAmericans and the Soviets poured funding into human spaceflight research, initiallywith NASA & ROSKOSMOS, and later with research centers dedicated solely tohuman spaceflight research, beginning with NASA’s Johnson Spaceflight Centre in

Image Credit: Google Image Bank, http://www.wallpapergate.com/postcard10481.html

Space exploration is one of the most exciting and ambitious ventures in space exploration

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 125

1961 and the USSR’s Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in 1960 (NASA 2005,YGCTC). Present-day space medical research has evolved tremendously since then,spawning space medicine research within – and between – major space agencies theworld over, from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA 2006) to the Japanese SpaceExploration Agency (JAXA) to the European Space Agency (ESA 2004). Nor ishuman adaptation to space limited to the agency-based programs: the present-dayplaying field is equally rife with university-based research departments, privately-led research and development companies, national and international representationorganizations and collaborative efforts between these institutions. For example,space medicine entities in the United States today include NASA’s Johnson SpaceCentre, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI 2008) (created asa result of a 1997 NASA funding competition), the Aerospace Medical Association,the Vanderbilt Society for Space Physiology and Medicine, based out of Vander-bilt University, and smaller, private companies like Orbital Outfitters, a companydedicated to spacesuit research. The story is the same internationally, too: beyondagency-led research centers, there are numerous private, national and internationalresearch organizations, from the International Academy of Aviation and SpaceMedicine to the French Institute for Space Medicine and Physiology to private phar-maceutical research.

The remainder of this chapter shall explore the use of space technologies in thecontext of their use for addressing medical challenges on Earth. Beginning with abrief history of manned spaceflight, this chapter will first explore space technolo-gies that have since been applied to medicine, before moving on to physiologicalchallenges and health risks involved with manned spaceflight today. This lattersection on human adaptation in the space environment will also present on-goingresearch and countermeasures designed to mitigate these threats, which have sincebeen applied to disease research in diagnostics, treatment and diagnosis in terres-trial medicine. The chapter will end with a special section on the burgeoning fieldof telemedicine, exploring space telemedical technologies that have been appliedto similar environments and circumstances on Earth. Two case studies will furtherexplore the necessity of telemedicine for addressing challenges in global health anddevelopment, and the application of space technology to telesurgery.

The Dawn of Human Spaceflight

More than a quest for scientific return or adventurous exploration, the dawn of theSpace Age was a product of the American-Soviet rivalries from the Cold War in themid-20th century, a competition for global recognition as the dominant political,technological and nuclear superpower of the world. It is hardly surprising, then, thatany accomplishment in the domain of space exploration during that time was not anachievement, but rather a challenge to the opposing side to do more and do it better.However, the era, tense though it was, also spawned one of the most scientificallyproductive and technologically innovative periods in human history.

126 S. Pandya

The Soviet satellite Sputnikwas the first man-made objectin space

Image Credit: Google Image Bank,http://missinglinkpodcast.files.wordpress.c

om/2008/03/sputnik.jpg

Beginning with the launch of space-faring gizmos and crafts, the race quicklyescalated. The Soviet launch of the satellite ‘Sputnik’ marked the first victory ofthe Cold War in late 1957 with the first man-made object in space. This was quicklyfollowed by another Soviet victory, as Laika the dog became the first living organismin space. Of course, the Americans, not to be outdone, rallied back, sending Gordothe monkey to become the first primate to space.

With this upward evolutionary trend, it became clear that a human sojourn wasnot far on the exploration horizon. Before this dream could be realized, however,a lot had to happen: neither Laika nor Gordo made it back alive. Laika died fromoverheating and stress mere hours into her journey while Gordo’s parachute failedto deploy upon reentry, leaving him to sink to the depths of South Atlantic uponreturn – hardly acceptable outcomes for a human mission given the high stakesinvolved. The details of any manned mission needed to be executed to perfection –and the animal ventures into space, while victories in and of themselves, were alsointended as precursors to that coveted goal of a successful two-way manned mission.(BBC 2008; Harding 1989)

Though cognizant of space as a hostile environment, scientists on both sidesremained unaware of the full range of hazards involved with spaceflight: animalexperimentation helped piece the puzzle together, yielding new information as tothe consequences of extra-terrestrial travel. Subsequent generations of animals,from dogs to mice to flies, completed successful round-trip journeys to space, thusdemonstrating that survival in micro-gravity was possible. This ultimately pavedthe way for the first human journey on 5 May 1961, with the 108 minute orbit ofSoviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, followed by US astronaut Alan Shepard less thana month later. These successful voyages opened the floodgates to human venturesinto space. Gagarin and Shepard’s journeys were swiftly followed by ever-greatermilestones in space travel, beginning with the first female space explorer in 1963,cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, continuing with the first space-walk in 1965 bySoviet explorer Alexei Leonov, and culminating with what became perhaps the mostambitious and adventurous undertaking in human history: the 1969 Apollo Moonlanding by American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. (BBC 2008;Harding 1989)

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 127

Photo Credit: Google Image Bank, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Neil_Armstrong_pose.jpg

Photo Credit: Google Image Bank,http://my.execpc.com/~culp/space/YuriGagarin.jpg

The first space explorers. Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (left) was the first human in space, whilehis American counterpart, Neil Armstrong (right) was the first man on the Moon

Glorious though they were, these successes were not easily wrought: even withextensive testing, preparation and animal experimentation, both sides had their set-backs and tragedies. Cosmonaut Vladimir Kopmarov perished in 1967 when theparachute of his Russian Soyuz I capsule failed to deploy upon re-entry. That sameyear, 3 American astronauts were killed in a flash fire when the 100% oxygen at-mosphere of Apollo I ignited. The sum total of these unfortunate incidents, takenwith the evolving needs of human spaceflight as missions became longer, venturedinto more unforgiving environments, and took on new goals, shaped the evolutionof space medicine to its present form today: a field devoted to minimizing risk,maximizing functionality and accommodating physiological changes in the spaceenvironment. This evolution was accompanied by incredible advances in optics,physics, materials and related technologies. Best of all, these innovations provethemselves to be greatly useful in every day terrestrial applications, too. The nextsection explores those space technologies that have since been applied to terrestrialmedicine. (BBC 2008; Harding 1989)

From Orbit to OR: Space TechnologiesThat Have Transformed Medicine

Medical technologies have come a long way in the twenty-first century, due in nosmall part to advances in other areas of science, from laser technology to materialsengineering: automatic insulin pumps, portable x-ray devices, cataract surgery tools,

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CCD technologies used in theHubble telescope are nowused for breast cancerscreening, decreasing thetime, pain, scarring and costscompared to traditionalbiopsy procedures

Photo Credit: Marshall Space FlightCentre Technology Transfer Program,http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home/hospital2.html

high-tech imagers, implantable heart aids – they’ve all come from space. This nextsection briefly explores space-technology-inspired advances in three key areas ofhealthcare: diagnostics & imaging, treatment & care and safety.

Diagnostics & Imaging

Medical imaging techniques are constantly being refined, and this effort has beenaided by various space technologies over the years. Digital image processing tech-niques developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to allow for computerenhancement of lunar pictures from the Apollo missions have since led to improvedMRI and CT imaging (NASA-TTP n.d.). Techniques in astronomy have also refinedimaging. The very same infrared sensors used to remotely observe the tempera-ture of stars and planets are now being used to help surgeons map brain tumors.Charge-Coupled Device chip technologies stemming from the Hubble Telescopehave greatly furthered breast cancer detection techniques, allowing breast tissue tobe imaged more clearly and efficiently, thus increasing resolution so as to be ableto distinguish between malignant and benign tumors without resorting to surgicalbiopsy. Moreover, the procedure is ten times cheaper than a surgical biopsy, andgreatly reduces the pain, scarring, radiation exposure and time associated with sur-gical biopsies (The Space Place 2004). Breast cancer diagnosis has also been helpedalong by NASA-derived solar cell sensors that lie under X-ray film and emit a signalafter the film has been adequately exposed, thereby reducing radiation exposure anddoubling the number of assessments that can be done per X-ray machine. Elsewhere,NASA ultrasound technology has also been spun-off to create an Ultrasound Tissue

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Damage Assessor that can assess burn depth, in turn increasing the propriety ofprescribed treatments and saving lives. (NASA-TTP n.d.)

Other diagnostic devices have been helped along by space technologies: batterytechnologies, for example, have been spun-off to create a temperature capsule formeasuring internal body temperatures, while NASA image processing techniqueshave been adapted to create an ocular screening test for young children by flashinglight at the retinas and analyzing the resultant retinal reflex by way of a photore-fractor, thereby imaging each eye. NASA studies in fluid dynamics, finally, havebeen spun off to create a urinalysis system that automatically extracts and transferssediments to an analyzer microscope. (The Space Place 2004)

Treatment & Care

Such innovations have also found their way into treatment and management aspectsof medicine. For example, Goddard Spaceflight Centre’s spacecraft electrical powersystem has been applied to an Advanced Cardiac pacemaker, thus eliminating theneed for recurring surgeries to implant a new battery. Cardiac pacemakers have alsobenefitted from a multitude of other NASA-spawned technologies to generate pro-grammable pacemakers that communicate via wireless telemetry. Cardiology hasalso benefitted in other respects: for example, “cool” or excimer lasers have beenapplied to angioplasty, such that the laser is able to clean clogged arteries with highprecision without damaging blood vessel walls, creating an alternative to balloonangioplasty that results in fewer complications. (The Space Place 2004)

Satellite technologies, too, have been put to good use in medicine to create a hu-man tissue stimulator implanted in the body to help patients control chronic pain andinvoluntary motion through electric stimulation of specific nerve and brain centers(The Space Place 2004). Diabetic foot patients, meanwhile, have benefited through ashock absorption footwear system based on magneto-rheological fluids, thereby pre-venting foot injuries (The Space Place 2004). Nor have advanced ultrasound imag-ing techniques been limited to diagnostic spinoffs: while diagnostic ultrasound canbe used to image tumors, trauma and lesions, High-Intensity Focused Ultrasounddevices that can destroy unwanted tissue or cauterize a lesion without resorting toinvasive surgical treatment are currently under development (NSBRI 2008).

Safety

Prevention is one of the most important and cost-saving measures in public health,and safety measures go a long way towards preventing injury and disease. Spinofftechnologies have a role to play here, too. Aerogel, for example, the most effectiveinsulating material in the world, was originally used to insulate Mars probes, butnow also lines the jackets of extreme-weather jackets commissioned for Antarc-tic missions (ESA-TTPb 2008). On the other side of temperature extremes, NASA

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pyrotechnic technologies have been used to create lightweight cutters used to freetrapped motor vehicle collision victims. Along similar lines, fire protective paint firstdeveloped for the Apollo re-entry module is now used in high-rise buildings as a coaton steel beams. Other public safety measures stemming from spinoffs include bettervehicle brake linings arising from high-temperature composite space materials andclean-room laminar air-flow techniques now used to decrease exposure to exhaustfumes at tollbooths. (The Space Place 2004)

Of course, beyond diagnostics and treatments, physiology, behavior and mecha-nisms of disease are crucial to truly understand and limit an illness, and researchgoes a long way towards furthering our understanding of disease processes. Asthe next section will show, research on human adaptation in the space environmenthas created a wealth of knowledge and advances in for diseases that follow similarphysiological patterns on Earth.

From pyrotechnictechnologies, NASA hasdeveloped lightweight LifeShear cutters to free vehiclecollision victims trapped inwreckages

Photo Credit: NASA,http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/presrep95/

techtran.htm

Thriving in Space: Challenges & Solutions in Space Medicine

By far, one of the most exciting and ambitious ventures in space exploration ishuman spaceflight; this endeavor, more than any other, has captured the publicimagination and inspired future generations of explorers and scientists. Yet survivalin space is no easy task: the space environment, after all, is an extremely hostileplace, and it takes much preparation and protection in order to protect the fragilehuman body from the harsh space environment.

Space is a place of extremes and wild fluctuations – radiation and temperatureare examples. Beyond these parameters, there are other considerations, includingmicro-gravity, the vacuum of space, the potential for exposure to harmful organisms,and the threat of dust, debris & micro-meteoroids. For the majority of human beings

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Photo Credit: ISS Project, http://blog.genyes.com/index.php/2007/05/25/international-space-station-project-

global-collaboration-opportunity/

As space missions increase in duration and complexity, more risk factors and countermeasurescome into play for astronauts. Stays aboard the International Space Station (above) can last as longas 6 months

that have yet to venture beyond the confines of Earth’s lower atmosphere, these areissues of minimal concern. After all, the atmosphere does a more-than-adequatejob of deflecting most of the sun’s UV radiation, thermally insulating the planet,providing a breathable mixture of gases at just the right pressure and burning upmost wayward meteors, while the Earth’s magnetic field provides an added layer ofprotection against cosmic and solar radiation. The Earth’s gravitation pull, mean-while, forms the cornerstone of life: all organisms have evolved in some way toadapt to and occasionally benefit from Earth’s gravity.

With respect to all of these elements, the story changes considerably in space. Assuch, manned spaceflight is risky business – and to compound the problem, spacemedicine today can no longer content itself with ensuring ‘mere’ survival. Am-bitious projects from six-month-long stays aboard the International Space Station(ISS) to delicate maneuvers on extra-vehicular activities (EVAs) to up-and-comingprojects such as NASA’s planned lunar base and eventual foray to Mars mean thatthe challenge of a human presence in space is no longer one of surviving, but ratherone of thriving in space. Meanwhile, the triple threats of the hostile space envi-ronment, the body’s physiological response and the need to accommodate humanactivity demand meticulous mitigation, training and technological support. How-ever, as this chapter will show, the physiological problems that plague astronautsaren’t so different from many of the diseases and disorders that plague the remaining

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99.999994% of earth-bound humans. Thus, ongoing research in space medicinebears important applications to medicine on Earth.

Radiation

Radiation comes in two forms, electromagnetic (non-ionizing) and ionizing, both ofwhich become problematic anywhere beyond Earth’s magnetosphere, which extendstens of thousands of kilometers into space. The difference between the two stemsfrom their energy levels; ionizing radiation is high energy, and is able to strip atomsof their electrons, while electromagnetic radiation, being of low energy, is not. Elec-tromagnetic radiation, consisting of low energy ultraviolet (UV), visible, infrared,microwave and infrared emissions, are no longer filtered out past this boundary, andthus have the potential to cause significant radiation burns, through the sun’s UVrays, for example. To compound the problem, ionizing radiation, consisting of highenergy UV rays, x-rays and gamma radiation, is no longer filtered out either, anddue to its high energy, becomes the foremost problem when considering radiation.This high-energy ionizing radiation in space is typically attributed to three sources:Galactic Cosmic Radiation (GCR), Solar Cosmic Radiation (SCR) and Van AllenBelt particles. Of these, GCR is the most penetrating, since it is the highest in energy,whereas SCR becomes significant during large solar flare events, which result inincreases in x-ray emissions: even the best spacesuits today would be unable toprotect an unlucky astronaut caught outside during an EVA or lunar/Martian groundexcursion over in the event of a solar flare. (Eckart-a 1996; Eckart-b 1999)

The International Space Station, nestled in a stable orbit at approximately 400 km,is largely free of these concerns, being firmly within the reach of the magnetosphere,whereas any other destinations of interest, including the Moon and Mars, arenot. The Moon’s magnetic field is negligible, and Mars, though farther from thesun, has a magnetic field only 1/10 000th that of Earth’s – at best (Luhmannand Russell 1997). To put this into perspective, the average Earthling absorbs

Photo Credits, left to right: IEAP; http://www.ieap.uni-kiel.de/et/ag-heber/cospin/gallery.php, Astronomy Cafehttp://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/ask/a11789.html;Futurismic, http://futurismic.com/2008/04/03/study-finds-

no-solar-link-to-climate-change/

Beyond the confines of Earth’s magnetic fields, high-energy radiation sources such as GalacticCosmic Radiation from galaxies (left), van Allen particles (center) and Solar Cosmic Radiation(right) become a significant risk for living creatures

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 133

approximately 1.7 mSv of radiation on Earth in one year. By comparison, an intrepidexplorer traveling in a radiation-shielded spacecraft would still be exposed toapproximately 50 mSv after passing through the Earth’s Van Allen belts and GCRflux and completing a roundtrip to the Moon. Venturing further, between travelin deep-space for six months at a time and an 18-month ground stay on Mars,an astronaut might be exposed from anywhere between 730 mSv up to 1 Sv, oraveraging that out over one year, about 400 mSv – nearly 400 times the exposureon Earth. (Eckart-a 1996; Eckart-b 1999)

The issue with radiation damage lies in the biological damage that can occur,especially to DNA, potentially causing unchecked cell division and cancers of thelung, breast, gastrointestinal tract and/or leukemia. Acutely, large doses of radiationover a short period of time can result in radiation sickness, resulting in radiationburns, nausea, vomiting, hair loss, fatigue, anorexia, diarrhea and hemorrhage up totwo weeks post-exposure. Although individual effects depend on sex, stamina andexposure dose and during, the risk of fatal cancer generally increases by 2–5% forevery 500 mSv dose of radiation. (Eckart-a 1996; Eckart-b 1999)

Nor is the issue limited to human health hazards: the same ability to damageand disrupt DNA applies to plants, presenting issues for any life-support systemsincorporating agriculture. Even inanimate objects are affected by radiation expo-sure: depending on the rate of absorption, total exposure and transient changes inradiation levels, radiation will affect the mechanical, electrical and optical propertiesof different materials, leading, in some cases, to system breakdowns. More recently,certain medications and antibiotics have been found to have a decreased shelf-lifeand compromised stability in space, and increased radiation exposure is thought tobe the main cause. (Eckart-a 1996; Eckart-b 1999)

These concerns have spawned a large body of work as to radiation detection,protection and injury repair, many of which can be applied to high-radiationenvironments on Earth. The newest detection technologies have made consider-able gains in accuracy and portability. For example, while neutrons can accountfor one-third of the total dose of radiation that astronauts are exposed to, mostinstruments do not adequately measure neutrons at particularly high energies, thusmissing the secondary neutrons that accompany galactic cosmic rays, for exam-ple (NSBRI 2008). While no compact, portable, real-time neutron detector instru-ments are currently available, NSBRI researchers are working to create a neutrondetector that would be lightweight and portable. Meanwhile, NASA technologyhas already created a commercially available microwave radiation detector weigh-ing only 4 ounces and bearing the dimensions of a pack of gum. The device isdesigned to clip to a belt loop or shirt pocket and sound an audible alarm whenenvironmental microwave radiation reaches a preset level (The Space Place 2004).Such devices hold important benefits for radiation safety on Earth, too: after all,radiation can be a problem in nuclear power plants, high elevations (especiallyover the poles, where the magnetic fields are weak), and in research labs. Researchprojects centered on creating new radiation-resistant materials for ships and space-suits will be similarly useful for protection in high-radiation environments onEarth.

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Research in space radiationprotection has led to thedevelopment of nanoparticlescapable of finding, flaggingand delivering reparativeenzymes to the cell oncedamage has occurred. Suchprotection will prove equallybeneficial to radiation therapyand radiation toxicity patients

Photo Credit: Centre for Biologic Nanotechnology, University ofMichigan Ann Arbor:

science.nasa.gov/.../y2004/28oct_nanosensors.htm

In addition to advances in radiation-resistant materials, there is also a need forpost-injury repair. One NASA-NSBRI initiative, for example, is looking at a phar-maceutical that can lengthen specific parts of the cell cycle during cell division toallow more time to check its genes for any damage, radiation-induced or otherwise,and subsequently repair its DNA, or in cases of severe damage, destroy the injuredcell (Science at NASA-a 2002). The solution focuses on the use of nanoparticlesto find, flag and deliver pharmaceuticals in extremely tiny drug-delivery capsulesonly nanometers in size, smaller than even a wavelength of visible light! Sinceradiation-damaged cells bear CD-95 protein markers on the outsides of their cellmembranes, the nanoparticles include complementary molecules that can bind tothe CD-95 markers and release the nanoparticles into the cell. Once inside, thenanoparticle can deliver cell-repairing or cell-killing enzymes, depending on theextent of the damage. (Science at NASA-d 2002)

These findings are further enhanced by research studying species that fareextremely well in the face of high radiation exposure. Some projects centre onevaluating the effects of various types of radiation on the immune and blood-formingsystem, and the potential benefits of various drug and dietary interventions, whileothers still focus on reducing radiation effects from low doses of high-energy ion-izing radiation (NSBRI 2008). Beyond ensuring astronaut health and safety in thefuture and increasing radiation safety on Earth, such research holds immense valuefor cancer therapy. By reducing effects from low-dose high-energy radiation, forexample, radiation therapy can be made safer and less unpleasant for the patient.

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 135

Likewise, DNA-repairing enzymes, dietary interventions and nano-drugs will domuch to increase patient outcomes in cancer, one of the most prevalent and deadlydiseases on Earth.

Partial- & Micro-gravity Environments

Microgravity, fun though itmay be, also presents one ofthe single biggest challengestowards astronaut health

Photo Credit: NASA,http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/2004ASCANs_on e-year.html

Apart from radiation, microgravity has to be the single biggest issue for humanspaceflight. Life on Earth is a product of gravitational adaptation; hence it comesas no surprise that micro-gravity wreaks universal havoc with all of the body’s ma-jor systems, including the cardiovascular, immune, musculoskeletal, neurovestibularand metabolic systems.

Whether aboard the ISS in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) or in deep space, Earth’snormal gravitational pull of 9.8 m/s2 drops to mere ten-thousandths of the normalvalue, resulting in a condition of micro-gravity, or weightlessness, though by differ-ent mechanisms. While still relatively close by in LEO, a vessel falls in a circulartrajectory around the Earth, so even if the Earth’s gravitational pull is still 90% of itsvalue on the ground (owing to the inverse-square relation between gravity and dis-tance), the spacecraft and its contents are in a relative state of freefall since the craft’soutward centripetal force balances with the inward gravitational pull as it circles theEarth. Conversely, micro-gravity in deep space is due to the Earth’s gravitationalpull declining with increasing distance, and the added pulls of nearer bodies, forexample the Moon or nearby asteroids. Either way, the resulting environment andphysiological effects are the same, nor is the problem solved upon landing in thecase of a lunar or Martian voyage: both the Moon and Mars offer only a fraction ofthe Earth’s gravitation, at 17% and 38%, respectively. Although the human body’sphysiological adaptation to a partial gravity environment is less known, the effectsin micro-gravity have been extensively studied. (Eckart-b 1999)

Cardiovascular Effects: Fluid Shift. The body’s cardiovascular system isaffected in several ways. The body’s red blood cell and hemoglobin counts decrease,resulting in a reversible anemia that may be related to fluid redistribution. On Earth,

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blood and interstitial fluids in the upright body typically pool in the feet due togravity. When this normal pull disappears, the body undergoes ‘fluid shift,’ wherebythe fluids redistribute themselves through the body. As a result of having morefluid shifted towards the head, the astronaut becomes more congested and retainsmore fluid in the face, a condition known as ‘Moon Face.’ This fluid shift alsocauses thinning of the legs, where the fluid normally resides, and trunkal expansion.(JAXA-a 2004; Buckey 2006; Eckart-a 1996; Eckart-b 1999)

The other consequence of upward fluid shift has to do with baroreceptors, whichare mechanical stretch receptors situated in the aortic arch and carotid arteries de-signed to sense excess pressure and volume and respond accordingly. The systemtends to backfire somewhat in this scenario, however: while the total blood volumeremains unchanged, because the volume has moved upwards toward the heart andtorso, the baroreceptors are stretched and interpret this as an excess in fluid volume,in turn stimulating the body to urinate more frequently in an effort to eliminate the‘excess’ volume. Frequent urination, added to the fact that many astronauts refuse toingest or drink anything before takeoff to avoid nausea, increases risks of dehydra-tion and electrolyte imbalance due to excess salt excretion. Initially, the excess fluidload causes the heart to hypertrophy, but the subsequent fluid loss and decreasedvolume load decreases the cardiac work load, resulting in cardiac atrophy, and anaverage decrease in muscle mass of 8–10% post-flight, although the heart eventuallyreadapts. (Buckey 2006)

One of the major effects of fluid shift manifests upon return to Earth: now that thebody has become accustomed to fluid redistribution in a micro-gravity setting, thereturn of gravity causes blood to drain from the head, causing orthostatic intoleranceand fainting for the first few days of return until readaptation occurs. Nor is thisproblem limited to astronauts; orthostatic hypotension can strike Earth-dwellers forany number of underlying causes, ranging from heart failure and an accompanying

Photo Credit, "The Bone"(Vol. 11 No.2 1997.6) Medical View Co., Ltd.:http://iss.jaxa.jp/med/index_e.html

Micro-gravity causes ‘fluid shift,’ whereby blood and interstitial fluids normally drawn downwardsby gravity shift towards the trunk and head, resulting in numerous consequences, including facialedema, congestion, increased cardiac load and increased frequency of urination. In addition, uponreturn to Earth, the deconditioned body is susceptible to orthostatic hypotension for the first fewdays upon exposure to gravity

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 137

decrease in its ability to pump, medication, pregnancy or even a hot shower. Somepeople have extremely sensitive baroreceptors and faint even upon getting out ofbed in the morning.

NASA and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston have conducted jointanimal research, computer simulations and bed-rest studies on Earth to mimic theconsequences of fluid-shift in space. One potential solution that has arisen from thisis Midodrine, the first drug to be approved by the United States Food and DrugAdministration to treat orthostatic hypotension by constricting blood vessels andincreasing blood pressure. The drug is equally applicable to astronauts returningfrom a mission in space and Earth-bound sufferers of orthostatic hypotension.(Science at NASA-b 2002)

Cardiovascular Effects: Arrhythmias. Aside from fluid shift, astronauts havealso been known to experience cardiac arrhythmias when weightless, although it isnot clear whether this effect is due to weightlessness itself or underlying cardiacdisease exacerbated by stress (Buckey 2006). In order to mitigate decondition-ing resulting from prolonged space visits, the Cardiovascular Alterations Team atNSBRI (NSBRI-CAT 2008) is looking at various exercise training regimens, drugtherapies and nutritional interventions. NSBRI-CAT is also working with NASA’sJohnson Space Centre to develop cardiovascular screening programs for potentialastronauts to minimize the probability of developing cardiovascular complicationsor disease during a mission (NSBRI 2008).

As part of this screening-work, NSBRI-CAT has developed a test known as theT-wave alternans test, to be performed in conjunction with a stress test, and sub-sequently detect subtle beat-to-beat variation in the heart’s electrical activity thatmight otherwise go undetected by electrocardiograms. In so doing, the test can beused to identify individuals at risk for sudden cardiac risk. Although intended forastronaut selection, the T-alternans test can equally be used to identify patients atrisk for sudden cardiac death, thereby giving them a chance for preventative therapy.This is especially relevant giving the prevalence of sudden cardiac disease, whichstrikes one in seven US citizens. (NSBRI 2008)

Musculoskeletal Effects. The musculoskeletal (MSK) system also feels theeffects of weightlessness, with the brunt of the impact falling on weight-bearingbones and muscles of the musculoskeletal (MSK) system, including the tibias (shin-bones), femurs (thigh-bones), pelvis, spine and accompanying muscles. Just likecardiac muscle, the disappearance of a normal load causes muscle atrophy andbone calcium-leaching (osteoporosis) in proportion to the time spent in micro-gravity. Additionally, slow-twitch fibers in the muscles are replaced by fast-twitchfibers. This excess loss of calcium from the bones can also increase the formationof large kidney stones, resulting in quite a lot of pain and discomfort. Moreover,the magnitude of gravity needed to bypass these adverse events is unknown, thusthe partial gravity of Mars and the Moon may not be sufficient to prevent bone-density loss and muscle atrophy. (Buckey 2006; Eckart-a 1996; Eckart-b 1999;JAXA-a 2004)

At NSBRI, the Muscle Alterations and Atrophy Team is studying various strate-gies to counteract muscle-wasting, from high-resistance exercise regimes to human

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Photo Credit: JAXA, http://www.jaxa.jp/article/special/kibo/nikawa_e.html

After spending time in microgravity, the muscle structure is considerably altered (right) as com-pared to pre-flight (left), due to decreased protein production and increased muscle protein degra-dation (right)

powered artificial gravity to everything in between, including nutritional, physio-logical, cellular and genetic differences. Their counterparts at JAXA, meanwhile,are conducting bed-rest study to simulate muscle and bone unloading, along withfluid shift, and developing procedures to minimize MSK wasting (NSBRI 2008,JAXA-b 2005). These in turn hold benefits extending beyond the astronaut popu-lation: understanding mechanisms behind muscle wasting holds wide applicabilityfor the chronically bedridden and for those suffering from neuropathic and muscle-wasting diseases, such as polio and muscular dystrophy. On the flip side, resistancetraining can also be spun off to further enhance muscle performance. For example,one of the high-resistance trainers developed to maintain muscle mass for astro-nauts has found its way into the training regime of the Barcelona Football Cluband the Swedish Olympic athletics team, owing to is compactness and portability(ESA-TTPb 2008).

Just as importantly, space agencies the world over are extensively researchingbone wastage and the accompanying osteoporosis that occurs on a spaceflight. Thisis particularly important given the millions of individuals worldwide that are atrisk for, or suffer from osteoporosis. Statistics from the World Health Organization(WHO 2007) and its partner organization, the International Osteoporosis Founda-tion (IOF 2007) suggest that 75 million people in Japan, Europe and the UnitedStates currently suffer from osteoporosis, while 33% of women and 20% of menover 50 will experience some type of osteoporotic fracture (IOF 2007). Monitoringtechniques, drugs such as bisphosphonates, dietary measures and exercise regimesstand to benefit the millions of osteoporosis sufferers worldwide (JAXA-a 2004),and research from the NSBRI Bone Loss Team suggest that a combination of drugand exercise-based countermeasures are the best potential solutions for bone loss(NSBRI 2008).

Like the bones, the bone marrow and immune system are also affected in micro-gravity: the bone marrow shrinks, causing anemia and defective T-lymphocytes,potentially leaving the host vulnerable to invading pathogens. Compromised

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SpiraFlex� high-resistancetrainers developed for use onthe International SpaceStation are now used infitness clubs as part of aspecially-designed resistanceperformance program

Photo credit: NASA, http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinoff2001/images/68.jpg

immunity is particularly dangerous because of the high-radiation environment wherethe increased rate of cellular damage and mutation translate into an increased riskof cancer (Eckart-a 1996, Eckart-b 1999).

Neurovestibulary Effects. Nor do other systems escape ill effects: the neu-rovestibulary system, which relies on gravity for proprioception, or awareness ofbody position, must learn to readapt in its first days in microgravity, until whichtime the body may suffer what is known as ‘space adaptation sickness,’ not entirelyunlike motion or sea sickness. During this period, 60–70% of astronauts will expe-rience mild to severe nausea, dizziness, headaches and vomiting, and even a shift inthe astronaut’s visual frame of reference, none of which are particularly conduciveto working in space. As such, pharmaceutical interventions such as scopolamine andpromethazine hydrochloride are administered to reduce queasiness and restore func-tionality. Research from JAXA estimates that promethazine hydrochloride is ap-proximately 30 times more effective in reducing discomfort due to motion sicknessthan more common drugs, such as travelmine and TravelMate (JAXA-a 2004). TheSensorimotor Adaptation Team at the NSBRI, meanwhile, is developing diagnostictechniques, treatments and preflight and in-flight training procedures to promotemore rapid adjustments between gravitational environments, namely weightlessnessand Earth. This research is promising for the more than 90 million Americans whosuffer from neurovestibulary balance disorders and the 80 millions who have expe-rienced clinically significant dizziness during their lifetime (NSBRI 2008).

Metabolic and Endocrine Effects. Metabolism and the endocrine systems arealso altered: drugs are metabolized differently in space, while the stresses of thespace travel trigger various hormonal and neurotransmitter systems such as thecorticosteroid and noradrenaline pathways. Of course, most of this sympathetic“fight-flight-fright” activation is due to mission stress; however, the effects ofweightlessness on the endocrine system are still not fully understood. On-going

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research as to the effects of microgravity on metabolism zeroes in on severalareas of interest, including renal function, drug-metabolizing enzyme activity, organsize, cardiac output and organ blood flow, since blood circulation, distributionand enzyme content are all markers of metabolism function (Vanderbilt 1999).Theresults from these metabolism studies could further enhance understanding ofmetabolism function and drug breakdown, lending new insights into metabolicdisorders and mechanisms of drug action.

Microgravity and Aging. The sum total of research into MSK, osteoporotic,cellular and metabolic changes also holds much promise for aging research. Weight-lessness closely mimics the effects of old age, because as one source puts it, “theelderly fight gravity less”: being sedentary in old age triggers the cycle of muscle andbone atrophy, cardiovascular changes and metabolic issues. By searching to identifythe cellular processes and signals that differentiate young, strong, healthy bones andolder, injured ones, researchers have the potential to create treatments, exercises andpharmaceuticals that can mitigate, halt and possibly even reverse the aging, diseaseand injury process that inevitably sets in over time (Science at NASA-c 2001).

Pressure, Temperature & Atmosphere

Microgravity and radiation aside, without protection, space is completely and utterlyinhospitable owing to its near-perfect vacuum and average temperature of 3 K. Whenspace “begins” beyond the Karman line 100 km above the Earth, the pressure is

Spacesuits are essential toprotect astronauts againsttemperature and pressureextremes and unbreathableatmospheres, and thematerials, monitoringtechnologies and portablebreathing systems are oftenspun-off for various uses onEarth – medical andotherwise

Photo Credit: Mario Di Maggio, http://www.dimaggio.org/images/

AIG/Newsletters/Astronaut.gif

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 141

principally limited to radiation pressure from the sun and dynamic pressure fromsolar winds, and becomes so small as to be negligible. Even altitudes beyond 20 kmrequire the pressurized protection of a spacesuit, and any individual unfortunate tofind him or herself exposed without protection would sustain irreversible damageafter 90 seconds’ exposure, and would face certain death for any period beyondthat (Harding 1989). Assuming the unlucky astronaut has the wherewithal to im-mediately exhale to prevent the rapidly expanding bodily gases from causing lung,eardrum and sinus rupture, there are still other dangers.

The vapor pressure of water at body temperature lies at 6.7 kPa, thus bodily flu-ids boil off at any point below this, causing ebullism. Luckily, the skin and largerblood vessels are elastic and fairly resilient, so rather than rupturing, the body will

ESA’s space monitoringtechnologies have beenpaired with electrical signalprocessors and a datacollection unit to create“Mamagoose” pajamas thatmonitor respiratory patternsin infants, sounding off analarm when an abnormality isdetected, helping preventSIDS and respiratory-disorderinduced deaths

Photo Credits: Top - ESA,http://www.esa.int/esapub/br/br184/br184_9.pdf

Bottom - ESA,http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/TTP2/ESARDG2VMOC

_1.html#subhead3

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bloat up with the added gas volume, but remain intact, and simultaneously limitvaporization by containing the fluid volume. The same process causing internalfluid vaporization also causes water to boil off from the tongue and eyes, leadingto reversible blindness. Meanwhile, the body’s oxygen supply dwindles, leading torapidly fading consciousness and convulsions. (NASA 2005).

The 3 K temperature eventually causes its own problems: without a medium forheat conduction, the body does not immediately freeze, but as water vapor boils offfrom the tongue, nose and eyes, heat is conducted away through the water loss, andthese body parts do freeze. Ultimately, unless rescued, an astronaut lucky enoughto escape fatal barotraumautic injuries such as lung rupture and embolisms will dieof hypoxia within minutes, or, assuming an intact pressurized and oxygenated lifesupport system, hypothermia within hours. (NASA 2005).

Likewise, the atmospheres of Mars, the Moon and any nearby asteroids, whilemore substantial than the cosmic vacuum, are still far too thin to effectively resistheat gain or loss; as such, the temperatures on these bodies fluctuate far beyond thetolerable range for humans. Diurnal temperatures on the Moon, for example, rangebetween 126 and 373 degrees Kelvin (translating to a range of −147 to 100◦C) bysome estimates, while Mars is only marginally better, with temperatures rangingfrom 161 to 265 K, or −112 to −8◦C (Artemis 2007). The atmospheric composi-tions are equally inhospitable to respiration, being too thin and too lethal to breathe.Suffice to say that pressure and temperature add yet another dimension of danger tomanned spaceflight, and need to be adequately addressed.

Another aspect of atmospheric integrity relates to cleanliness and composition.After all, being located in a tiny enclosure hundreds to thousands of kilometersabove the Earth, a space station needs to develop a reliable way to maintain andmonitor a breathable atmosphere without constantly injecting a new supply of gases.Furthermore, the atmosphere needs to be kept clear of biological and particulatecontaminants. The outbreak of a pathogen in such a small enclosure would have dis-astrous results, while fine lunar dust, for example, is particularly hazardous becauseit has the potential to clog up machinery, jam spacesuit joints and cause bleeding inthe lungs. Technologies capable of ensuring clean air aboard a vessel are thereforeimperative.

Given these conditions, spacesuits, living spaces and protective equipment needto be able to withstand extremes of temperature and pressure, and be able to senseand warn of life-threatening changes to the environment. Such qualities have otheruses as well.

For example, spinoffs from Apollo-era spacesuits designed by NASA and ILCDover have resulted in a wide range of safety and healthcare products, ranging fromsafer, more efficient pharmaceutical manufacturing processes to gas and chemicalmasks. Custom-made “cool suits” derived from spacesuits have produced dramaticimprovements of symptoms in patients with multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy andspina bifida by circulating coolant through tubes to lower a patient’s body tempera-ture (The Space Place 2004). Elsewhere in the realm of safety, thermally protectivespacesuit materials have been adapted to thermal suits on the Formula-1 racingcircuit, protecting mechanics from the heat of a vehicle’s engine during servicingperiods (ESA-TTPb 2008).

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 143

ESA has made equally good use of its spacesuit monitoring technologies: sensorsdesigned to monitor user status have been paired with an electric signal processorand data collection unit to create “Mamagoose” pajamas for infants. The resultingproduct is able to scan respiratory patterns and produce an alarm signal in the eventof an abnormality, protecting infants from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)and respiratory disorder-induced deaths (ESA-TTPa 2008).

Spacecraft air monitoring technologies have proven quite useful in day-to-daylife. Gas analyzers designed to monitor atmospheric gas composition aboard the ISShave since been adapted to operating rooms to analyze the composition of anestheticand atmospheric gases to ensure a suitable mixture for surgery patients. In the realmof safety, firefighters have similarly benefited from lighter-weight air tanks spun-offfrom spacesuit designs and Apollo-era Portable Life Support Systems (PLSS). Thenewer firefighter air tanks weigh 13 pounds less than conventional air tanks and areable to warn the user when air is running low (The Space Place 2004). Other spinoffsfrom air monitoring technologies consist of coronary arterializations derived froma low-temperature laser initially developed for measuring air gas (JAXA-b 2005)and smoke detectors arising from toxic vapor detectors aboard SkyLab (The SpacePlace 2004). ESA’s clean-air filtration technologies have also been spun-off formedical benefit. The PlasmerTM filtration system, initially designed to keep spacestations free of contaminants, has since been adapted to capture and destroy 99.9%of airborne microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria in the hospital rooms ofimmune-compromised patients (ESA-IDL 2004).

Nutrition & Diet

Nutrition in space is highly subject to a host of factors, including many of those dis-cussed above. Obviously, the weightless environment greatly influences one’s dietand eating habits based on mechanics alone, but proper nutrition may also impactcognitive function and cancer susceptibility after radiation exposure. Like the on-board atmosphere, however there is also the added limitation of being isolated fromfood sources and the need for contamination prevention. The challenge, therefore,lies in creating meals that are nutritionally sound, easily stored and packaged, havea long shelf life, and that are possibly regenerative. These stringent requirementsfor “astronaut food” therefore have many useful repercussions for the terrestrially-bound.

By way of example, research from the Nutrition, Physical Fitness and Rehabil-itation Team at NSBRI suggests that up to one-third of all cancers may be linkedto nutrition – and some foods actually help protect against specific cancers. Oneof the team’s initiatives is therefore concerned with designing a diet to protectagainst radiation-induced DNA damage and cancer. Other researchers are lookingat the use of particular amino acids – alone or in combination with carbohydratesto target insulin secretion, thereby preventing diabetes and muscle-wasting. The po-tential halt in muscle wasting based on dietary measures alone would be extremelyvaluable, directly impacting the millions of people the world over who suffer frommuscle wasting due to disease, injury or aging. (NSBRI 2008)

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In addition to dietary composition, issues of food storage, synthesis and sustain-ability have also led to relevant medical spinoffs. After all, one of the greatest threatsto health on a global scale stems from access to adequate food and water. NASA haslong since realized that any long-term Moon and Mars missions will need to belargely self-reliant and sustainable, with minimal reliance on outside supplies forreasons of cost, practicality and survivability. Plants are therefore key because oftheir ability to provide food, water and oxygen. More importantly, the lack of soil inspace and other celestial bodies has spawned a large body of research on the use ofhydroponics, or liquid nutrient solutions in lieu of soil to support plant growth (TheSpace Place 2004). In the face of growing food shortages, increasing populationdemands, decreasing agricultural land space, and variable soil quality from year toyear, hydroponics will have a huge role to play in food supplementation and growthon Earth in the coming decades.

NASA research has resulted in similar advances in the nutritional content of food.One research product, a microalgae-based vegetable-like oil dubbed “Formulaid,”has been developed for long-duration space travel, but has since been spun-off tocreate enriched baby food. Forumulaid contains two essential fatty acids vital formental and visual development, typically found in breast milk but not in most otherformulae. (The Space Place 2004)

Global disease is also greatly impacted by contaminated water sources. Theoccurrence of a contaminated water supply aboard the ISS would be perilous forthe crew. As such, NASA has put much time and effort into creating a compact,

NASA’s Food ServiceSystem, initially developedfor meal service on theApollo missions, is nowbeing used for warm mealdelivery in hospitals

Photo Credit: NASA, http://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/lsda_data/nra_research_data/1992_food_service_system.pdf

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 145

reliable water filtration system. Known as the Regenerable Biocidal Water DeliveryUnit, this water filtration system relies on iodine instead of chlorine to kill bacteriaand has also been made available in developing countries to ensure access to cleandrinking water (The Space Place 2004).

Also on the subject of contamination, the NSBRI Nutrition, Physical Fitness andRehabilitation Team is currently exploring ways to extend the period for which foodcan be preserved, which will obviously be of interest to everyone from EmergencyRescue teams in natural disaster situations to grocers (NSBRI 2008). Related to theissue of food storage is that of delivery: research has shown that hospital in-patients’appetites are related to a meal’s warmth (when it is supposed to be heated). Tohelp address this issue, many hospitals now make use of the Food Service Sys-tem, initially designed for meal service aboard the 1966–7 Apollo missions, helpingmaintain patient well-being by providing warm meals (JAXA-b 2005).

Psychological & Sociological Issues

Beyond these environmental considerations, mission designs need to accommodatefor psycho-social issues that may arise in the space environment, which may causeerratic, aberrant or even careless behavior that may jeopardize mission objectivesand/or crew safety. The combination of sleep disruption due to the micro-gravityenvironment, disruption of circadian rhythms due to altered sunlight exposure andthe stress of confinement and isolation has the potential to cause serious psycholog-ical duress to the crew. Mission objectives and tasks also have the potential to causestress: certain tasks may become tedious before long, while others, such as animalresearch for scientific gain, may further raise ethical dilemmas for an astronaut. Be-yond this, there are issues of comfort, aesthetic design and intercultural interaction,all of which need to be accounted for in mission planning. For example, noise levels,vibration and acceleration mitigation, sharp edges, low ceilings and temperature

In addition to microgravity,the combination of crampedliving quarters and multiplesunrises in a day can disruptsleep, increase stress levels,and even jeopardize missionsafety

Photo Credit: NASA,http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/28aug_sunrise.htm

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hazards all played a role in the design of the International Space Station, the SoyuzCapsule and the Autonomous Transfer Vehicle.

It goes without saying that ongoing research as to sleep quality and stressreduction is highly relevant to the fast pace of the North American lifestyle. TheHuman Performance Factors, Sleep and Chronobiology Team at NSBRI is currentlydeveloping methods to prevent sleep loss, promote wakefulness, reduce human errorand optimize mental alertness and physical performance during spaceflight, whichcan in turn be used to promote stress reduction and good mental health amongstthe Earth-bound. Likewise, research from the Neurobehavioral and PyschosocialFactors Team as to leadership styles, crew composition, organization and commu-nication has resulted in a series of devices, tools and exercises that can also be usedfor remote assessment and diagnosis of a wide range of psychosocial issues, frompersonal conflicts to professional stress to depression to neurocognitive disorders.At the same time, team-building tools and exercise can also be used to help buildand strengthen corporate and community groups (NSBRI 2008). Lastly, space hastaken interior design to the next level, breeding new frontiers in safety and econ-omy. In fact, one space design and architecture company has created a spinoff of itsdurable and economy-sized tents to supply temporary shelter for displaced people,the homeless and refugees (Bedini 2006).

Telemedicine and Healthcare

This chapter ends with a special section on telemedicine, owing to its ever growingrelevance to remote and rural medicine, in addition to space medicine. Defined as“medicine over a distance,” telemedicine encompasses those services and technolo-gies that are portable, self-sustaining, and/or which can be remotely administered.As citizens become increasing mobile in the shrinking global village, and as deficitsin resource-limited settings become increasingly apparent, the role of telemedicaltechnologies and initiatives becomes increasingly viable as a solution for increasingthe quality, accessibility and universality of medical care worldwide. This sectionwill describe examples of telemedical technologies that have greatly benefited iso-lated populations, also furnishing two studies in telemedicine on telemedicine as atool in global health development and the neuroArm, a telesurgery spinoff derivedfrom space technology.

Telemedicine Technologies

Access to quality medical care is of the utmost importance on any manned mission;however, it is not currently mandated that medical doctors necessarily be present onan ESA Mission, for example. Rather, two members of a crew receive approximately40 hours of medical training and are designated ‘crew medical officers (NASA-TRS 2007). This is typically sufficient to maintain crew well-being on a day-to-day

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 147

NASA has led manyinitiatives in telemedicine,including long-distanceunderwater experiments inremote telesurgery conductedby the Zeus robotic surgeon.Telemedical innovations suchas this are as applicable tolong-duration space missionsas they are to remote,inaccessible areas, such asrural villages and battlefieldson Earth

Photo Credit: Technovelgy.com,http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=227

basis. However, 40 hours of training is obviously not adequate to furnish any in-depth medical knowledge. Of course, medical care in a resource-limited setting canbe quite challenging, and there is always the potential of running into a problemthat even a trained flight surgeon is not qualified to deal with. To that end, on-boardmedical care is supplemented with ground-based medical care by way of self-reliant,portable medical equipment and telecommunications technologies, such as video-conferencing and crew bio-data telemetry. Though referred to interchangeably inthe literature as telemedicine, telehealth and/or e-health, these technologies shall bereferred to here as telemedicine for simplicity’s sake.

The key features of telemedicine, namely healthcare delivery to remote andresource-limited settings, also make it extremely relevant to the delivery of health-care on Earth. Whether considering a long-duration space voyage, an Antarcticexpedition or a rural village in India, all three environments share the commonalitiesof being remote and difficult to access. Telemedicine helps disseminate informationand medical expertise, saves costs by circumventing the time and finances needed todevelop medical facilities in remote regions, and increases revenues for healthcareservice providers and hospitals (Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine 2003).

A common solution relies on using information and telecommunications tech-nologies (ICT) such as video-conferencing, voice-over IP and image and data trans-fer to bridge the gap between a physician located in an urban centre miles away anda patient located in an otherwise inaccessible region. Such solutions have been usedfor dermatology and radiology consults, giving rise to the terms tele-dermatologyand tele-radiology, respectively. The use of high-resolution digital imaging and rapidimage transfer of skin rashes to distantly located dermatologists is being investigated

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in tele-dermatology consults at the tele-dermatology clinic at JSC-NASA, for exam-ple. (Science at NASA-a 2002)

ICTs are now sufficiently advanced to the point where it is indeed possible to setup “virtual hospitals” by obtaining real-time clinical data from a remote locationfor diagnosis and consult. Steines Space Centre, for example, has developed anambulance antenna specially designed to permit satellite-mediated two-way com-munication between a moving emergency vehicle and hospital emergency room.(The Space Place 2004)

The need for portable medicaltechnologies during theApollo machines led NASAto develop a portable bloodanalyzer capable ofperforming numerous tests ona single drop of blood, andhas proven innumerablyuseful due to its compactness,portability and efficiency

Photo Credit: NASA, http://www.nasa.gov/missions/science/f_analyzer.html

Telemedicine also embraces smart technologies that are portable, self-sufficient,and accessible to the lay-user. These principles are equally applicable to spacemissions and disaster-relief scenarios. This spread of self-contained medical tech-nologies has important ramifications for global health (see Case Study #1), and thespace medical industry has firmly entrenched itself within the telemedical sectorby way of spinoff technologies. For example, prior to the 1970s, blood analysisrequired systems too large and incompatible with weightlessness to be used in space.In response, a toaster-sized centrifugal analyzing device was developed through aNASA-funded project. The new system can perform 80–100 chemical blood testsusing a single drop of blood. External defibrillators are yet another example oftelemedical technology. Designed for use by non-medical experts, the system isan example of “smart” technology: the lightweight device can assess whether it hasbeen properly connected and whether a patient needs to be defibrillated, and willinitiate treatment if necessary. (JAXA-b 2005; The Space Place 2004)

NASA has developed many other telemedical spinoffs. One innovation employs amini-computer to help patients perform tasks of daily living and combines teleoper-ator and robotic technology in a voice-controlled wheelchair capable of respondingto over 30 voice commands, thereby decreasing the patient’s dependency on live-inaid. Another innovation comes in the form of monitoring technology: NASA hasdeveloped a pen-sized ultrasonic transmitter employing space telemetry technologyto help the elderly and disabled call for help in the event of an emergency. The penin turn emits a silent signal to localize the exact coordinates of the user. Remote

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 149

communications technologies are also being used to steer emergency responserobots in hazardous situations, minimizing the potential for human injury by havingthe robots perform the tasks instead. (The Space Place 2004)

Meanwhile, cognizant of the need for portable clinical care, the NSBRI’s SmartMedical Systems and Technology Development teams are in the midst of devel-oping mobile osteoporosis screening clinics for retirement and nursing homes,self-sufficient diagnostic tools, intranasal drug delivery systems and ultrasound tech-nologies to control internal bleeding (NSBRI 2008).

The future looks promising for innovations in telesurgery, ultrasound diagnostics,routine-health monitoring systems and automated smart technologies capable ofassessment and treatment initiation. Adaptability and autonomy are key to thesesystems, especially when they must operate in relative isolation, unable to accessother medical resources. For example, researchers are investigating the possibil-ity of adaptable pharmaceuticals, researching systems that store the instructionsand constituents for pharmaceutical manufacture, and make them as needed. Theadvantage of this system is two-fold. Firstly, this dodges the issue of storing drugswith finite shelf-lives that might expire over the course of a long-term mission. Inhousing common drug ingredients and manufacturing procedures, it also affords thecrew access to emerging pharmaceutical treatments on Earth. Such technology, oncedeveloped, would go a long way in helping isolated communities that cannot easilyaccess external medical supplies. (Science at NASA-a 2002)

One NSBRI initiativedesigned to monitor bloodand tissue chemistry withoutincisions or blood draws willalso prove useful inbattlefield, ambulance andfield operations

Photo Credit: NSBRI, http://www.nsbri.org/Research/SmartTech-high.html

Similar advances in autonomy are needed for surgery in space in order tokeep wounds small and minimize fluid escape. The solution potentially rests intele-operated, robotically-assisted procedures. Such robots would negate the needfor a surgeon on-site, and would improve the accuracy of surgery by filtering outtremors and allowing for greater accuracy. A system such as this would also greatlyincrease a patient’s access to medical expertise, whether in space or on Earth. Onesuch robot under development is the neuroArm, and is further explored in CaseStudy #2.

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Case Study #1

Telemedicine for Global Health & Development

Whether developing or industrialized, all countries have their own challenges whenit comes to healthcare accessibility and quality. Canada, for example, has to en-sure its remote and Arctic populations have adequate access to healthcare. Australiaand India face much of the same issues with respect to healthcare provision forrural populations. In India, for example, 70% of the population is situated rurally,while 70–95% of medical professions are situated in urban centers (Satyamurthyet al. 2005; Bedi 2005). Europe, meanwhile, needs to manage a large and mobilepopulation that can travel easily across the borders of European nations and ensurethat European citizens are covered by healthcare when outside their nation’s borders.(ESA-TMA 2004)

Given the wide applicability of telemedicine, the global demand for its servicesis growing exponentially; numbers are difficult to estimate because of the rapidrate of growth and the overlap with other sectors such as communication technol-ogy, healthcare, infrastructure and human resources, but range from several billion(Industry Canada 2007) to over 1 trillion USD (Picot and Cradduck 2008). Nor isit any wonder: healthcare systems the world over are taking advantage of telemedi-cal and information technologies to better organize and administer healthcare. TheInformation Society Technologies Directorate of the European Commission, forexample, in partnership with the European Space Agency, the WHO and the UnitedNations’ International Telecommunications Union, has developed a plan to createa Europe-wide system for portable citizen-centered healthcare (ESA-TMA 2004).Beginning with the Telemedicine Alliance (TMA) in 2002 and continuing with theTelemedicine Bridge in 2005, TMA vision aims for completion in 2010.

Like Europe, India too is pursuing telemedicine to serve its citizens. Led bythe Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), it has implemented nationwidetelemedicine networks in cardiology, ophthalmology and radiology, improvingaccess, ultimately decreasing the time and costs associated with travel to an urbancentre, and thereby providing medical expertise that would be otherwise unavailableto many Indian citizens (Bagchi 2006).

Yet perhaps one of the biggest draws of telemedicine pertains to its further-reaching benefits of widespread economic growth and development. As previouslynoted, telemedicine does not easily fall under a single sector. National investment intelemedicine requires commitments to the development of communication technolo-gies, research & development and educational and training programs. It also callsfor the development of key partnerships at local, regional, national and internationallevels across administrative, technological, medical and economic lines. As such,the successful development of a national telemedicine network holds great potentialbenefit for economic development and growth of GDP.

These projected benefits of telemedicine have led to a revolution in internationalhealth: at the 2005 World Health Assembly (WHA), the World Health Organizationadopted WHA Resolution 58.28, establishing the Global Observatory for E-Health,

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 151

Table 1 Summary of health-related Millennium Development Goals (UN 2000)

Health-relatedmillenniumdevelopment goal Objective

1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger4 Reduce child mortality5 Improve maternal health6 Combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases8 Develop a global partnership for development

or GO-e initiative, subsequently undertaking the GO-e global survey on e-health, theresults of which were published in early 2007. Drawing on responses from nearly60% of WHO member states, or close to 80% of the world’s population, the surveycompiled data on current and proposed national e-health and telemedicine activities,initiatives and policies. (WHO 2007)

Given the perceived benefit of telemedicine for attaining international objectivesin global health and development, such as the Millennium Development Goals andWHO Agenda (Table 1 and Fig. 1), the GO-e survey made a bold suggestion: in-corporate a 9th Millennium Development Goal, namely, “e-Health for all by 2015(WHO 2007).”

Because of these projected benefits in economic growth, intra and inter-nationalpartnerships, educational and training development and foreign investment, devel-oping nations particularly stand to benefit from telemedicine.

Enhancingpartnerships at all

levels

Improvingperformance throughevaluation for better

efficiency

Strengthening healthsystems to betterreach and serve

populations in need

Fostering healthsecurity

against disease

Promotingsocioeconomic

development forbetter health

WHOAGENDA

Harnessing research,information &

evidence for betterprograms &

strategies

Fig. 1 Summary of the WHO 6-point agenda

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By way of example, many African nations have identified HIV/AIDS preven-tion, monitoring and treatment as key objectives within their health-related PovertyReduction Strategies as Sub-Saharan Africa bears the largest HIV/AIDS burden inthe world (Roy 2008). Telemedicine has a very real role to play here in dissem-inating information regarding prevention methods, outbreaks and learning mate-rials for AIDS awareness amongst health professionals, students and the generalpublic.

Perhaps cognizant of the projected benefits of telemedicine initiatives, most ofthe poorest African nations, as ranked in the bottom twenty of the UN’s HumanDevelopment Index Report (UNDP 2008), identified health development as vital totheir respective Poverty Reduction Strategies. In the Go-e survey, nearly all rated all18 e-Health tools and services currently offered by the WHO as having a perceivedutility of 3.5 or higher on a scale of 1 to 5, with the average being 4.3 (WHO 2007).Many also planned to start or continue to develop a national telemedicine policy(Table 2).

In sum, telemedicine technologies have a very real role to play in addressingchallenges in global health and development, especially with respect to developingcountries. Not only do telemedicine initiatives increase accessibility to quality care,especially for disadvantaged, remote and rural populations, but they stand to greatly

Table 2 Summary of health-development plans and plans to incorporate e-health policies amongstselect african nations1,1

CountryMention of healthin PRSPA?

Perceived utility of e-healthtools & services offered byWHOB

Future plans todevelop/continuee-health policy?

Benin Yes 4.4 UndecidedBurkina Faso Yes 5.0 To be continuedCameroon Yes 4.4 StartedEthiopia Yes 3.9 StartedGhana Yes 3.5 To be continuedKenya Yes 4.2 StartedMalawi Yes 4.9 StartedMali Yes 4.0 To be continuedMozambique Yes 4.4 StartedNiger No 3.9 Started

RwandaC

Implicitly, as partof science &technologydevelopment N/A N/A

SenegalC No N/A N/ATanzaniaC Yes N/A N/AZambia Yes 4.4 StartedA – PRSP refers to Poverty Reduction Strategy PaperB – Average Rated Effectiveness of 18 WHO e-Health Tools and Services including ElectronicHealth Records, Patient Information Systems, Hospital Information Systems and Telehealth asrated on a scale of 1–5, with 5 being most effectiveC – Indicates countries that did not partake in the GOe Survey

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 153

benefit a country’s economic development and international profile by stimulatingnew technologies, partnerships and skill sets. In short, with due consideration andproper policy, the role of telemedicine in international health will only continueto grow.

Case Study #2

Robotic Arms: From Canadarm To Neuroarm

The Canadarm, one ofCanada’s major contributionsto space exploration, is arobotic arm capable ofmanipulating loads in excessof 250 000 kg

Photo Credit: CSA, http://pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/casi/casj]-04.html

Developed in the mid-1970s in response to a NASA-issued technical challenge,the Canadarm represents one of Canada’s major contributions to the space ex-ploration. The competition requirements called for a remote manipulator systemfor the newly-designed Space Transportation System, the Space Shuttle capableof deploying and retrieving hardware from the payload bay of the Shuttle. In ad-dition to stringent weight, dexterity, automaticity, precision, safety and reliabil-ity constraints, the task was particularly challenging since this was a path previ-ously untraveled: there were no existing technologies or off-the-shelf componentsfor similar machinery that was space-guaranteed. Canadian industry giants Spar,DSMA Atcon and CAE, together with the National Research Council of Canada,collaborated in order to meet the challenge, eventually merging to create spaceindustry powerhouse MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), Ltd. (CSA2006)

The end product of this alliance was a steel, titanium and graphite epoxy behe-moth analogous to the human arm, complete with rotating elbow, shoulder and wristjoints. The difference was that Canadarm was a 480 kg space-adapted manipulatorcapable of moving loads of over 200 000 kg using less energy than that needed topower a kettle. Canadarm has since been used for an array of space tasks, from ISSupkeep to satellite repair to astronaut support during EVAs. (CSA 2006)

The durability, dexterity and reliability of the robotic technology incorporatedinto the Canadarm design has lent itself to many Earth spinoffs in an array of

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disciplines, from servicing nuclear power stations to welding pipelines on the oceanfloor, and recently, medicine.

A particularly notable spinoff of the Canadarm is a robotic arm designed forremote surgery, dubbed “neuroArm”. Currently under development by MDA inconjunction with the Seaman Magnetic Resonance Centre in Calgary, Canada,the 3-foot tall, 2-foot wide, 500-pound neuroArm uses many of the same tech-nologies as Canadarm and its offspring arm, Dextre. Designed to be operatedfrom a remote workstation, neuroArm will offer improved accuracy and efficiencyfor high-precision neurosurgery. Advantages include motion scale, tremor filters,the inclusion of “no-go” safety zones and the ability to coordinate with intra-operative MRI.

Like Canadarm, in addition to being remotely operable and image-guided,neuroArm is also designed with materials specific to its environment. Just asCanadarm needs to be able to operate in a high-radiation, thermally-challenging en-vironment, the intra-operative MRI design aspect of neuroArm means that all metal-lic materials – the typical composite of most surgical tools – need to be replacedwith other materials. In response to this need, neuroArm has been developed witha variety of alternate materials, such as titanium and Poly-ether-ether-ketone, orPEEKTM. (neuroArm 2008)

Ultimately, once testing is complete, these design features will allow theneuroArm to cut and manipulate soft tissue, suture, biopsy, electrocauterize, aspi-rate, dissect tissue planes and irrigate – just like a neurosurgeon, as project lead andneurosurgeon Dr. Garnette Sutherland explains, “but with improved spatial orienta-tion. (Sutherland 2008)”

neuroArm project lead,neurosurgeon Dr. GarnetteSutherland with theneuroArm at the SeamanFamily MR Research Centreat the University of Calgary

Photo Credit: Calary Health Region,http://www.calgaryhealthregion.ca/ne

wslink/region_news/2007/2007-04-18_robo_surgery.htm

From Orbit to OR: Space Solutions for Terrestrial Challenges in Medicine 155

Conclusion

The use of space technologies for medical gain are becoming more and more com-monplace, and with good reason. The perils of human spaceflight demand the mostcutting-edge technologies, calling for the highest standards of reliability, safety andaccuracy. It is no wonder then, that space technologies and research findings havebeen spun-off to create better diagnostic tools, treatments, management programs,safety measures, pharmaceuticals and diet and exercise programs. The unique fea-tures of the space environment have also provided a host of research regarding hu-man adaptation and physiology, the results of which are now also being appliedto disease processes across the world, including muscle and movement disorders,osteoporosis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. For healthcare systemssqueezed by limited resources, uncertain access to medical care and increasing pop-ulations, telemedical innovations hold particular promise. After all, innovations intelemedicine have been shown to decrease costs, increase services and facilitatepatient access through communication, smart and portable technologies. In short,space research technologies have proven themselves to be highly beneficial for ter-restrial medicine, and will continue to pave the way for safety, survival and innova-tion in the future.

Photo Credit: Left – Lifeboat Foundation,http://lifeboat.com/ex/space.habitats

Right – Edible Computer Chips,http://www.ediblecomputerchips.com/Future.htm

Space technologies have gone a long way in furthering medical advances, and as research advancesto meet the ever greater demands of space travel, so too will more technologies and benefits filterdown to pave the ways for safety, survival and innovation

Acknowledgments At this time, the author wishes to express her sincere thanks to IsabelleRoy of the Canadian International Development Agency for her assistance with Case Study #1,Dr. Garnette Sutherland of the Seaman Family MR Research Centre for his feedback on Case Study#2 and to Dr. Phillip Olla for his assistance and infinite patience in the writing of this chapter.

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Acronyms

CSA Canadian Space AgencyESA European Space AgencyEVA Extra-Vehicular ActivityGCR Galactic Cosmic RadiationJAXA Japanese Space Exploration AgencyICT Information Communication TechnologiesIOF International Osteoporosis FoundationISRO Indian Space Research OrganizationISS International Space StationLEO Low Earth OrbitMRI Magnetic Resonance ImagingMSK MusculoskeletalNASA National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA-JSC Johnson Space Centre at NASANSBRI National Space Biomedical Research InstituteNSBRI-CAT Cardiovascular Action Team of the NSBRIPLSS Portable Life Support SystemSCR Solar Cosmic RadiationSIDS Sudden Infant Death SyndromeTMA Telemedicine AllianceUV UltravioletWHA World Health AssemblyWHO World Health Organization

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Bridging Health Divide Between Ruraland Urban Areas – Satellite Based TelemedicineNetworks in India

A. Bhaskaranarayana, L.S. Satyamurthy, Murthy L.N. Remilla,K. Sethuraman and Hanumantha Rayappa

Abstract ‘Telemedicine’ is a service reaching the medical expertise available aturban, super speciality hospitals to rural and remote hospitals through the integrationof Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) with Medical Sciences.Realising the health divide between rural and urban areas in India, and continuing itslegacy of ‘space for the people’, the Indian Space Agency, (Indian Space ResearchOrganisation, ISRO) initiated Telemedicine programme in 2001 for reaching health-care to the un-served and the under-served population. Detailed interviews with thedoctors utilising/providing the services, survey through questionnaire to a sampleof the practioners as well as to patients and review of different project reports havebeen used to assess the success and utilisation of the facilities created. It has beenbrought out from the study that, these efforts have started showing results in the formof user satisfaction; the major determinant of success of any service/product. If thegrowing popularity of the programme and growth of network are visible indicationsof success, ISRO’s Telemedicine Network of 336 nodes (as of Decemeber 2008)can be viewed as a successful initiative. More than 300,000 Tele-consultations aredone including some life saving instances. The chapter discusses the systematicapproach followed by ISRO in the areas of – programme planning, managing andimplementation, in line with the socio-economic situation of the country and drawsa roadmap for future, for bridging the health divide, and delineates the plans forintegration of different stake holders. The successful experience of SATcom (Satel-lite Communication) based Telemedicine Programme, can serve as a model for suchprogrammes in the developing countries.

Keywords Telemedicine · ISRO · SATcom · Connectivity · Patient end · Specialistend

Murthy L.N. Remilla (B)Dy. Director, Business Development Antrix Corporation Limited/Indian Space Research Organi-sation (ISRO), Indiae-mail: murthy@antrix.gov.in

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 7, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

159

160 A. Bhaskaranarayana et al.

Introduction

Villages/rural areas lack in the infrastructure and facilities required in many ar-eas like Healthcare, Education, Communication and other facets which define thequality of life. This is applicable to all developing and even developed coun-tries, though the degree of accessibility and affordability may change from one toanother.

Noting this important dichotomy and its ill effects, the Indian Space ResearchOrganisation (ISRO) initiated SATcom based Telemedicine programme as an im-portant application in the year 2001, in pursuance of its policy of utilisation of spacetechnology for the benefit of population at grass root level.

The following sections will touch upon ISRO and the journey of ISRO’s Teleme-dicine programme from inception to the year 2008 and other initiatives in the fieldof Telemedicine in India.

Indian Healthcare System

Number of healthcare facilities and professionals in India have been increasing pro-gressively from the early 1950s, but are outnumbered by the fast growing popu-lation. As a result, the number of licensed medical practitioners and hospital bedsper population had reduced substantially. Primary health centers, the cornerstone ofIndian rural healthcare system are part of a three-tiered healthcare system predomi-nantly administered by the government.

The Indian healthcare systems which is predominantly government controlled,follows a three-tier hierarchical system of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary health-care. There are about 23000 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs), 3000 CommunityHealthcare Centres (CHCs) and 670 District Hospitals (DHs) as the major gov-ernmental healthcare delivery system of India, in addition to the private/charitableinstitutions serving the population.

Need for Telemedicine in India

Like in many a developing country, the 80–20 paradigm is very much prevalent inthe Indian healthcare scenario. While 80 percent of the specialist doctors practicein the urban areas, almost 80 percent of the population reside in rural/remote areasserved only by less than 20 percent of the doctors available. Some of the casesrequire specialist consultation at urban hospitals while attempting to provide routinemedical care to the vast majority in the countryside. The visit by the patient to thespecialists in urban areas is not only tedious and financially burdening but also timeconsuming and sometimes may be too-delayed as well.

Bridging Health Divide Between Rural and Urban Areas 161

Indian Space Research Organisation

The Indian Space Agency (Indian Space Research Organisation – ISRO), is knownfor its focus on using the space technology for social benefits for the population atthe grassroots level, as laid by Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, father of the Indian Space pro-gramme. ISRO has built and operated multiple communication, remote sensing andmeteorological satellites and capable launch vehicle family of PSLV (Polar SatelliteLaunch Vehicle) and GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) to placethese satellites into orbit.

ISRO has been using the expertise in broadcast communication technology forexpanding the reach of Television services and increasing the telephone density andalso carried out experimental projects in developmental and educational servicesusing satellite technology. The advantages of Satellite based communication aredetailed in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 Advantages ofSatellite based connectivity ADVANTAGES OF SATCOM

• Broadcast

• Ubiquitous Coverage

• Mobility

• Instant Infrastructure

Telemedicine and Tele-education are two such programmes of social relevancetaken at high priority since the year 2001 and India is probably the first coun-try to launch a satellite (EDUSAT) dedicated for the Education and other societalapplications.

ISRO’S Telemedicine Programme

The communication technology has been available for many a decades and the in-formation technology has witnessed tremendous growth and development in the lastdecade. The medical practice has been in existence for centuries in India in variousforms right from the times of Charaka and Sushrutha (two earliest medical special-ists referred to by the ancient Indian literature). However, it is the introduction of

162 A. Bhaskaranarayana et al.

Telemedicine that has promised a significant change in the delivery of the basic needof healthcare to the remote and rural population.

Innovation is defined as “a novel beneficial change in art or practice”. SATcombased Telemedicine Programme is an innovative process of synergising benefits ofSatellite communication technology and information technology with the knowl-edge of biomedical sciences to deliver the healthcare services to the un-served andunder-served regions of the country.

Thus, telemedicine has come as a novel use of Technology for a beneficial changein the practice of medicine in this country directly benefiting the rural patients andindirectly helping the rural doctors in improving their skills and redressing the issueof their professional isolation.

ISRO’s telemedicine pilot project was started as a part of ‘proof of concepttechnology demonstration programme’ connecting the rural hospitals/health cen-tres with super speciality hospitals for providing expert consultation to the dis-tant and needy population. During the pilot projects, total solution viz., the con-nectivity, the hardware and software along with standard medical equipment andtraining were provided by ISRO in association with the healthcare providers indifferent parts of the country. This has created awareness about the utility ofTelemedicine among the medical community as well as the patient/user commu-nity. This was followed by evolution of suitable guidelines and standards for Prac-tice of telemedicine in India and expansion of the network (Bedi and Murthy,2005).

The main drivers for innovation in telemedicine for ISRO are – the interest,courage, capability and energy to better the world for which ISRO has been com-mitted since its inception. True to the definition of innovation, creating value outof new ideas, services and new ways of doing things using the existing as well asnewly developed products is the hallmark of ISRO’s Telemedicine programme thatis valued by the community.

While the provision of necessary healthcare services to each and every citizenirrespective of his/her geographical location is the obligatory responsibility of thegovernments (both at the center and state) the same is not feasible practically, evenif the healthcare delivery infrastructure is expanded many-fold to that of presentavailability.

Some of the traditional ways to overcome this are investing heavily and mostlyencourage the respective governments in increasing the infrastructure, allocatingnecessary human and technical resources to man these facilities and make plans tobring them to regular use. In the field of healthcare, such investments and creationshould include building and developing more number of hospitals with all modernequipment in as many villages as possible, manning those hospitals with specialistdoctors and maintain those hospitals regularly.

Such an expansion needs augmenting the infrastructure both at the primary andsecondary levels of healthcare system which is a cost intensive endeavor in itself,leaving aside the difficulties in serving the desired purpose.

Another innovative way is to overcome the lack of infrastructure with the cre-ation of Infostructure (Latifi, 2004) serving the same or almost same purposes with

Bridging Health Divide Between Rural and Urban Areas 163

Fig. 2 A schematic view of telemedicine connectivity

minimum expenditure and maximum utilisation. ISRO has adopted the later ap-proach to bring the benefits of modern medical sciences and qualified and experi-enced doctors to the doorsteps of the rural population in India.

Taking note of the well recognised problems in Indian healthcare delivery sys-tem, ISRO has taken up the innovative and beneficiary process of Telemedicine,putting in, intense effort and investment into a technological solution for the socio-economic problems. It is in this context that the “Infostructure” created for Teleme-dicine is an innovative alternative for the exponentially large “Infrastructure” oughtto be in place to meet the demands. Typical connectivity schematic using Satelliteis represented in Fig. 2.

Genesis of ISRO’s Telemedicine Programme

ISRO, as a part of application of space technology for healthcare and education,under GRAMSAT (rural satellite) programme, has initiated number of Telemedicinepilot projects that are very specific to the needs of development of the society.ISRO’s Telemedicine projects consist of linking through INSAT/EDUSAT, ruralareas in different State like Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh in north near Himalayas, off-shore Islands of Andaman and Laskhadweep, north eastern region states, mainland

164 A. Bhaskaranarayana et al.

states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala etc andsome of the remote and tribal districts in the main land states across the country.

Technology of Telemedicine consists of customised medical software integratedwith computer hardware, along with medical diagnostic instruments connected tothe commercial VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) at each location. Generally,the medical record/history of the patient is sent to the specialist doctors for provid-ing diagnosis. The video conferencing system is the mainstay of a Teleconsultationbetween the remote hospital and the specialist hospital that creates a virtual envi-ronment for emotionally connecting the patient and doctor in a true sense.

Focus of ISRO’s Telemedicine Programme

The focus of ISRO’s endeavour has been on providing technology and connectiv-ity for healthcare delivery in terms of the services for Tele-consultation betweenremote/rural district hospital and super specialty hospital; Continuing Medical Ed-ucation (CME); mobile telemedicine for rural Health, especially for ophthalmologyand community health.

ISRO in association with state governments, NGOs and private/trust hospitalshas established a network of 336 hospitals (as on December 2008) connecting 275remote/rural/district hospitals and 10 mobile system with 51 super specialty hospi-tals/medical colleges located in urban areas.

Thrust Areas of ISRO’s Initiatives

(a) Providing Telemedicine Technology & connectivity between remote/rural hos-pital and Super Speciality Hospital for Teleconsultation, Treatment & alsoTraining of doctors & paramedics.

(b) Providing the Technology & connectivity for Continuing Medical Education(CME) between selected Medical Colleges & Premier Medical Institutions/Hospitals.

(c) Providing Technology & connectivity for Mobile Telemedicine units for ruralhealth camps especially in the areas of ophthalmology and community health.

(d) Providing technology and connectivity for Disaster Management Support andRelief.

With larger requirements of the different States proposing to introduce Teleme-dicine facility in their district hospitals, the Telemedicine system configured for theISRO’s Telemedicine project initially started with “point to point” system betweenthe patient end, which is a general hospital located in a district/town and expertdoctors end which is a speciality hospital situated in a city. Subsequently the need forServer/Browser based Telemedicine system was evolved for multipoint connectivity

Bridging Health Divide Between Rural and Urban Areas 165

and the same is adopted for multipoint connectivity for several remote and ruralhospital with Super Speciality Hospital located in different Towns/Cities.

Approach Followed by ISRO

ISRO followed a multi-pronged approach in conceiving the programme, planningthe implementation and execution of the same.

� Pilot projects in different parts of the country evoking interest in the user seg-ments (patients, practioners, and providers).

� Development of national standards and guidelines for practice of Telemedicineinvolving of multiple agencies

� Technology evolution and adaptation for the rural needs� Developing and nurturing of industries meeting techno-commercial requirements� Efforts to optimise the clinical requirements for evolving a suitable e-heath tech-

nology� Efforts to minimise costs to bring in affordability and maximise reach� Encouraging new models and efforts like innovative insurance schemes for op-

erationalisation of the programme and long-term sustainability� Integrating the healthcare administrators, planners, technologists and entrepre-

neurs and bringing all the stake holders to a common platform� Training and handholding to the users (doctors and technicians)� Workshops and seminars for creating awareness� Initiating policy guidelines towards charge-free consultations to the rural pa-

tients, through (a) providing bandwidth from ISRO without charge for societalpurpose (b) brining in speciality hospitals to provide tele-consultation as a socialservice

� Developing Mobile healthcare system for reaching the doorsteps of the rural pop-ulation in the areas of Tele-ophthalmology, community heath and diabetology

� Sensitising the healthcare administrators for adopting the innovative technologyat the national level

Thus, Integrating the healthcare administrators, planners, technologists and en-trepreneurs and bringing all the stake holders to a common platform, ISRO hasdeveloped end to end solution, from conceiving to planning to designing, imple-menting and monitoring and evaluating.

ISRO has kept the momentum on, by organising different workshops and userseminars involving the users and non-users to spread the message of benefits anddraw the lessons for improved utilisation and management. Some of the noteworthyefforts by ISRO include – adapting different technologies from time to time, effortsto reduce the costs and bring in cost effective solutions, to meet the socio-economicconsiderations.

The systems deployed at each Patient end and Specialist end node consistof the VSAT antenna, related hardware and electronics for the communication

166 A. Bhaskaranarayana et al.

SYSTEM DIAGRAM

Tx

Rx

BUC

LNB

Feed

Tx IFL L-Band

(950-1450MHz),

24 VDC

Rx IFL L-Band(950-1750MHz), 24 VDC

10/100 B

ase T

IDUsODUs

Antenna dish

PC with Telemedicine

Software

RCST

IFL CABLES

RJ - 45 CABLE

SYSTEM AT TELEMEDICINE NODE

Fig. 3 Systems installed in Telemedicine node

and Telemedicine system loaded with the GUI (Graphical User Interface) basedTelemedicine software and the Video conferencing systems. In addition, each pa-tient end node will have standard medical diagnostic equipment like a 12 leadECG machine, X-ray scanner etc. Additional diagnostic equipments can be addedon need basis. Typical systems at Telemedicine node are shown in Fig. 3 and de-tails of systems installed at patient end and Specialist end are shown separately inFig. 4.

Fig. 4 View of systems installed in Patient and specialist end nodes

Bridging Health Divide Between Rural and Urban Areas 167

A Study of the Quality of Telemedicine Systemsand Benefits/Utilisation

The healthcare delivery system has been undergoing formidable challenges since1990s. Rapid movement towards systems of managed care and integrated deliv-ery networks has led healthcare providers to recognise real completion. Owing thisrecognition, lot of research has been carried out to study the service quality aspectsof healthcare delivery in the recent past. Healthcare can be defined in relationship to(i) the technical aspects of care (ii) Interpersonal relationships between practitionersand patient (iii) the amenities care (Weitzman and In Kaner, 1995). Telemedicine be-ing a latest application of the technology for the healthcare delivery and not enteringthe real business has not been researched enough. One of the works on Telemedicine(David, 2005) addressed three critical issues of Telemedicine: the conflict betweenthe scripts embodied in Telemedicine technology and the daily work practices ofhealthcare professionals; the tendency of Telemedicine to produce a delegationof medical tasks to non-medical personnel (and to artifacts); and the tendency ofTelemedicine to modify the existing geography within the healthcare environment.Many researchers contend that service quality is an important variable that affectssuccess (Granroos, 1998).

In the area of traditional healthcare research, the quality of healthcare has beenviewed from a different perspective. Quality has been defined as “the ability toachieve desirable objectives using legitimate means” (Avedis, 1998) where the de-sirable objective implied “an achievable state of health”. Thus quality is ultimatelyattained when a physician properly helps his or her patients to reach an achievablelevel of health, and they enjoy a healthier life. One of the most widely used qual-ity assessment approaches has been proposed in the structure – process – outcomemodel (Avedis, 1998). In this model, the structure indicates the settings where thehealthcare is provided, where the process indicates how this is technically delivered,where as, the outcome indicates the effect of the care on the health or welfare of thepatient.

Both patient groups and physician groups are important constituents of thehealth-care system. However, it has been found that healthcare recipients have diffi-culty in evaluating medical competence and security dimensions (i.e. credence prop-erties) considered to be the primary determinant of Service Quality (Kenneth, 1990;and James and Steven, 1988). In addition to service quality, several variables per-taining to Telemedicine Programme’s success were examined in this study. Reviewof the information success literature (DeLone and McLean, 1992) divided measuresof information success into six major categories:

1. System Quality2. Information Quality3. User satisfaction4. Use5. Individual model and6. Organisational impact

168 A. Bhaskaranarayana et al.

This model shows both system quality and information quality influencing userthe organization. System relates to system performance such as response time andease of use. Information quality refers to quality of the information product, such asaccuracy, currency, relevance, and completeness. User satisfaction refers to the sat-isfaction level reported by system users. Use refers to how frequently an informationsystem is used.

Li (1997) provided a hospital quality management model to investigate the re-lationship between determinants of quality management and service quality perfor-mance in hospitals. This model emphasises the importance of quality performancethrough:

1. Staff training2. Job enlargement and staff competence development,

This model depicts the role of both clinical technology and patient medical in-formation systems and stresses the significance of information/process analysis forcontinuous service quality improvement.

The Services marketing literature has defined service quality in terms of ‘WHAT’service recipients receive in their interaction with the service providers (i.e. techni-cal, physical or outcome quality) and ‘HOW’ this technical quality is provided tothe recipients (i.e. functional, interactive or process quality) (Granroos, 1988).

Telehealth being more of an information service programme enabled by the com-munication technology, the combination of the above measures can be applied tostudy the success of the same. Towards this, 3 questionnaires have been developedto study the perceptions of the three segments of stake holders in the SATcom basedTelemedicine programme – the Speciality End (SE) and Patient End (PE) doctorsand the ultimate users; the patients from the rural areas. The questionnaires cov-ered the suitable combinations of the above discussed Eight Dimensions and wereanalysed for the inferences.

Results of the Study

Presently ISRO’s Telemedicine Network consists of 336 nodes – 285 Remote/Rural/District Hospital/Health Centres including 10 mobile connected to 51 Super Spe-ciality Hospitals located in the major cities increasing.

More than 300,000 patients have been provided with Teleconsultation & treat-ment in the network till December 2008, including some life saving occasions.

Under the Mobile Telemedicine, the Mobile Teleophthalmology facility has beenprovided at several hospitals to provide services to the rural population in ophthal-mology care including grinding glasses for dispensing spectacles and more impor-tantly the rural school children eye screening.

A study has been conducted to evaluate the success and effectiveness of Teleme-dicine in the ISRO’s network including the spectacle dispensing facility and more

Bridging Health Divide Between Rural and Urban Areas 169

17

MOBILE TELEMEDICINE

To overcome the prohibitive costs of large number of terminals and reaching out to the rural areas

Tele-Ophthalmic Van – Shankara Nethralaya Tele-Ophthalmic Van Aravind Eye Hospital

–

Fig. 5 Mobile Telemedicine vans in operation

importantly rural school children eye screening camps. Two successful mobileTelemedicine models of recent times for Tele-ophthalmology are shown in Fig. 5.

The highlights of the results/findings of the study in the identified eight dimen-sions are presented below:

1. System Quality: Majority (88%) of the users have expressed satisfaction overthe system quality primarily measured by the video and audio quality and thereliability of the system in terms of uptime and the availability when needed.The progressively improved Graphical user Interface (GUI) of the software hasbeen well received by the doctors at both PE and SE.

2. Information Quality: While a majority of SE doctors (88%) of the SE doctorsrated the technical quality of the data/reports received as good as the traditionaldata/reports, 12% rated it as ‘acceptable’

3. User satisfaction: Here the satisfaction of the REAL users of the facility, therural patients are highlighted and they have expressed satisfaction over the factthat the time, money and efforts spent in consulting a super speciality doctor aremuch less compared to a traditional physical visit to the doctor.

4. Use: This has been modified by some researchers as usefulness in their stud-ies. Either way, the survey has revealed that the system is not only useful forthe patients but the administration as well, on whom lies the responsibility ofproviding healthcare delivery to the needy. One of the significant beneficiariesare the patients from the off shore islands like Laskhadweep and Andaman &Nicobar on either side of the main land of India who have no other way of seeinga specialist doctor in time, except when airlifted by the local administration.

170 A. Bhaskaranarayana et al.

5. Individual impact: An 81% cost saving, in addition to savings/relief not only tothe patients but their families in avoiding tedious journeys is seen as a majorpositive impact of the programme in addition to the feeling that they (the ruralpopulation) have been taken care and considered by the Administration. PE doc-tors have termed Telemedicine as a tool for alleviating their sense of isolationand for knowledge enhancement, as in the absence of the Telemedicine their jobbeyond a point would have been limited to just referring to a specialist.

6. Organisational impact: The Speciality hospitals engaged in the Telemedicinenetwork have expressed satisfaction that they are utilising the existing infras-tructure in serving the rural patients with marginal additional efforts. For thespeciality end doctors the major driver or motivator is the sense of fulfilling thesocial responsibility by serving the rural patients. Though the present practice ofSATcom based Telemedicine is followed as non charged service with the costof the pilot projects born by ISRO and that of the second phase by the stateadministration, the intangible benefit accrued by the speciality hospitals and SEdoctors is the positive word of mouth which has been well recognised as animportant enabler of competitive advantage, for the healthcare providers.

7. Staff training: Many of the doctors have identified the significant results of theprogramme as improved staff training opportunities and reduced cost for thesame, because of the training imparted to the remote nursing staff and other careproviders in a distance mode from the SE hospitals.

8. Job enlargement and staff competence development: Other than low income, oneof the major reasons for the high turnover of doctors posted to rural areas is theirsense of professional isolation which is causing the flow of medical practioners tourban areas. The study has brought out that the in-built CME (Continuing Med-ical Education) facility in ISRO’s Telemedicine is empowering the rural doctorsin handling the cases by them selves, which were earlier not thought of for lackof sufficient experience and the fear of risk taking. This has resulted in a greaterand broader outreach of the speciality end doctors’ knowledge to the door stepsof the geographically dispersed physicians who otherwise are not exposed to acontinuous upgrade of knowledge and skills. This has been brought out by theobservation by the SE doctors that the ‘experienced’ PE doctors consult themonly occasionally on a case-to-case basis sparing the time of the experts and theresources of Telemedicine Facility by the other needy doctors and patients.

Discussion of the Study Results

ISRO’s Telemedicine programme has demonstrated the efficacy, utility and ease ofoperation in the implementation of innovation leading to a capacity building withoptimum use of communication infrastructure and processes. The involvement ofcommunity/stakeholders is seen in telemedicine by bringing the NGOs and othersocial agencies/trusts on to the common platform along with hospitals, health careadministrators and technologies towards common goal which is a social cause as

Bridging Health Divide Between Rural and Urban Areas 171

well as occupation of evidence based medical practices. Making the rural doctorsto deliver improved services with the experience gained from the interactions withthe specialist has been contributing to a professional satisfaction among the doc-tors/medical forces posted in the rural areas. This should lead to reduction in theprofessional isolation of the medical staff to extend their stay and services in the ru-ral areas which in turn will be useful in boasting community satisfaction level. ISROhas been spearheading the Telemedicine service emphasizing the importance andvalue of technology research and development, learning and collaboration, strategicpartnership and joint ventures, all in the pursuit of successful innovation.

All along ISRO has bettered the knowledge of all the stake holders in adoptingthe integrative approach to manage the innovation as well as benchmarking their or-ganisations for optimal quality and effective production and service delivery. ISROhas believed in the Einstein saying “you cannot solve the problems of the presentwith the solutions that produced them” and thus to achieve solutions for tomorrow,ISRO has shown to the government and health care industry leaders the need to stepforward, to help regulators, manage organisations, hospitals, health professionals,insurers, NGOs and to work together to facilitate in building a higher quality, moreconvenient, lower cost health care system.

Findings of the study give encouraging results about the success of ISRO’s SAT-com based Telemedicine Programme in bridging the health divide between ruraland urban areas, with scope for further improvement. The current state has beenachieved by ISRO’s investment of efforts and research in initiating, innovating,upgrading, operationalising and carrying forward the programme with significantcost reductions and providing the crucial connectivity at no charge. The integratedapproach followed in association with the various stake holders in Healthcare andsome innovative schemes by Insurance Agencies have their share in shaping upthe programme to a network of 336 hospitals (285 Patient Ends and 51 SpecialistEnds).

The initial hiccups in administrative and inter-systemic bottlenecks have beenovercome to a major extent and the process of improvement is continuous. The rangeof clinical applications utilising the Telemedicine include, not limiting to – Radiol-ogy, Cardiology, Pathology, Dermatology, and Ophthalmology providing valuabletele-consultations including some life saving instances.

The growth of Indian Telemedicine programme has been well nurtured andguarded by recommending Standards and Guidelines for Practice of Telemedicinein India, detailing specifications of systems, practices and clinical protocols. (Bediand Murthy, 2005) Realising the potential of Telemedicine in Telehealth, the FederalMinistry of Health and Family Welfare constituted a high level National Task Forceto design mechanisms to bring Telemedicine into the main stream of healthcaredelivery.

This experiment is set for an operational phase with more state governments em-bracing Telemedicine. For a sustainable business model public/private partnershipsto provide cost effective and beneficial Telehealth Services are being discussed.

A clue from the literature on Public Private Partnership (Buse & Hamer, 2006;Maskin & Tirole, 2007; Apen et al., 1994; Widdus, 2005 etc.) and their results as

172 A. Bhaskaranarayana et al.

well as the ground realities on the interplay among multiple agencies points to theneed for adoption of PPP approach. These partnerships result in a complimentarityof skills and resources that can accelerate the development and delivery of servicesto those in need. This is more so, in view of the fact that no single player has allthe skills and resources needed to make an impact on its own in such a highlymultidisciplinary activity like Telemedicine.

Under the public private partnership, the steps involved and being planned are theevaluation of the existing Telemedicine nodes in different parts of the country andunderstanding the issues related to infrastructure, human resources, optimum tech-nology in terms of hardware/software and connectivity and implementation issues inthe field as also the user acceptance as an alternate health care delivery mechanism.

Gauged by the success of the programme in overcoming paucity of infrastructure,as is the case in many a developing country, the model set by Indian Space Agencyand being adopted by Indian healthcare providers can be applicable for developingcountries, with necessary modifications.

Road Map for Future

ISRO’s Telemedicine Project is gaining more acceptability and has potential to openup new frontiers for the rural healthcare in India. Some States have come forwardto introduce Telemedicine in an operational mode and have prepared the districthospitals with Telemedicine facility both for ambulatory & intensive care for cardiacrelated treatment. States of Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Maha-rashtra initiated the establishment of SATcom Based Telemedicine facility in alltheir district hospitals that will be connected to different speciality hospitals in themajor cities. Telemedicine is being extended to other states like, Gujarat, HimachalPradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand etc.

As explained above, necessary plans to bring the Telemedicine and e-Health intothe mainstream of healthcare system are being worked out for implementation byvarious government and private agencies towards reaching this goal. The vision isthat, at the first level all the district hospitals in the country should be linked throughTelemedicine – consisting of different state networks with the national network, na-tional super speciality hospital network and a network for medical education insitu-tions connecting various medical colleges in different states and some of the premiermedical institutions. Though the requirement is at a much lower level at primary andsecondary level, below the district headquarters (HQ), it is envisaged to augmentthe network at the district HQ level. Infrastructure in terms of the building maybe prevailing at the primary/village level but needs to be strengthened with moreoperational facilities, availability of contineous electricity, patient end doctor andoperational staffs are to be ensured to expand this network to the grassroots level.In this regard, ISRO’s Village Resource Centre Programme (VRC) is an initiationto introduce Telemedicine at Village level along with multiple services related toagriculture, methods and market information, education information etc. This will

Bridging Health Divide Between Rural and Urban Areas 173

eventually lead to apply Telemedicine/e health at the primarily health care level tointegrate the curative and promotive aspects of healthcare including epedemeologyand community health.

As a national initiative, one of the major achievements of ISRO’s telemedicineprogramme is the formation of National task Force (NTF) by the union Ministry ofHealth & Family Welfare, Government of India.

Formation of National Task Force (NTF)

Based on the major recommendations of the International Telemedicine Conference(INTELEMEDINDIA-2005) organised by ISRO and sponsored by Department ofHealth, Department of IT and other agencies at Bangalore during March 2005, anational task force has been constituted by the Ministry of Health. This Task Forcewas formed under the chairmanship of Union Secretary, Health & Family Welfare,Govt. of India to work out the various aspects of implementing Telemedicine inthe country’s healthcare system including a draft national policy on “Telemedicineand Tele-medical education” and to prepare a central scheme for the 11th Five YearPlan.

This National Task Force consisted of the following five sub-groups, with expertsfrom the respective areas, to deliberate and bring out the recommendations.

� Sub group 1: Sub Group on Telemedicine Standards� Sub Group II: Sub Group for formation of National Telemedicine Grid.� Sub Group III-A: Sub Group to identify players and framing evaluation frame-

work for projects involved in Telemedicine in India, prepare pilot projects (pend-ing proposals, mobile services, National Medical College network etc).

� Sub Group III-B: Sub Group for ONCONET INDIA� Sub Group IV: Sub Group for utilization of existing tele linkage facility in rural

areas by Department of Communication, standardization of e records, trainingand CMEs in telemedicine, human resources – medical informatics.

� Sub Group V: Sub Group for preparation of National Policy on Telemedicineand tele medical education and to prepare central scheme for 11th five year plan

Such a widespread identification of areas and topics to discuss the needs, issues,services to be provided and options available with respect to the technologies andmethodologies to be employed has enabled in a kind of vision document for bringingTelemedicine into the mainstream of healthcare delivery in the country. The NTFsubmitted a detailed proposal to the union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare,about forming a National Telemedicine Grid (NTG) for a nation wide connectivityand a eHealth web portal as a national repository of health/medical informationgenerally not available in the Internet. The highlights of the recommendations, underthe process of review for acceptance by the government are as follows.

174 A. Bhaskaranarayana et al.

Proposed Constituents of National Telemedicine Grid

A National telemedicine Grid (NTG) is envisaged to have two important functionsrelated to (a) Connectivity for Telemedicine, Medical Education and Medical Train-ing and (b) Healthcare information service for the administrators/decision makers.

Constituents of the Grid: Telemedicine Network and e-Health Portal

Part–A: National Telemedicine/e-Health Network

1. Selected District Hospitals of the country Connected to speciality hospitalsTelemedicine Grids of Different States (current nodes)

2. Identified Speciality Hospitals3. Premier National Medical institutions4. National Medical Training Institutions providing medical/healthcare training5. National and Regional Cancer centres involved in cancer care, research and

training

Part – B: eHealth Web Portal

e-Health Web portal of MH&FW connecting different departments providing allinformation related to health informatics and Telemedicine, disease surveillancedata, Educational material/information related to specific Indian healthcare systemincluding AYUSH, which may not be available on internet.

The second phase of the NTG can carry forward the broader initial phase devel-opments and expand the Telemedicine network to include the following additionalconstituents into the web portal.

Fig. 6 National telemedicinegrid

National Telemedicine GridA Concept

Bridging Health Divide Between Rural and Urban Areas 175

National medical Training

Premier Medical

Institutions

Selected District

Hospitals

Identified Speciality hospitalsNational

Telemedicine Grid

National & Regional Cancer centres

E-HealthWeb Portal

Constituents of National Telemedicine Grid

Fig. 7 Constituents of proposed national telemedicine grid

1. Association/society/health portals (ICMR, IMA)2. National Disease Surveillance (like IDSP)3. Digital Library & Medical Informatics

Also, various operational Disaster Management Support (DMS) systems/centrescan be brought under the Telemedicine/eHealth Network of the NTG.

Presently the Ministry of Health and Family welfare, Government of India hasstarted the formal evaluation of Telemedicine nodes in terms operational and utili-sation aspects for further action in the overall development of Telemedicine in thecountry.

Proposed conceptual view of National Telemedicine Grid (NTG) and Teleme-dicine web portal are depicted in Figs. 6 and 7 respectively.

Conclusion

ISRO’s efforts resulted in creating an ecosystem in the country for eHealth as aneffective supplementary mechanism for healthcare delivery to the rural and remotepopulace. Such a system has not only brought the technology and medical carenearer, it also integrated the stakeholders and the community with greater awareness.Many medical research centres like Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute (SGPGI),Apollo Hospitals, Sri Ramachandra Medical College (SRMC), Narayana Hruday-alaya, Sankara Netralaya, Arvind Eye Hospital Asia Heart Foundation, Tata Memo-rial Cancer Hospital, etc have been the pillars of the programme in its utilisation andexpansion of reach. To make the system work (Nicolini, 2005), the Telemedicine

176 A. Bhaskaranarayana et al.

Fig. 8 Current role of ISROfor Introduction andPropagation

Specialist Hospital

ISRO

Patient Hospital

Vendors & ServiceProviders

programme needs to be taken forward through necessary plans for implementationby various government and private agencies and involving the medical and researchcommunity.

Having created the eco-system for development of Telemedicine in the countrywith its lead role, ISRO, on its part, plans to ensure that the stake holders play amajor role to carry forward the work done so far and reach next stage in operations.The current and envisaged roles of ISRO can be depicted as follows in Figs. 8 and 9.

The stakeholders of current Telemedicine project are happy but not content withthe progress and expansion of the network, as shown in Fig 10. and are striving

Fig. 9 Envisaged role ofISRO for long-termsustenance andoperationalisation

Specialist Hospital

Patient End

Hospital

Vendors & Service

Providers

Health Ministry &State Govts,

NGOs

Bridging Health Divide Between Rural and Urban Areas 177

Fig. 10 ISRO’s telemedicine network

towards continuous improvement in quantity and quality. They feel, the missionshould not stop before realising the two famous Indian sayings “SARVE JANAHSUKHINO BHAVANTHU” (let all people be happy) and “AAROGYAM MAHAABHAAGYAM” (health is the real wealth).

Acknowledgments The Authors wish to acknowledge Dr. G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman ISRO/Secretary Department of Space for his valuable guidance and direction provided and also all other

178 A. Bhaskaranarayana et al.

colleagues in ISRO and other agencies who are part of the team in bringing this technology to thedoorsteps of rural population.

References

Latifi, Rifat (ed) Establishing Telemedicine in Developing Countries: From Inception to Implemen-tation, IOS Pess, 2004.

Weitzman, B.C. and A.R. In Kaner, Healthcare delivery in United States, Berlin: Springer, 1995.Nicolini, David. “The work to make Telemedicine work: A social and Articulative view”, social

science & Medicine, 12, 2005.Avedis, Donabedian “Quality Assessment and Assurance: Unity of Purpose, Diversity of Means,

Inquiry”, Spring: 175–192, 1988.Bopp, Kenneth D. “How Patients Evaluate the Quality of Ambulatory Medical Encounters: A

marketing Perspective, Jl of Healthcare Marketing,10–1:6–15, 1990.James, Hensel. and Steven. A. Baumgarten, “Managing Patient Perceptions of Medical Practice

Service Quality” Review of Business, 9–3:23–26, 1988.DeLone, W.H. and E.R. McLean, “Information systems success: The quest for the dependent vari-

able” Information Systems Research, 3–1: 60–95, 1992.LI LX., “Relationships between determinants of hospital quality management and service quality

performance-a path analytical model”, Internal Journal of Management Science, 125, 1997.Granroos, Christian, “Service Quality – The six criteria of good perceived service quality”, Review

of Business, Winter: 1–9, 1988.Bedi, B.S. and Remilla L.N. Murthy (2005) “Standards and Guidelines for Telemedicine” in Satya-

murthy, L.S. and R.L.N. Murthy (eds) Telemedicine Manual. Bangalore ISRO, 26–32, 2005.

TEMOS – Telemedicine for the Mobile SocietyTelemedical Support for Travellersand Expatriates

Markus Lindlar, Claudia Mika and Rupert Gerzer

Abstract For six decades mass tourism has been growing rapidly. Eight hun-dred and ninty eight million tourist arrivals worldwide were registered in 2007alone. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of expatriates live and work in foreigncountries.

Among all 20 to 70 percent of the collective of international travellers sufferfrom health related problems while travelling, 1 to 5 percent of them need medicalsupport during their stay and 0.1 to 1 percent of them are repatriated by air eachyear.

Travel related illness is strongly increasing in parallel with the climatic and cul-tural contrast between the traveller’s country of origin and the destination country.In addition, the length of stay as well as the selected means of travel increase therisk for a disease. Thus, not only travelling in countries with special risks like com-municable diseases increases morbidity. The demographic change in countries likeGermany for example results in a growing proportion of older travellers very oftensuffering from chronic diseases like cardiovascular disorders or diabetes mellitus.Therefore the need of medical safety for travellers is growing especially in thisgroup.

When visiting countries with special health risks or another culture, travellersoften do not know where to go in case of an emergency abroad, whether the diag-nosis of the foreign doctors is reliable, whether the quality of treatment is all rightor whether repatriation is necessary.

This chapter describes the globally active TEMOS project (TElemedicine for theMObile Society). TEMOS mainly focuses on optimizing health care and medicaltreatment for travellers and expatriates worldwide. This includes the

� Certification of medical institutions worldwide according to the TEMOS qualitystandards, which documents the compliance of the institutions’ medical care withthe state of the art as well as infrastructural or service requirements,

� Organization of a competence network of TEMOS certified medical institutions

M. Lindlar (B)DLR – German Aerospace Center, Linder Hoehe 2b, D-51147 Cologne, Germanye-mail: Markus.lindlar@dlr.de

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 8, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

179

180 M. Lindlar et al.

� Provision of validated information about the medical and non medical servicesof medical institutions acting at the state of the art,

� Support of physicians worldwide in terms of medical expertise of specialistsparticipating in the TEMOS telemedical network.

TEMOS additionally aims at an improvement of continuous medical education(CME) by providing electronic lectures and online teaching involving internationalspecialists.

The TEMOS certification system for hospitals has been developed and is nowfirmly established. The TEMOS database currently contains information on 1.185hospitals and clinics in 48 countries. Presently 26 medical institutions providinghigh quality medicine are members of the TEMOS network.

A satellite and Internet based communication platform allows the exchange ofknowledge for continuous medical education (CME) and the secure exchange ofpatient data for teleconsultation and second opinion services.

The appropriateness of the different communication channels used within theproject has been studied in a comparative analysis of satellite-, Internet- and ISDN-based communication for telemedicine within the project. The results clearlydemonstrate that Internet based communication is the most cost effective toolwhen sufficient bandwidths are available for each participating site. Satellite basedtelemedicine is suitable for regions lacking of a high speed terrestrial communica-tion infrastructure like in many developing countries, on small islands or in ruralregions.

The certification of hospitals has turned out to be beneficial for different potentialcustomers of a future TEMOS company as well as for the travellers and hospitalsthemselves.

The database and associated information system of international hospitals to-gether with CME and expert consultation via the TEMOS telemedical platform asparts of the Integrated TEMOS Services seem to improve medical care for travellersabroad significantly and allow a more secure travelling for elderly and chronicallyill patients.

Keywords SatCom · Satellite communication · Telemedicine · Continuous medicaleducation · CME · Travel medicine · Telehealth · Teleconsultation · Hospitalcertification

Introduction

Space science led to the development of satellite based communication which isaccessible for almost everybody everywhere on our planet. Besides that, especiallywithin the last years terrestrial communication systems have been used for the ex-change of huge amounts of data, e.g. in videoconferences or telemedical activities.A stable communication infrastructure providing sufficient bandwidths is obligateto use these services, particularly in case of telemedical support.

TEMOS – Telemedicine for the Mobile Society Telemedical Support for Travellers 181

This chapter describes the different approaches of the telemedicine project“TEMOS” (TElemedicine for the MObile Society) and its integrated Services to op-timize medical care for travellers and expatriates worldwide. After a short overviewabout worldwide tourism and associated medical problems for travellers, the dif-ferent parts of TEMOS are introduced. The certification system and the TEMOSdatabase are described and first results are presented. The second part focuses onthe different communication channels ISDN-, Internet-, and satellite based commu-nication to get access to the telemedical platform which offers teleconsultation andsecond opinion services, teleteaching, eLectures and online teaching.

Furthermore, this chapter contains the results of a cost comparison analysis car-ried out to define the costs of usage and the most cost-effective channel for everyinstitution within the TEMOS network of hospitals and clinics.

Background

The Mobile Society

Mass tourism is growing rapidly, and has been doing so for the last 60 years. Thenumber of arrivals grew from 25.3 million in 1950 to 165.8 in 1970. In 1990, about440 million tourists arrived at their destination country and in 2004, 760 millionarrivals were counted (Mastny 2005). A new record of 898 million tourist arrivalswas noticed in 2007. Almost 50 percent or 402 million arrivals corresponded totrips for the purpose of leisure, recreation and holidays. Business travels accountedfor some 16 percent of the total (125 million). Another 212 million travels (26 per-cent) were performed for other motives, such as visiting friends and relatives (VFR),for religious purposes and pilgrimages and for health treatment. For the remaining8 percent of arrivals the purpose of visit was not specified.

Forecasts act on the assumption of 1,006.4 million arrivals in 2010 and 1,561.1million in 2020 (World Tourism Organization 2008).

Almost 138 million holiday trips were undertaken by German tourists in 2004.66.5 million of these trips abroad lasted 4 days or longer with an average stay of12 days and almost 29 million were performed by air (The European Commis-sion 2007). Additionally, 150.7 million domestic and outbound business trips werecarried out in 2006 leading to 11.6 million overnight stays abroad (VDR – The Busi-ness Travel Association of Germany 2007). In 2005, 890.000 German expatriateswere living permanently abroad (OECD 2005).

Falling Ill on Journeys

Among all 20 to 70 percent of the collective of international travellers suffer fromhealth related problems, 1 to 5 percent of them need medical support during theirstay and 0.1 to 1 percent have to be repatriated by air each year (Heinz et al. 2002).

182 M. Lindlar et al.

Cossar et al. performed an examination on travellers returning to Scotland from1977 to 1990. Thirty six percent of them showed health related problems duringtheir trip or immediately after return (Cossar et al. 1990).

Among other results the studies showed that travel related illness rises signifi-cantly with an increasing climatic and cultural contrast between the traveller’s coun-try of origin and the destination country (Reid and Cossar 1993). Thus, not onlytravelling in countries with special risks like for example communicable diseasesincreases morbidity. The collective of international travellers is increasingly inho-mogeneous regarding age and health state. The demographic change in countrieslike Germany results in a growing proportion of elderly people and very often alsochronically ill patients (Gerzer 2006).

Conditions that increase health risks during travel include:

– cardiovascular disorders– chronic hepatitis– chronic inflammatory bowel disease– chronic renal disease requiring dialysis– chronic respiratory diseases– diabetes mellitus– epilepsy– immunosuppression due to medication or to HIV infection– previous thromboembolic disease– severe anaemia– severe mental disorders– any chronic condition requiring frequent medical intervention (World Health

Organisation 2007).

Cardiovascular disease for example is a common cause of death and serious ill-ness in travellers, the most common in older travellers, especially when originat-ing from industrialized nations (Leggat and Fischer 2006). Diseases of civilizationalready show a high prevalence in the group of 40 to 65 years old people. Here,4.5 percent suffer from diabetes mellitus and even 35 percent have problems withraised blood pressure causing stroke, ischemic heart disease, renal disease or hy-pertensive disease (Kohler and Ziese 2004). Thus, not only elderly passengers runthe risk to incur severe complications of a chronic disease during a trip abroad. Tomaintain their mobility chronically ill persons wish safety regarding the quality ofmedical care during their travel.

Access to Qualified Medical Care Abroad

When visiting countries with special health risks or a different culture, however,there is often a lack of information on

� where to go in case of an emergency abroad,

TEMOS – Telemedicine for the Mobile Society Telemedical Support for Travellers 183

� whether the diagnosis of the foreign doctors is reliable, and� whether the quality of treatment is acceptable or whether repatriation is necessary.

From the health economic point of view avoidable costs for medical treatmentare caused by maltreatment on one hand. E.g. maltreatment of Malaria, the mostcommon infectious disease and cause of death in travellers (Steffen 2004), had beenreported on most travellers suffering from it when returning to the United States.They hadn’t been on an appropriate chemoprophylactic regimen when leaving forthe trip (Malaria surveillance-United States 2002). On the other hand, unnecessaryrepatriations cause avoidable costs. Kramer et al. showed in an analysis of 1094cases of international ambulance flight repatriations that up to 7 percent of the pa-tients repatriated by the German Air Rescue corresponded to NACA score 1 and 2.The NACA score, created by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ofthe U.S. Army, classifies injuries or illnesses on a scale up to 7 points where e.g.NACA 2 corresponds to moderate injuries or illnesses without necessity for emer-gency treatment while NACA 7 corresponds to death. NACA 1 and 2 usually do notmake flying home necessary (Kramer et al. 1996). As costs for aeromedical repatria-tion can easily reach US $50,000 or more (Leggat and Fischer 2006), avoiding theseunnecessary repatriations could reduce costs of insurance policies significantly. In-creasing the quality of treatment abroad could furthermore reduce repatriations ofpatients with a higher NACA score when treated till a re-establishment of fitness totravel. But travel agencies, travel insurance and assistance companies and globallyactive companies often are lacking of valid information on the quality of medicalinstitutions on site in case of a medical emergency of their customers or staff thustending to repatriate a patient in case of doubt.

How can this lack of information be resolved? Is it possible to raise the over-all quality of treatment of sick travellers by admitting them to adequate medicalinstitutions and how could this be ensured?

Can security in sense of reduced health risks be warranted during travels to in-crease the mobility especially of the elderly and chronic ill patients?

Can treatment abroad be optimized by improving the information available aboutthe patient’s history or when involving experts in the treatment abroad?

Telemedicine for the Mobile Society – TEMOS

Objective of TEMOS is to support the mobility of the society by improving thehealth related security on travels

� by providing valid information on the medical and non medical services of med-ical institutions acting at the state of the art,

� by establishing a certificate for foreign medical institutions, the so called TEMOShospitals and clinics, which documents the compliance with the medical state ofthe art as well as infrastructural or service requirements, and

� by supporting physicians worldwide with medical expertise of specialists partic-ipating in a telemedical network.

184 M. Lindlar et al.

TEMOS additionally aims at an improvement of the CME by involving interna-tional specialists.

TEMOS is a service for the travel market, the travel insurance and assistancemarket and also for the health sector.

Travelers shall be able to plan their journey knowing where to go with acute orchronic health problems thus increasing their personal mobility even with advancedage or being chronically ill.

Assistance companies and travel health insurances shall have the possibility toreduce costs and increase the quality of care for their customers admitting them tothe most appropriate medical institution abroad and thus occasionally avoiding costsfor inadequate treatment or unnecessary repatriations.

Tour operators shall have the possibility to increase the feeling of safety for theincreasing number of elderly and/or chronically ill patients being able to providetravels to regions with a high standard of medical care.

Physicians and medical experts worldwide shall have the possibility to exchangecase related knowledge or to provide or receive lectures on health related topics insense of Continuous Medical Education on a worldwide Internet and satellite basedtelemedical information and communication platform.

The Approach of TEMOS

The project TEMOS is supported by ESA ARTES-3 program focusing on satel-lite based telecommunications (European Space Agency 2005). The project startedin 2004 under participation of partners from France (Telemedicine TechnologiesS.A. – TTSA) and Germany (Center for Travel Medicine – CRM, Duesseldorf;Aachen University Hospital – Institute of Aerospace Medicine – RWTH, Aachen,German Aerospace Center – Institute of Aerospace Medicine – DLR, Cologne). Inaddition, three TEMOS certified pilot hospitals participate in the project (CretanMedicare, Medical Center Hersonissos, Isle of Crete, Greece; b. MEDICUS-Clinic,Side, Turkey) as well as a hospital in India (Privat Hospital Dr. Sachdev, New Delhi,India) and in Brazil (PUCRS University, Porto Alegre, Brazil).

Certification of Hospitals and the TEMOS Hospital Database

The TEMOS certification has been developed with and is accepted by many assis-tance companies, e.g. ADAC, AXA, Mondial, Roland and Malteser. The certifica-tion is offered to hospitals worldwide which guarantee a high quality treatment totheir patients. After a successful certification process the “TEMOS certificate” isgranted to the medical institutions. The certificate is valid for a 3-year period. Afterthis time, to keep the certificate, a recertification is needed.

The certification process validates a large number of properties of a hospital orclinic such as general information on location and contact data, the staffing, medical

TEMOS – Telemedicine for the Mobile Society Telemedical Support for Travellers 185

care, standards for hygiene, medical disciplines and equipment. Besides these med-ical properties also the so called hotel services are validated like the type of kitchen,the kind of rooms and their equipment with bathrooms, TV, Internet access or aircondition. Also data about the languages spoken in the medical institution and theconnectivity for telemedical services are collected. Some hundred different itemsare documented for the certification process.

The Certification Process

TEMOS is looking for clinics and hospitals to be certified in different regionsabroad. The medical institutions are categorized as institutions for primary-,secondary- and tertiary-care, specialized medical facilities and medical practices.

The regions are determined by the following parameters:

� amount of tourism in a region as described in statistical analyses� large number of German expatriates in the region as described in statistical

analyses� rural region in target countries evaluated by TEMOS� evaluation in that region requested by customers� clinics or regions recommended by a reliable source

When having identified a region, TEMOS performs a first investigation onthe existing hospitals or clinics. This is done by contacting reliable sources, e.g.embassies, official databases or ministries. Additionally medical institutions aresearched on the Internet (Fig. 1).

After having identified relevant medical institutions they are contacted via mail.Hospitals or clinics answering this request for participation receive the “Evaluationform A” from the TEMOS reference centre. This document queries the items orproperties, respectively, of the hospitals or clinics mentioned above. “Evaluationform A” is filled in by the institution’s management.

After having received this information, medical experts of the TEMOS referencecenter travel to the institution to perform an on-site validation documented in the“Evaluation form B”. It contains similar items with the possibility to validate themon a scale from 1 (excellent) to 6 (unsatisfactory) points.

Within 6 weeks after the on-site validation a report containing the accumulatedresults is sent to the medical institutions. The results represent 14 groups of validateditems. The quality standards of each group are validated with the following scores:

� A – No deviation from the required quality standards� B – Minor deviation from the required quality standards� C – Profound deviation from the required quality standards� D – Severe deviation from the required quality standards

Depending on the deviations from the required quality standards the report listsrecommendations or obligate requirements regarding the improvement of the quality

186 M. Lindlar et al.

Hospital search

Include?

Send request for

participation

Coopera-tion?

Evaluation form “A”

Validate data

Qualified?

Evaluationon site

Certificate ?

TEMOSCertification

Validate data

StopNo

Yes

No

No

Stop

No

yes

yes

yes

Evaluation form “B”

Fig. 1 TEMOS certification

standards in the respective group. A and B are accepted for a certification, C re-quires an obligate improvement on that sector if it is intended to keep the certifi-cate at the next reevaluation and D excludes the certification by TEMOS. Even ifonly one group is scored “D” a certification is rejected by TEMOS. When hav-ing passed the evaluation process, the medical institution receives the TEMOScertificate.

TEMOS is presently preparing its own ISO conformal accreditation as a certifi-cation authority.

The International Hospital Database

Besides the medical institutions involved in the certification process, further institu-tions worldwide are listed in the SQL-server based relational TEMOS data base.

In the first phase, the identification phase, regions of interest are identified anda web based research is performed. Additionally, TEMOS hospital identificationincludes interviews with reliable sources like assistance companies, embassies orbig enterprises that might have experiences with hospitals in the region concerned.These hospitals or clinics are contacted by the TEMOS reference center in thefollowing verification phase to verify the basic data available containing itemslike name, address, phone-and fax-number, e-mail address and the staff’s capa-bility to speak English, which is an example for an obligate requirement to beTEMOS-certified or to be listed in the TEMOS database. As many items as pos-sible are investigated during the verification phase. If this verification process hasbeen performed successfully, these hospitals are published in the final publication

TEMOS – Telemedicine for the Mobile Society Telemedical Support for Travellers 187

Fig. 2 Example of the graphical presentation of medical institutions on the CRM homepage(Greece) grey cross = TEMOS certified institution; white cross = other medical institution listedin the TEMOS data base

phase on the website (www.crm.de/temos), in the “Handbook for Travel Medicine”(subscribed to by 60.000 physicians) as well as on other media of the “Center forTravel Medicine” (Fig. 2).

Information on the TEMOS-hospitals and clinics is published in 3 levels of in-creasing details. The levels containing more information than basic data are acces-sible only for customers of TEMOS.

TEMOS Telemedical Services

Telemedical services can be provided via satellite communication hereinafter re-ferred to as SatCom, ISDN or terrestrial IP-based networks, hereinafter referred toas Internet because unlike for SatCom a Quality of Service (QoS) is not availableon the terrestrial lines used for TEMOS.

188 M. Lindlar et al.

TEMOS uses 2 different video conferencing systems, one hardware based (Zy-dacron Z470 hardware codec with Teleporter video conferencing software by ScottyGroup, Graz – Austria) and H.320/H.323 compatible. The other system is a clientserver software based application (Easymeeting video conferencing software byFeedback Italia – Torino – Italy).

Satellite Based Communication (IP)

TEMOS uses the European Eutelsat satellite network, satellite Atlantic Bird 1(AB1), for video conferencing with integrated file transfer on an IP basis. A band-width of 850 Kbit/sec can be guaranteed when performing these activities. Band-width and a virtual conferencing room inside Easymeeting have to be booked usinga module of the MEDSKY software delivered by TTSA, the partner from Paris.Bookings are accepted first come, first served (Fig. 3).

Internet Based Communication (IP)

When performing video conferences over the Internet using Easymeeting or theTeleporter the bandwidth cannot be guaranteed. Delay and frame drops due to vari-able bandwidths and bottlenecks cannot be excluded definitely.

ISDN

The dedicated, hardware based, H.264 (MPEG-4 version 10) encoding video con-ferencing system, can be connected by eventually already existing hardware basedvideo conferencing systems at other sites at a bandwidth of up to 512 Kbit/sec(ISDN/H.320 -8 bonded B-channels) or 2 Mbit/sec (IP/H.323). This system isalso used to perform lectures for students, e.g. of the University of Porto Alegre(Brazil).

To perform a secure exchange of medical data the MEDSKY platform from TTSAis used. MEDSKY contains an electronic medical case record where patient data canbe uploaded for the purpose of case discussions, teleconsultation and second opinionservices. Upload and download are encrypted. Furthermore MEDSKY includes anelectronic notification system between the participating members and the bookinginterface for IP based video conferences with the client server based Easymeetingsystem. This system is also used to perform the satellite based teleteaching.

TEMOS-SatCom interlinks TEMOS hospitals and clinics or links them to aGerman medical expert. Other hospitals worldwide can easily be integrated intothe satellite network to make use of the teleconsultation and second opinion service.The second opinion at present is provided by specialists of the Aachen UniversityHospital, a high-ranking medical institution in the Euregio, the border triangle ofthe countries Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.

TEMOS – Telemedicine for the Mobile Society Telemedical Support for Travellers 189

Fig. 3 Satellite antennas (left antenna: send & receive data; right antenna: receive only)

Telemedical Work Stations

A bidirectional satellite dish, directed to Atlantic Bird 1 at 12.5◦ west, has beenmounted at the 2 pilot sites on Crete and in Turkey, in Germany at the part-ner’s registered offices in Cologne, Duesseldorf and Aachen and at the TTSAhead quarters in Paris. The dishes are connected to a satellite terminal whichcommunicates via Ethernet with the telemedical work stations (except TTSA’sdish).

The telemedical work stations are commercial of the shelf personal computersupgraded with specific hardware (e.g. video cameras and headsets, radiologicalgreyscale display) or software (e.g. DICOM viewer and DICOM communication)depending on their purpose.

The basic equipment needed to be able to communicate over the TEMOS com-munication platform is a modern PC connected to the Internet, a webcam, a headsetand the MedSky client software. This guarantees low costs for the entrance into theTEMOS network for teleconsultation and teleteaching (Fig. 4).

TEMOS provides also transportable medical units including an electronic ECGand medical devices to register blood pressure, O2 saturation and body temperature.In addition, digital images can be taken from the patients. The transportable unitalso uses the MedSky platform to communicate patient data and can connect to theInternet via IP, PSTN, ISDN or a portable Inmarsat antenna which provides of a64 Kbit/sec ISDN-B-channel and can be used almost worldwide (Fig. 5).

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Fig. 4 Telemedical work station

Satellite Based Continuous Medical Education

CME lectures for physicians who are participants of courses in travel medicine heldby CRM can be transmitted in multicast mode to their homes or offices over theAB1 satellite. The lectures can be received in real-time using a simple receive-only

Fig. 5 Portable telemedical work station with ECG-belt, blood pressure meter, digital camera(right) and Inmarsat antenna with satellite telephone (left)

TEMOS – Telemedicine for the Mobile Society Telemedical Support for Travellers 191

satellite dish – the same one usually used to receive TV-broadcast transmissions –and a DVB-S receiver for the personal computer. The course participants can si-multaneously watch a lecture during which they can give written feedback to theteacher or ask questions via an Internet backward channel. CRM uses a fixed bidi-rectional send-and-receive satellite terminal to feed the stream of the lecture out oftheir lecture hall into the satellite network. They also provide a transportable satellitedish, offering the opportunity to travel e.g. to hotels where the lectures are held foradditional participants or to hospitals, clinics or other locations. Live transmissionsout of an operating theatre can also be performed in that way.

Internet Based e-Learning

A web server based online e-learning system has been developed by CRM withthe possibility to carry out teaching units via Internet. This system contains mul-timedia teaching material, online accomplishable multiple choice tests and offersthe possibility to get into contact with the teachers. The course in travel medicine,the newly developed teaching methods and its’ curriculum have been certified bythe Physicians Chamber of the Northern Rhine Area (AEKNO). Participants of thecourse receive the degree in travel medicine after passing a final exam.

Results and Current Status of TEMOS

TEMOS started with the pilot operational phase in June 2007. The duration of thisphase is one year. The state documented herein refers to March 2008.

Certification of Hospitals

Turkey

In Turkey 241 medical institutions have been identified and contacted via mails.Fifty of them replied showing interest in the project. During a five-week evaluationjourney to Turkey 47 hospitals have been visited and on-site evaluations have beenperformed. Five medical institutions have been certified. One of them, the MEDI-CUS Clinic in Side, is a TEMOS pilot site.

Greece

In Greece 339 medical institutions have been identified on the website of the “Gen-eral Secretariat of National Statistical Service of Greece”. All have been contacted.Ten mails returned as undeliverable. In 30 replies interest has been expressed.Twenty institutions have been visited and evaluated by the TEMOS evaluation team.

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Eleven of them are now certified TEMOS medical institutions. One of them, CretanMedicare’s Medical Center Hersonissos, is a TEMOS pilot site.

Tunisia

Tunisian’s embassy and consulate, the Tunisian National Tourist Office, the GermanAutomobile Club (ADAC) and the German Air Rescue have been contacted toprovide data on relevant medical institutions in the country but without success.Thus, on basis of an Internet research a first list of 187 medical institutions has beencreated and institutions appearing appropriate for TEMOS have been determinedin a selection procedure according to the region specific criteria listed in the meth-ods chapter herein. Finally 73 medical institutions in particular in tourist regionshave been identified and contacted via mails. Five replied and have been visited foron-site evaluations.

Brazil

The evaluation of the Brazilian medical institutions has been carried out in coop-eration with the medical school of the University of Porto Alegre. In addition tothe University hospital 4 medical institutions, recommended by the medical school,have been contacted, visited and certified successfully. The University hospital isone of the cooperating sites for/of the TEMOS communication platform.

India

Three medical institutions have been evaluated and certified. The Privat Hospital Dr.Sachdev in New Delhi is a cooperating site on the TEMOS communication platform.

Ecuador

One hospital was completely evaluated corresponding to the TEMOS certificationstandards. At present, a contract has not been signed yet.

Thailand

Three hospitals have been visited and one has been certified by TEMOS. Thailandis still in the identification phase.

Indonesia

Five hundred and nine Indonesian medical institutions have been contacted by mailor fax in early 2007. During a first pre-evaluation journey 15 institutions havebeen visited and 8 of them have been identified as potential partners within theTEMOS network of medical institutions. All of them expressed their strong interest

TEMOS – Telemedicine for the Mobile Society Telemedical Support for Travellers 193

Table 1 Visited and certified medical institutions

Country TEMOS certified visited

Brazil 5 5China 1Ecuador 1Greece 11 22India 3 3Indonesia 1 20Seychelles 3Thailand 1 3Tunisia 5Turkey 5 47

Total 26 110

to become TEMOS certified institutions. At present 20 hospitals have been visited.One has been certified by TEMOS.

Up to now, 26 hospitals in Brazil, Greece, India, Thailand, and Turkey have be-come members of the TEMOS network of certified medical institutions (Table 1).

Hospital Investigations in Progress

Currently 526 medical institutions in Poland and 208 in the Czech Republic havebeen contacted by mail. The data are currently analyzed to identify potential partnersfor the TEMOS network of certified medical institutions.

TEMOS Hospital Database

The TEMOS database currently comprises 1084 datasets on medical institutions in49 countries.

Two hundred and seventy five of these datasets have been validated and informa-tion on the respective medical institutions has been published on the CRM website.The different types of medical institutions are listed in Table 2.

Telemedical Services

This chapter focuses on the results of the testing and implementation of the technicalsystem architecture. It does not contain any results of the pilot operational phasewhich is still running since June 2007.

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Table 2 Published data on 285 different medical institutions (∗ p.c.: primary care; s.c.: secondarycare; t.c.: tertiary care; s.f.: specialised medical facility; m.p.: medical practice)

Country/Institution∗ p.c.− m.p s.c. t.c. s.f. published

Argentina 5 5Australia 1 11 2 14Brazil 1 4 5Croatia 5 4 3 12Czech Republic 7 2 9Ecuador 2 22 11 35Egypt 4 4Greece 11 14 1 26India 2 4 4 10Italy 1 14 15Japan 13 13 7 33Mauritius 1 1 2Mexico 21 2 1 24Morocco 4 2 1 7Russia 2 1 6 9Seychelles 2 1 3Spain 7 3 2 12Thailand 1 1Tunisia 3 6 1 1 11Turkey 1 31 10 6 48

Total 39 171 42 33 285

Satellite Communications

The satellite link grants access to the Eutelsat network itself and, via gateways,also to the Internet and the servers of TTSA running the MEDSKY medical com-munication platform and the EasyMeeting server for client-server based videoconferencing.

Satellite Bandwidth

The reservation of satellite bandwidth is crucial to be able to perform video con-ferencing at a defined quality in sense of picture resolution and frame rate. Oversatellite multichannel sessions with up to 4 active channels have been tested. Oneactive channel in the video conference corresponds to a window where the videoand audio signal of a participant is transferred to the EasyMeeting server. The guar-anteed bandwidth available on the platform is 850 Kbit/sec and the video resolutionis 320 × 240 pixels.

The bandwidth and the frame rate for the channel vary depending on the numberof active channels as listed below.

The more active channels participate in a session the less the frame rate. Whenperforming video conferences without booking bandwidth in advance, we experi-enced a significant elongation of the signal propagation delay.

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The same occurred when increasing the number of participants without decreas-ing the frame rate. A delay above 10 seconds made the system unfeasible. As a resultthe bandwidth has been contracted to be available continuously. Sessions are grantedin a “first in, first served” manner. That means that when a session is booked for aspecific time, no other session can be performed in parallel over satellite. The systemrelated delay is about 800 milliseconds caused by the distance to the geostationarysatellite orbit at 36,000 km distance to be absolved 2 times and vice versa in the“double hop” environment where the signal runs 2 times to the satellite and back tothe ground.

Satellite Reliability

Once synchronized, the connection between the satellite terminal and the satelliteremains stable. An interruption has been observed only in case of hardware failureor heavy rainfalls at the client site or at the location of the Network Operation Center(N.O.C.) in Torino (Italy).

The time for a synchronization of the satellite terminal with the network afterswitching it on takes from 10 to 30 minutes. Thus it is recommended to leave thesatellite terminal switched on.

Satellite Costs

Costs of satellite communications strongly depend on the bandwidth guaranteed andthe interval, from booking to usage, in which a connection of guaranteed bandwidthhas to be provided by the network operator. In the beginning of the TEMOS projecta session had to be booked at least 24 hours prior to the desired date. As this has notbeen feasible due to organizational reasons (e.g. contracting), presently a dedicatedbandwidth of 800 Kbit/sec is available permanently.

There is a yearly basic fee for each terminal covering the access to the satellitenetwork and the support. Costs per minute for the access to the video conferenc-ing system at a guaranteed bandwidth (depending on the number of channels – seeTable 3) are 0.5 Euro/minute. As these prices are based on a mixed calculation, theisolated costs for the satellite usage at guaranteed bandwidth cannot be specified indetail (Table 4).

Table 3 Relation of active channels to bandwidth and guaranteed frame rate

no. channelsbandwidth/channel(Kbit/sec) frame rate (fps)

1 ∼600 252 ∼300 153 ∼200 154 ∼150 15

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Table 4 Cost comparison of the TEMOS communication channels

channel monthly fee costs per minute Bandwidth

satellite ∼ 90 Euro 0.50 Euro guaranteedISDN @ (6 B-channels) ∼ 96 Euro 0.66 Euro

(Germany<>India)guaranteed

ADSL ∼ 35 Euro none not guaranteed

Internet Communications

Both, the EasyMeeting as well as the Scotty video conferencing system can be usedvia IP over the Internet.

Internet Bandwidth

Until a complete migration to IPv6 is performed, a Quality of Service (QoS) ora guaranteed bandwidth, respectively, cannot be guaranteed when communicatingover the Internet. We observed this especially when testing IP-video conferencingover a satellite based Internet access without guaranteed bandwidth. Especially inthe late afternoon, the Internet usage via satellite often appears to increase enor-mously. At these times even conferences at a bandwidth of 56 Kbit/sec often cannotbe performed in an acceptable manner. However, we tested the systems over ter-restrial Internet links as well and experienced no significant problems or losses ofquality when each site was equipped with a broadband Internet access with at least256 Kbit/sec upstream and when only a point-to–point session has been performed.When performing multipoint sessions frame drops occurred more often and audioquality decreased.

The Scotty system worked well over Internet, when bandwidth for the channelhas been adapted manually in the software settings to the capacity of the Internetconnection.

Internet Reliability

When using the Internet, we experienced no problems with both, the Scotty and theEasymeeting system, when considering a spare bandwidth of at least 56 Kbit/sec.A satellite Internet connection without guaranteed bandwidth turned out not to bereliable not only because of the varying bandwidth, but also because of occasionalinterruptions to the Internet where the cause could not be determined.

Internet Costs

Costs for a terrestrial Internet connection depend on its type. The costs for an ADSLconnection vary from country to country. In the TEMOS scenario the EasyMeetingsystem works at a bandwidth of 300 Kbit/sec in a point to point session. The Scottysystem delivers similar picture and audio quality at a slightly lower bandwidth. Thus

TEMOS – Telemedicine for the Mobile Society Telemedical Support for Travellers 197

the ADSL connection should provide an upstream of minimum 382 Kbit/sec. Sucha connection is available in Germany at monthly rate of about 30 Euro for the con-nection including a data flat rate for the traffic (Table 4).

ISDN Communications

Only the Scotty system is able to connect via ISDN using the H.320 protocol. Onlypoint to point sessions are possible when not using a multi-user control unit (MCU).The TEMOS platform itself does not provide a MCU.

ISDN Bandwidth

The Scotty system provides of a 4 BRI-ISDN interface able to bundle 8 ISDN-B-channels and resulting in a maximum bandwidth of 512 Kbit/sec. We tested thesystem with different counterparts (Scotty, Tandberg, Polycom) and different videocodecs. The H.264 hardware codec used by Scotty is downward compatible to oldersystems encoding with H.263 and H.261 codec. We experienced the highest picturequality at a 4CIF resolution (704 × 576 Pixel) at a bandwidth of 384 Kbit/sec andH.264 encoding. Increasing the bandwidth did not lead to a better video quality andonly increased the speed of concurrent file transfers. Video conferences with H.263encoding counterparts showed no improvement of image quality from 256 Kbit/secupwards. A subjective validation of video quality was done by 2 independentviewers.

ISDN Reliability

ISDN lines are routed over the telephone network. When established, a connectionbandwidth is guaranteed, but not the stability of the line itself.

Furthermore, when bundling or bonding several ISDN-lines, it is not guaranteedthat all lines use the same connection route. We experienced connection losses sev-eral times when performing video conferences with different counterparts. Interna-tional connections (India, Brazil) were less stable than national ones. This resultedin the necessity to re-establish the connection and the video conference.

ISDN Costs

Costs for ISDN video conferencing have to be calculated per B-channel used anddepend highly on the tariff the telephone company charges for connections to thedestination. In Germany an ISDN line with 2 B-channels at 64 Kbit/sec (EURO-ISDN) costs 24 Euro per month basic fee plus the connection costs. One minuteper ISDN-channel currently costs 0.111 Euro to India and 0.083 Euro to Brazil(ARCOR Company, September 2007). Assuming to perform a point-to-point con-nection at a bandwidth of 384 Kbit/sec (6 B-channels bonded) the costs are 0.666Euro/min to India or 0.498 to Brazil.

198 M. Lindlar et al.

In the example above the costs for ISDN are slightly higher than the costs ofSatCom. Depending on the destination country the rates for ISDN can be lower.However, ADSL is most economic among the channels for telemedicine (Table 4).

Discussion

To improve the feeling of safety on journeys and to optimize medical services fortravellers abroad the TEMOS integrated services combine the certification of hospi-tals and clinics, the TEMOS database and associated information system of medicalinstitutions worldwide, and a medical communication platform for CME and tele-consultation. TEMOS tries to satisfy the need of different target groups like travelinsurances, assistance companies, tourism companies, globally acting companiesand the traveller itself to get information on qualified care abroad.

The support by assistance companies during the preparation phase of the projectas well as the great interest of hospitals abroad show that the TEMOS approachhas a great potential to prove its value in the context of travel medicine and travelsecurity especially for the elderly and chronically ill patients. Satellite, Internet-and ISDN-based communications proved to be suitable to perform teleteaching andmedical support for patients abroad. The drop in costs for broadband Internet accessfor public and private customers in most parts of the world as well as the pricedecrease of hardware grant access to telemedicine at moderate costs.

The certification of hospitals turned out to be beneficial for the different cus-tomers of TEMOS. The traveller or his travel insurance will have access to qualitycertified data about hospitals worldwide, as already realized for Greece, Turkey aswell as for parts of South America and Asia. The medical institutions validated forthe TEMOS database are listed on the website of CRM which is visited approxi-mately 450,000 times per month. Hospitals abroad expressed their interest in partic-ipation for different reasons like the demand for CME, the advantage in competitionand the augmentation of reputation in the region and in relation to the assistance andtravel companies.

ISDN and satellite networks can guarantee bandwidth for digital communicationon the respective platform. This is important for applications where a continuousdata transfer is crucial (like telepresence of experts during medical interventions) orwhen performing lectures. But this advantage causes higher costs in relation to e.g.a broadband Internet access like ADSL. Apart from the costs for the communicationinterfaces needed for ISDN- or satellite based video conferencing (about 1,500 Eurofor the 4-BRI-ISDN interface or the satellite terminal including antenna respec-tively), the monthly fees are higher (about 100 Euro/month for satellite access or4 ISDN-lines respectively). In addition, connection related costs per minute accrue.Broadband Internet access (ADSL) offers unlimited traffic at moderate costs andhigh bandwidth which however is not guaranteed. ADSL is available at least in thetourist regions or business centers where TEMOS is mainly active.

The decision to use ISDN or satellite communications or terrestrial broadbandlines depends on the requirements for the application itself and the availability

TEMOS – Telemedicine for the Mobile Society Telemedical Support for Travellers 199

on-site. For TEMOS this means that teleteaching, if not transmitted point-to-pointfrom the expert to a lecture hall, requires a multicast environment with guaranteedbandwidth like the satellite platform offers. For teleconsulting and second opinion,mostly performed point-to-point, guaranteed bandwidth is not crucial. When broad-band Internet connections are available, they are mostly sufficient for these purposesas we experienced during the preparation period for TEMOS.

Sparsely populated or rural areas as well as small islands often lack broadbandlines or an ISDN network.

In most cases SatCom is the only option for these regions to partake intelemedicine, especially when bandwidth consuming applications like video con-sultations shall be performed. To provide telemedicine in a mobile environment,like on aircrafts, ships or on expeditions satellite solutions are available even inabsence of cellular networks. Thus space research bridged the digital divide arisingin absence of a terrestrial data infrastructure.

Conclusion

The TEMOS.network of certified medical institutions follows a new approach toimprove security during travels abroad. The database of international hospitals de-livers assembled and validated data that is currently not available for the public fromany other source. Together with CME and expert consultation over the TEMOStelemedical platform an integrated service has been developed that has the poten-tial to improve medical care abroad significantly, especially when the number ofparticipants will rise in the future bringing in international expertise in the field ofmedicine to TEMOS. Internet based communication enables cost effective services.SatCom guarantees that these services can be offered anywhere in the world.

Acronyms

ADSL Asynchronous Digital Subscriber LineBRI Basic Rate InterfaceCodec Coder/DecoderCIF Common Intermediate FormatCRM Center of Travel MedicineDICOM Digital Imaging and Communications in MedicineDLR German Aerospace CenterINMARSAT SatCom providerISDN Integrated Services Digital NetworkPSTN Public Switched Telephone NetworkSatCom Satellite CommunicationsTEMOS Telemedicine for the Mobile SocietyTTSA Telemedicine Technologies S.A.

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Reid D. and J.H. Cossar (1993) Epidemiology of travel, Br Med Bull, (49)2, 257–68.Gerzer, R. (2006) Introduction to The Travelmedicus, Travelmedicus, 2, 2.World Health Organisation (2007) International travel and health, Geneva.Leggat P.A. and P.R. Fischer (2006) Accidents and repatriation, Travel Medicine and Infectious

Disease, 4, 135–146.Kohler M. and T. Ziese (2004) Telefonischer Gesundheitssurvey des Robert-Koch-Instituts zu chro-

nischen Krankheiten und ihren Bedingungen, Berlin: Robert Koch-Institut.Steffen, R. (2004) Epidemiology: morbidity and mortality in travellers in Keystone, J.S. et al. (eds.)

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/telecom/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=187

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology

Jin-Chang Guo

Abstract With the development of the space technology, communication satellitescan play an important role in enhancing the global Internet. The communicationsatellite network has many unique merits than the ground network. To incorporatethe communication satellites into the global network is a fascinating but compli-cated work. The communication path through the satellites is very different from theground network, e.g., we need treat the effects to the Internet services introduced bythe longer time-delay and the Jitter, the services will encounter the effects of thehigher Bit Error Rate etc.; A satellite is a typical resource-constrained system, wecannot design the satellite network node the same as the ground network node, e.g.,the network topology, the network segment, the network node ports, the hardwarestructure of the node, the interface to the ground network or the user terminalsetc.; Additionally, a series of bran-new network protocols are also needed for anintegration of the space network with the ground network etc.

In this chapter, we summarize our research works on the satellite communica-tion network architecture, satellite communication network protocol, and some keytechnologies for the satellite communication node etc. The key technologies areclassified into software technology, hardware technology, and system technology. 3typical research works for all of the 3 kinds of key technologies are given in thischapter. A new S-UFP satellite communication protocol which can support bothfixed ATM cells and variable-length packets is introduced in section “Protocol de-sign for the communication satellite network”, a design of on-board router is givenin section “Design of an on-board router”, a setup policy research of ILISL is givenin section “ILISL in a multilayered satellite network”. The simulation result is givenas a verification of the feasibility of the design. Some tentative viewpoints and re-search plan is introduced. We will try to provide a useful reference for the construct-ing of the global communication network with space communication technology, to

J.-C. Guo (B)Chief Researcher, R&D Department, CAST (China Academy of Space Technology), Beijing100094, P.R.Chinae-mail: guojinchang@yahoo.com.cn

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 9, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

201

202 J.-C. Guo

extend the ground network as a reliable global network without information gap,and people can connect to the Internet really at anytime, anywhere on our planet.

Keywords Satellite communication · Satellite network · Protocol · On-boardrouter · ISL

Introduction

The internet has become increasingly important to users in their everyday lives. Thestatistic sources from internet by John Horrigan in 2006 shows that the proportion ofAmericans online on a typical day grew from 36% of the entire adult population inJanuary 2002 to 44% in December 2005. The number of adults who said they loggedon at least once a day from home rose from 27% of American adults in January 2002to 35% in late 2005. And for many of those users, the internet has become a crucialsource of information – Pew Internet & American Life Project show that fully 45%of internet users, or about 60 million Americans, say that the internet helped themmake big decisions or negotiate their way through major episodes in their lives in theprevious two years. So did as other people all over the world. Internet has becomepart of our life.

But we still remember the earthquake at Dec 26, 2006 in the Pacific Ocean whichdisrupted the internet access in Asia. The quake damaged some undersea cablesoff the Taiwan coast. These lines route calls and process Internet traffic for severalAsian countries. Telephone and Internet service was disrupted across Asia cuttingoff 50% to 60% of overall internet service capacity affecting connections to China,Japan and Southeast Asia. Service from those countries to the US resulted in 90%of capacity loss. Many major telephone and Internet Companies are experiencingservice interruption at this time.

The damaged portion of the cables had to be pulled to the surface and repairedaboard ships. The repair process prolonged from the estimated some weeks to sev-eral months that it really took. People had to suffer from the bad internet servicesfrom not go through to poor quality nearly half a year.

However, with the development of the space technology, communication satellitecan play an important role in enhancing the Internet. It can work as a backbone of theglobal network, a router of the global network, and even a hub-spoke network nodedirect to the user terminal. With the cooperation of the communication satellite,we can provide a reliable Internet services to people on anywhere of our planet atanytime even in an emergency.

To incorporate the communication satellite into the global network is a fascinat-ing but complicated work. The communication path through the satellites is verydifferent from the ground network, e.g., we need treat the effects to the Internetservices introduced by the longer time-delay and the Jitter, the services will en-counter the effects of the higher BER (Bit Error Rate) etc.; A satellite is a typicalresource-constrained system, we cannot design the satellite network node the same

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 203

as the ground network node, e.g., the network topology, the network segment, thenetwork node ports, the hardware structure of the node, or the user terminals etc.;Additionally, a series of bran-new network protocols are also needed for an integra-tion of the space network with the ground network etc.

In this chapter, we summarize our research works on the satellite communica-tion network architecture, satellite communication network protocol, and some keytechnologies for the satellite communication node etc. The key technologies areclassified into software technology, hardware technology, and system technology.3 typical research works for all of the 3 kinds of key technologies are given in thischapter. A new S-UFP satellite communication protocol which can support bothfixed ATM cells and variable-length packets is introduced in section “Protocol de-sign for the communication satellite network”, a design of on-board router is givenin section “Design of an on-board router”, a setup policy research of ILISL is givenin section “ILISL in a multilayered satellite network”. The simulation result is givenas a verification of the feasibility of the design. Some tentative viewpoints and re-search plan is introduced. We will try to provide a useful reference for the construct-ing of the global communication network with space communication technology, toextend the ground network as a reliable global network without information gap,and people can connect to the Internet really at anytime, anywhere on our planet.

Communication Satellite Network Architecture and KeyTechnology Analysis

The Role of the Satellite Communication Network

The requirement to the communication satellite network includes both the com-mercial and military communication services (Farserotu and Prasad 2000). Withthe convergence of Internet and space technology, it is possible not only to trans-mit/receive information containing images, graphics, sound and videos as usual,but also the ISP industry can offer such services as: linking consumers and busi-nesses via internet, monitoring/maintaining customer’s Web sites, network manage-ment/systems integration, backbone access services for other ISP’s, and managingonline purchase and payment systems etc. especially provide services to users allover the world at the places where the ground network services are unavailable.

It shows that there are increasing users who have special purpose with internetwould like to use such an internet route which can provide services at anytime andanywhere in the world.

Figure 1 shows a global network with satellite communication network. In thiscase, the network user can use ground network and/or connect to a satellite di-rectly. The communication satellite can provide network services where groundnetwork not covered. The ground network can be extended from ground to the nearearth space, or deeper space. Even a navigation satellite network or other specified

204 J.-C. Guo

Fig. 1 A global communication network

satellites can provide some communication and network function, as a supplementand enhancement to the satellite communication network.

Communication Satellite in the Satellite Communication Network

Several different types of global satellite communications systems are in variousstages of development. Each system, either planned or existing, has a unique con-figuration optimized to support a unique business plan based on the services of-fered and the markets targeted. In the last few years more than 60 global systemshave been proposed to meet the growing demand for international communicationsservices.

There are four general system designs, which are differentiated by the type oforbit in which the satellites operate: Geostationary Orbit (GEO), Low-earth Orbit(LEO), Medium-earth Orbit (MEO), and Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO). Each ofthese has various strengths and weaknesses in its ability to provide particular ser-vices.

GEO systems orbit the Earth at a fixed distance of 35,786 kilometers (22,300miles). The satellite’s speed at this altitude matches that of the Earth’s rotation,thereby keeping the satellite stationary over a particular spot on the Earth.

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 205

Geostationary satellites orbit the Earth above the equator and cover one third ofthe Earth’s surface at a time. The majority of communications satellites are GEOsand these systems will continue to provide the bulk of the communications satellitecapacity for many years to come.

GEO systems have significantly greater available bandwidth than the LEO andMEO systems. This permits them to provide better broadband services that may beunpractical for other types of systems. Because of their capacity and configuration,GEOs are often more cost-effective for carrying high-volume traffic, especially overlong-term contract arrangements.

LEO systems fly about 1,000 kilometers above the Earth (between 400 miles and1,600 miles) and, unlike GEOs, travel across the sky. A typical LEO satellite takesless than two hours to orbit the Earth, which means that a single satellite is “in view”of ground equipment for a only a few minutes. As a consequence, if a transmissiontakes more than the few minutes that any one satellite is in view, a LEO system must“hand off” between satellites in order to complete the transmission. In general, thiscan be accomplished by constantly relaying signals between the satellite and variousground stations, or by communicating between the satellites themselves using ISL(inter-satellite links).

In addition, LEO systems are designed to have more than one satellite in viewfrom any spot on Earth at any given time, minimizing the possibility that thenetwork will loose the transmission. Because of the fast-flying satellites, LEO sys-tems must incorporate sophisticated tracking and switching equipment to maintainconsistent service coverage. The need for complex tracking schemes is minimized,but not obviated, in LEO systems designed to handle only short-bursttransmissions.

The advantage of the LEO system is that the satellites’ proximity to the groundenables them to transmit signals with no or very little delay, unlike GEO systems.In addition, because the signals to and from the satellites need to travel a relativelyshort distance, LEOs can operate with much smaller user equipment (e.g., antennae)than can systems using a higher orbit. In addition, a system of LEO satellites isdesigned to maximize the ability of ground equipment to “see” a satellite at anytime, which can overcome the difficulties caused by obstructions such as trees andbuildings.

MEO systems operate at about 10,000 kilometers (between 1,500 and 6,500miles) above the Earth, which is lower than the GEO orbit and higher than mostLEO orbits. The MEO orbit is a compromise between the LEO and GEO orbits.Compared to LEOs, the more distant orbit requires fewer satellites to provide cov-erage than LEOs because each satellite may be in view of any particular locationfor several hours. Compared to GEOs, MEOs can operate effectively with smaller,mobile equipment and with less latency (signal delay).

Although MEO satellites are in view longer than LEOs, they may not alwaysbe at an optimal elevation. To combat this difficulty, MEO systems often featuresignificant coverage overlap from satellite to satellite, which in turn requires moresophisticated tracking and switching schemes than GEOs.

206 J.-C. Guo

HEO systems operate differently than LEOs, MEOs or GEOs. As the name im-plies, the satellites orbit the Earth in an elliptical path rather than the circular pathsof LEOs and GEOs. The HEO path typically is not centered on the Earth, as LEOs,MEOs and GEOs are. This orbit causes the satellite to move around the Earth fasterwhen it is traveling close to the Earth and slower the farther away it gets. In addition,the satellite beam covers more of the Earth from farther away.

The orbits are designed to maximize the amount of time each satellite spends inview of populated areas. Therefore, unlike most LEOs, HEO systems do not offercontinuous coverage over outlying geographic regions, especially near the southpole.

Several of the proposed global communications satellite systems actually arehybrids of the four varieties reviewed above. For example, all of the proposedHEO communications systems are hybrids, most often including a GEO or MEOsatellite orbital plane around the equator to ensure maximum coverage in thedensely populated zone between 40 degrees North Latitude and 40 degrees SouthLatitude.

In general, GEO satellites play an important role for a stable zone satellite com-munication. GEO satellites can provide a global satellite communication throughISL but with a bigger time delay. LEO satellite constellation can provide a betterreal-time global satellite communication with a complex network links, and needssome tens of satellites for a better global coverage. MEO satellites can provide acommunication performance between GEO and LEO. A dedicated MEO satelliteor a compound satellite with a navigation satellite is feasible for a practical satel-lite communication network. Further, a multi-layered satellite network with ILISL(Inter-Layer Inter-Satellite Link) will boost the satellite communication networkwith an enhanced performance compared to a mono-layered satellite network. Ina multi-layered satellite network, a GEO satellite can also work as a stationarycore-router for the satellite network to improve the connectivity for the movingMEO/LEO satellites. With a multi-layered satellite network, we can construct aneconomical and reasonable satellite communication network to fulfill a specificglobal communication requirement. Figure 2 shows two typical operation modelsand communication path through a multi-layered satellite network.

Fig. 2 Typical operation and communication model through a multi-layered satellite network

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 207

Architecture Analysis of a Communication Satellite Network

Usually the satellite communication networks can be classified into hub-spoke andmesh topologies in Figs. 3 and 4 respectively (Zhang et al. 2004). The hub-spoketopology is comprised of a number of remote earth terminals communicating witha hub terminal, there are no direct links among remote earth terminals. This topol-ogy is efficient in supporting client and server communications. Most commercialbroadband satellite systems have adopted the hub-spoke architecture to exploit thearchitectural synergy with other broadband network access technologies such as Ca-ble Modem, and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). This synergy reduces both systemand terminal costs. This topology is suitable for GEO satellite network, in which theGEO satellite works as a hub.

In addition to network access to a hub-spoke network, there are needs for remoteterminals to directly communicate among themselves especially when they are notin the same satellite coverage area, which can be fulfilled with a mesh topology.Direct peer-to-peer communication enables services such as VoIP, and other timesensitive applications.

Recent advances made by various industry standard organizations and satelliteequipment vendor have enabled satellite networks to support IP services more effi-ciently.

For a multi-layered communications satellite network, which consists of GEO/MEO/LEO satellites in Fig. 25, it is recommended to adopt the mesh topology.

In such a satellite network, we can setup as more ISLs between LEO satellites, upto 6 ISLs for each LEO satellite, e.g. 2 for intra-orbit satellites, and 4 for inter-orbitsatellites. For some LEO satellites, we can setup ILISLs to the GEO/MEO satelliteif it is necessary.

ISLs between GEO satellites are useful to connect the different coverage zonesof the different GEO communication satellites. Compared to the satellite to be

Fig. 3 Hob-spoke network

208 J.-C. Guo

Fig. 4 Mesh network

connected through the earth gateway, it has higher efficiency and communicationperformance for communication services.

Key Technology Analysis for a Communication Satellite Network

We will experience a obvious delay in a play-by-play TV program from oversea.People who had a international travel ten years ago usually had an experience ofthe IP phone service at that time. The echo of the voice is a troublesome problem.There are similar and even more key technologies need to be solved when we setupa global satellite network.

A satellite network structure is very different from a ground network. The groundnetwork is expanding fast from IPv4 to IPv6, supports network nodes from 232 to2128, but for a specified country or space group, some thousands of satellite nodesare enough in the near future. We can design the satellite communication networkas a segment of the global network, and preserve certain IP address for it. But thenetwork topology is very different from the ground network, it has a dynamic fea-ture. A satellite network node is a resource-constrained system working in the spaceenvironment. The power consuming, the volume of the network unit, and thermaldispersion etc. become prominent issues. For the whole communication path, theeffect of time-delay, jitter, DER (data error rate) etc. must be considered, so a bran-new protocol is needed for a satellite network. The protocol needs compatible tothe now exiting satellite communication protocol and the ground network protocol.The interface of the satellite network to the ground network i.e. the gateway of theground station needs a special design.

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 209

Overall, the key technology for a communication satellite network can be classi-fied as software technology, hardware technology, and system technology etc. fromthe top view. Satellite communication protocol design, on-board router design, andsatellite network route design are given as typical examples for the above 3 type ofkey technologies respectively in this paper.

Protocol Design for the Communication Satellite Network

Requirement Analysis for the Protocol Design

We usually draw money from an ATM machine, here ATM means a type of protocolfor a particular network. Internet also has its protocol which is called as IP. So doesthe satellite network (Jin-Chang et al. 2006).

Now, satellite communication services are migrating from narrowband com-munication to wideband multimedia communication. More and more researchersare focusing on the multimedia communication over satellite. Broadband multi-media satellite projects are planned especially for broadband multimedia services.Advanced technologies, such as onboard processing and onboard switching etc.,are to be used in new satellite communication systems. By updating the circuitswitching to fast packet switching onboard, the efficiency of the onboard commu-nication links are improved greatly and new services can be support over satellitelinks.

Usually, the protocols of ATM, IP and DVB could be adopted for a broadbandmultimedia satellite communication network system. Most of the researches wereconcentrated on ATM protocol for broadband multimedia satellite communicationsystems before 1990s, because the ATM protocol could provide better QoS forbroadband multimedia services at that time. With the maturity of the TCP/IP pro-tocols on the commercial network, this protocol is being used for satellite broad-band communication. IP over Satellite (IPoS) and DVB-S can be adopted for IPbroadband multimedia communications satellite now. But ATM protocol has beenusing on the satellite for many years, it has unique advantage for backbone net-work and even for military networks, so ATM protocol and IP protocol need tobe supported simultaneously for satellite communication for a long time in thefuture.

IP over ATM, in which IP packets were transported via ATM, or ATM protocolworked as a carrier layer for IP, is a complicated scheme, with more spending forprotocol processing, and lower encapsulation efficiency etc. Therefore it is not anideal scheme for the broadband multimedia satellite communication systems. TheDVB-S is a popular standard for voice and video broadcast in only one direction,supporting ATM and IP protocol simultaneously, and providing other services suchas data service. Its main shortcoming is complex for data service processing. TheDigital Video Broadcasting – Return Channel Satellite (DVB-RCS) is a newer stan-dard supporting both forward- and backward-link, but it is similar to IP over ATM,

210 J.-C. Guo

i.e. ATM was used as a carrier layer in the forward links, too. Other network protocolstandards for the ground networks, e.g. GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Networks,specified by the ITU-T in 2003), IEEE802.16 (for wireless MAN, specified by IEEEin 2004) support both ATM and IP protocols, but they are suited only for several tensmiles range of network paths on the ground, distinguishing from a networks linksover satellite with longer time-delay and larger attenuation.

The main purpose of the protocol research is to design and verify a protocolthat can not only support IP services over satellite, but also it is compatible withthe ATM protocol adopted currently. Other purposes include trying to find a betterscheme for higher bandwidth efficiency, better QoS etc. Based on the above analysisof the mentioned protocols and their features for ATM and IP services, we designeda scheme to support the switching and transmitting for both fixed-lengths ATM cellsand variable-length packets over satellite channels.

A Basic Satellite Communication Network System Architectureand Protocol Reference Model

The architecture of a broadband satellite communication system is given in Fig. 5.It includes Broadband Communication Satellite, Gateway, Master Control Stationand User Terminal, etc.

Fig. 5 Architecture of the broadband satellite communication system

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 211

Fig. 6 SPS of broadbandsatellite system

ATM AL PAL TAL

Physical Layer

ATMService

TDMservice

Data Link Layer

Network layer

Packetservice

Multi-beam antenna, onboard switching and onboard processing technology areused for the GEO communication satellite in Ku and/or Ka band, supporting allof the voice, video, and data service etc. The applications of the system includeinteractive multimedia service over satellite (i.e. broadband satellite access) for thegeneral purpose users, and Private Business Network for the commercial users.

The Protocol Reference Model (PRM) of the broadband satellite communicationsystem is presented in Fig. 6. It consists of four layers:

(1) Satellite Service Adapter Layer (SSAL), it provides three different processingsto each of services, such as segmentation and reassembly (SAR), timing recov-ery, etc. The SSAL is further divided into three parts for different services, i.e.,ATM Adapter Layer for ATM service mapping, Packet Convergence Sub-Layerfor packet services processing such as IPv4, IPv6, Ethernet, and VLAN servicesetc; TDM Adapter Layer for mapping TDM services.

(2) Network Layer, it implements packets switching according to two identifiers,beam number and connection identifier (CID).

(3) Data Link Layer (DLL), it has three main functions, one is related to the mediaaccess control (MAC), e.g. Service Access, Channel Allocation, ConnectionSetup, Connections Maintenance etc. The second is to encapsulate the upperlayer PDU into a DLL PDU described in Fig. 7, or vice versa. Other secu-rity functions, e.g. security, authenticating, private key managing and encrypt-ing/decrypting etc., are also offered.

(4) Physical Layer (PL) performs the functions included in the layer 1 of OSI/RM,i.e. bit transmission, synchronization, Encoding, and modulation etc.

Fig. 7 DLL PDU

General PDU Header Payload (Optional) CRC (Optional)

HT1b

EC1b

PTI3b

CI1b

EKS3b

Len12b

Beam7b

CID12b

HCS8b

6 bytes

212 J.-C. Guo

Communication Protocol Design

As given in Fig. 7 DLL PDU could be used to transfer the user data and the manag-ing information. It includes a PDU header with fixed length (6 bytes), Payload Datapart with variable length, and optional CRC part. The PDU header can be a generalpurpose header or a channel allocation request header. There is no payload data for aRequest PDU, the length of the payload data is variable according to the PDU type.

In Fig. 7, HT represents the Header Type (1 bit), HT=0 for Generic Header andHT=1 for Bandwidth Request Header. PTI means the Payload Type Identifier (3bit), which is similar to the PTI for the ATM protocol. The first bit is for Data Type,0 for user data, 1 for managing data. The other 2 bits are used as the congestionindicator and the tail indicator respectively. EC is for Encryption Control (1 bit),EC=0 for payload data without encryption, EC=1 for payload data with encryption.EKS indicates for Encryption Key Sequence (3 bits) if EC=1, selecting the indexof the encryption array. CI states for CRC Indicator (1 bit), CI=0 for CRC is notused, CI=1 for CRC exists. Beam-ID is ID for Beam Number(7 bits) to identifywhich beam is used, and the maximum beam number is 128. CID is the connectionunumber (12 bits), i.e. there are at most 4096 connections existed in single beam.The Len gives the packet length (12 bits), the maximum packet length is 4096 bytes.HCS means the Header Check Sequence (8 bits), it is used to check the error of theheader, the generating polynomial is g(D)=D8+D2+D+1.

For the Multiple Access Mode, we adopt TDMA and demand assignment multi-ple access (DAMA) for uplinks, and FDD/TDM for downlinks. The frame structuresfor uplinks and downlinks are given in Figs. 8 and 9.

In Fig. 8, the downlink frame consists of Frame Header and Payload Data. Thefirst part is divided into frame synchronization code and control code. The framesynchronization code is used to ensure the synchronization between the satelliteand the ground nodes. We use the control code to transfer some control informationfrom satellite to ground nodes, e.g. bandwidth allocation information etc. It consistsof uplink mapping and downlink mapping. These two mappings are to indicate thestart time of information for each user in the downlink frames, or the start time of theinformation for each user in the uplink frames. In Fig. 9, the uplink frame consists ofAccess Initializing Time Gap, Bandwidth Allocating Time Gap, and Payload DataTime Gap etc. The bandwidth and start time of the time gap are indicated in theUL-MAP.

Uplink Map

Data 1 Data 2 ... Data NSynchronization

codeControlCode

Downlink Map

Payload DataFrame Header

Synchronizationcode

Fig. 8 Downlink frame structure

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 213

Initializing TimeGap

Allocating TimeGap

SS1 Data ... SS NData

SS Protection Gap

ApplyBurst

ApplyCollide

AllocationApply

ApplyCollide

ApplyBurst

AllocationApply

Fig. 9 Uplink frame structure

Application Analysis of the Protocol

There are four services types, i.e. CBR (constant bit rate service category), rt-VBR(real-time variable bit rate service category), nrt-VBR (non-real-time variable bitrate service category) and UBR (unspecified bit rate service category).

The bandwidth is allocated according to the peak rate for the CBR and rt-VBRservice, while the bandwidth of nrt-VBR service is assigned according to its com-mitted bit rate. In practice a poll technique or a temporary bandwidth allocation isused to fit the requested bandwidth. The UBR service will be transferred throughthe spare bandwidth, and be adjusted according to the variety of the nrt-VBRservices.

Simulation Model of Protocol

The purposes of our simulation include: (1) Setup the simulation model according tothe above scheme of the service model for this broadband multimedia satellite. (2)investigate the performance of different services in assigned scenarios. (3) Analyzethe simulation result in detail and give proposals to improve the scheme.

With the help of simulation tool OPNET, the simulation models include groundnodes and satellite nodes. The ground nodes, consisting of voice nodes, video nodesand data nodes, are responsible for the service access, data encapsulation, data trans-mission, data receive and statistics etc. Receiving the packets from ground nodes andthen transferring to the target nodes are performed in satellite nodes. The switchingmode of the satellite nodes could be each of two different manners, i.e. input/outputbuffer switching and shared buffer switching.

Simulation input parameters are given as following. The bit rate of real-timevoice packet is 64 kb/s, with the occupancy ratio 0.4. The bit rate of real-time videopacket is 384 kb/s under the occupancy ratio 0.2. For non-real-time data service,Pareto distribution is adopted for the download file length with the parameters of

214 J.-C. Guo

�=1.1, the minimum file length k=1800 bytes, 1500 bytes of packet length in activeperiod. The time gap for each packet arrival and packet read time are exponential ataverage of 8.3 ms and 12 s, respectively.

We assumed that the bit rate of the uplink channel is 8.192 Mb/s with the framelength 24 ms, and each slot time has the data length of 48 bytes (384 bits) if the bitrate of each slot remains 16 kb/s.

Considering the protection gap to distinguish different ground nodes in theTDMA mode, there are 572 time slots in a frame, 60 of which are used for pro-tection. Each time slot lasts 41.958 �s.

Analysis of Simulation Results

The Time-delay vs. bandwidth usage for voice and video services with two bufferpolicies are given in Fig. 10. For a real time service (either the voice service orthe video service), the end-to-end time delay keeps at a range of 255 ms to 265 ms.It is also shown that the delay changes a little for each service under two bufferpolicies.

The Jitter vs. bandwidth usage for real time voice and video services are pre-sented in Fig. 11. The Jitter is varying in a small range of 5.7 ms to 6 ms. This isdue to that the services are transferred by the ATM cells, the bandwidth alloca-tion is according to the peak value, and the higher priority is assigned to real-timeservice.

Shown in Fig. 12 is the end-to-end time delay for data service. Comparingto the real time services, it has bigger time delay up to 775 ms – 850 ms. It isbecause we give a lower prior level for non-real-time services, the services aretransferred with IP protocol, the bandwidth is allocated according to the averagebit rate.

The packets lost ratio (PLS) for different services under two buffer policies isgiven in Table 1. The PLS of voice and video services could be 0, because theirbandwidths are allocated according to their peak bit rates, and the BER is lower in

Fig. 10 Time-delay vs.bandwidth usage

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 215

Fig. 11 Jitter vs. bandwidthusage 6.50

6.30

6.10

5.90

5.70

5.500.3 0.5 0.8 0.95

Bandwidth Usage

Jitter (ms)

input-output buffer voiceinput-output buffer videoshared buffer voiceshared buffer video

Fig. 12 Time-delay for dataservices 0.900

0.850

0.800

0.750

0.7000.3 0.5 0.8 0.95

Bandwidth Usage

Time Delay (s)

shared bufferinput output buffer

our simulation (Actually we could control the BER to 10−10 in broadband satellitecommunication system). But the PLS of data service is high up to 30%–40% sincethe bandwidth for the data service is allocated according to the average bit rate andit is too low compared with the bit rate that data service needed.

Summary of the Protocol Research

The proposed protocol can support fixed-length ATM cells and variable-lengthpacket simultaneously. We discuss the system architecture, data encapsulation and

Table 1 Packet loss ratio (%)

Services Input output buffer Shared buffer

Usage 0.3 0.5 0.8 0.95 0.3 0.5 0.8 0.95

voice 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0video 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0data 33.7 36.3 36.8 31.6 33.7 35.3 35.8 31.6

216 J.-C. Guo

framing, services classification, service access, and satellite channel allocating etc.The performance of the proposed scheme is investigated in the OPNET environ-ment. Simulation results show that the scheme provides a better QoS for the real-time satellite communication services.

Design of an On-board Router

Purpose of the Research Work

People use many network equipments on the ground network, e.g. repeaters, hubs,routers, gateways, etc. We introduce an on-board router as the key hardware devicefor the satellite network connections (Jin-Chang et al. 2007).

The on-board router is a core component on the communication satellite to con-nect the communication payload to the satellite network. The earth terminals in oneof the satellite coverage area can find its route to the other earth terminal in anothersatellite coverage area through the on-board router and set up a shorter communica-tion path between them.

In this section we mainly research on the high-level architecture for the multilayered satellite communication network and focused on the key technology of on-board router, which is the core component of the satellite communication network.

The Hardware Structure and Functionof the On-board Router

The on-board router consists of 4 parts logically as showed in Fig. 13, i.e. inputports, switch structure, output ports, and router controller etc.

(1) Packets arrive the router from the input ports, find its route, and decide its targetports.

(2) Packets are also classified at the input ports. Protocols are decapsulated at theinputs ports. And all the parallel ports will be queued in the buffers of the inputports.

(3) The switchers are the channels between the input ports and the output ports.(4) The router controller runs the router protocol, creates the transfer table, control

the process of the packets transfer, and run the configuration and managementfunctions.

Figure 14 give the function structure diagram of the on-board router. It includesservice switcher, interface unit, router layer switcher, router transfer, and controlunit etc.

(1) The Service Switcher transfers data from Service payload to the Interface Unit.(2) The Router Layer Switcher performs the time-gap transfer for the service data.(3) The Router Transmitter transfers the packets to target route and port.

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 217

Fig. 13 Hardware structure of the on-board router

Fig. 14 Function structurediagram of on-board router

RouterTransmitter

Control Unit

Router LayerSwitcher

Interface Unit

Service Switcher

218 J.-C. Guo

(4) The Interface Unit performs the encapsulation and decapsulation of the packets.(5) The Control Unit performs the control and maintenance to all of the units of the

on-board router.

Figure 15 shows the Switch Hardware Structure. There are 4 types for switchstructure:

(1) One CPU + multi Line Card. It’s a basic structure.(2) There is a CPU on each Line card. It can take in and send out packets in large

quantities, or we can adopt cheap CPU.(3) There is a special CPU on each Line card. And a packet needs transfer through

the data bus only one time.(4) CPU is replaced by ASIC chips, and data bus is replaced by switcher matrix.

Analysis of the On-board Router

The on-board computer is a power limited system. The on-board router performs itsfunctions with the support of the earth gateway.

First of all, the function unit on the earth gateway assists the on-board routerto update its router table. It monitors the communication satellites in the network,

Fig. 15 Switch hardware structure

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 219

computes their orbit parameters, gives the real time topology structure, and com-putes the real-time router table for a satellite to other satellites. When the routertable of a satellite needs to be updated, it sends the new router table to the satellite.

The on-board router has two input/output ports, connecting to the control unitand network switch unit respectively. The interface to the network switch can bedistinguished as: user link port, ISL port, feedback link port, and TC&TM port etc.All of these interfaces are managed by the on-board router.

The number of the network nodes for the router layer is 128 maximum. It in-cludes all the satellite nodes and the earth gateway nodes.

The on-board router has 8 output ports (includes a control unit port). It needs 3bit in the router table. It is named as pID.

To simplify the router table, the network address is tied up to the satellite ID(sID). E.g., the network address in the router table may be simplified as sID->pID.

The following rule should be satisfied when the real-time router table is created,i.e. the packets path from satellite A to satellite B should be the same as the packetspath from satellite B to satellite A.

Simulation Result and Analysis

The End-to-end Delays vs. Link Utilization are given in Figs. 16, 17, 18, and 19 forvoice and video services with Switch Hardware Structure (b) given in Fig. 15.

For a real-time service, either voice service or video service, the end-to-end delayis in an acceptable range, i.e. from 255 ms to 270 ms, and the end-to-end delay isclosely for voice or video service.

The Delay Jitters vs. Link Utilization are given in Figs. 20, 21, 22, and 23 forvoice domain, video domain, data domain, and Equal Load.

Fig. 16 End-to-end delaysvs. link utilization

0.280

0.275

0.270

0.265

seco

nds

0.260

0.3 0.5 0.8 0.95Link Utilization

End-to-End Delay(Voice Domain)

0.255

0.250

voicevideo

220 J.-C. Guo

Fig. 17 End-to-end delaysvs. link utilization 0.280

0.275

0.270

seco

nds

0.265

0.260

0.3 0.5 0.8 0.95Link Utilization

End-to-End Delay(Video Domain)

0.255

0.250

voicevideo

Fig. 18 End-to-end delaysvs. link utilization 0.280

0.275

0.270

0.265

0.260

0.3 0.5 0.8 0.95Link Utilization

seco

nds

End-to-End Delay(Data Domain)

0.255

0.250

voicevideo

Fig. 19 End-to-end delaysvs. link utilization

0.280

0.275

0.270

0.265

0.260

0.255

0.3 0.5 0.8 0.95Link Utilization

seco

nds

End-to-End Delay(Equal Load)

0.250

voicevideo

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 221

Fig. 20 Delay Jitter vs. linkutilization 0.010

0.009

0.008

0.007

0.006

0.3 0.5 0.8 0.95

Link Utilization

seco

nds

Delay Jitter(Voice Domain)

0.005

voicevideo

Fig. 21 Delay Jitter vs. linkutilization 0.010

0.009

0.008

0.007

0.006

0.3 0.5 0.8 0.95

Link Utilization

seco

nds

Delay Jitter(Video Domain)

voicevideo

0.005

For the voice service and video service, the Delay Jitters are less than 6 ms. Usu-ally their Delay Jitters are very closely, but if one of the service volume increaseobviously, its Delay Jitter increase obviously.

Fig. 22 Delay Jitter vs. linkutilization

0.010

0.009

0.008

0.007

0.006

0.3 0.5 0.8 0.95

Link Utilization

seco

nds

Delay Jitter(Data Domain)

0.005

voicevideo

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Fig. 23 Delay Jitter vs. linkutilization 0.010

0.009

0.008

0.007

0.006

0.3 0.5 0.8 0.95Link Utilization

seco

nds

Delay Jitter(Equal Load)

0.005

voicevideo

Fig. 24 End-to-end delaysvs. link utilization

The End-to-end Delays for data services vs. Link Utilization are given in Fig. 24.Compared to real-time services, it has larger End-to-end Delay, i.e. from 775 ms

to 850 ms.

Summary

The performance of the proposed implementation scheme of the on-board router isinvestigated in the OPNET environment.

When the hardware structure 2 is adopted, the satellite network can work stablyfor real-time service and non-real-time service etc.

Simulation results show that the scheme provides a better performance for thereal-time services. The transfer policy for the non-real-time data services needs tobe improved.

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 223

ILISL in a Multilayered Satellite Network

The Role of the ILISL

We can connect a PC or a network equipment into the network either by networkcable or wireless. Actually, there are data links between the network nodes in eitherof the cases. ISL or ILISL is such a link as wireless connection between networknodes in the ground network.

In the satellite networks, a global satellite communication network with 3 GEOsatellites cannot provide a good coverage and communication performance at lowerlatitude. A global network with LEO satellites can provide a good real-time com-munication services but needs some tens of satellite with complex ISLs and higheroperation cost. MEO satellite network is a compromises scheme but it is few ap-plied. A compound communication satellite network with ILISL could enhance theconnectivity, reliability, and coverage of a satellite network. In such a network, LEOsatellite usually works as a switcher for the local user under its coverage area. GEOconstellation or MEO constellation works as a backbone for transmission, transfer,and management functions. By introducing ILISLs between LEO constellation andMEO/GEO constellation, the functions of a LEO satellite can be simplified, its costcan be cut down, and the feature of the antenna of ILISL for capturing and trackingcan be easily fulfilled. An ILISL between LEO satellite and MEO satellite is themost complex one with higher dynamic. So the setup and management policy of IL-ISL between LEO satellite and MEO satellite is a complex but worthwhile researchwork, and we only give the research work for this scenario.

Model of a LEO/MEO Multilayered CommunicationSatellite Network

Figure 25 shows a multilayered network structure. The network consists of userlayer, LEO satellite layer, and MEO satellite layer. The network can be classifiedinto two types: (1). There are ISLs in the LEO constellation. The user data can betransfer direct in the LEO layer or through the MEO layer. (2). There isn’t ISL inthe LEO constellation. The user data must be transfer through ILISL. In any of thecase, ILISL is a backbone between the 2 satellite layers.

Figure 26 shows the geometry position of LEO SATELLITE and MEO satellitein the space. Where Re = 6378.137 km (radius of the earth), hL is the orbit altitudeof the LEO satellite ; hM is the orbit altitude of MEO satellite ; h p is the protectionheight.

It shows a LEO satellite can setup ILISL with several MEO satellites at themeantime. The visible percent of the LEO satellite SL on the MEO orbit sphericalsurface is,

S =1 − cos

[arccos

(Re+h p

Re+hL

)+ arccos

(Re+h p

Re+hM

)]

2× 100%

224 J.-C. Guo

Fig. 25 LEO/MEO multilayered satellite network structure

Figure 27 shows that the visible percent value of the LEO satellite, with differentMEO orbit altitude, where hL = 1414 km and 780 km respectively.

It shows that the visible percent of the LEO satellite SL at the MEO orbit spheri-cal surface is almost over 50%. In case of the Walker Delta constellation is selected

Fig. 26 the geometryrelationship of LEO satelliteand MEO satellite in thespace

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 225

Fig. 27 Percent of visiblearea of LEO satellite on MEOsatellite orbit

MEO orbit altitude (km)

Percent of visible area (%)75

65

55

458 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 x103

hL = 1414 kmhL = 780 km

for the MEO constellation, a LEO satellite can connect about 5 and 6 newICO satel-lites when hL = 1414 km and 780 km respectively.

Research on Setup Policy for ILISL

Importance of the Setup Policy

LEO satellite need provide a steerable antenna with a tracking system for each ofthe ILISL. But the LEO satellite is a resource-constrained system, the ILISL’s num-ber for each LEO satellite should be less than 2 and usually only 1. So it is veryimportant for a LEO satellite to select a suitable ILISL path to the MEO satellites.

On the other hand, for a dynamic satellite network, with the moving of the satel-lite, the ILISL will be setup and discarded dynamically, the network topology willalso be reconstructed dynamically, so we should cut down the network reconstruct-ing frequency as possible, i.e. the network stability is an important factor for theILISL setup policy.

Traditional Setup Policy for ILISL

The reconstructing process of the ILISL is very similar to the switching of userlinks, so the switching policy is usually adopted as the setup policy for the ILISL.These policies include the shortest distance policy, the longest visible time policy,and the biggest resource usage ratio policy etc. From now on, we will simply callthese policies as distance policy, time policy and resource policy respectively in thispaper.

(1) Distance policy (DP): LEO satellite keep an ILISL with the nearest MEOsatellite. LEO satellite checks the distances to all the visible MEO satellite,switches to the nearest MEO satellite immediately. This policy makes sure the

226 J.-C. Guo

communication path is the shortest one, but it has the most frequency of theILISL reconstructing.

(2) Time policy (TP): LEO satellite selects the MEO satellite which can provide thelongest visible time, once the ILISL setup, it will be remain till the MEO satel-lite become invisible. And the LEO satellite switches to a new MEO satellite atthis time. This policy cut down the reconstructing frequency of the ILISL, butthe mean communication path is longer.

(3) Resource policy (RP): LEO satellite selects the MEO satellite which can pro-vide more communication resource for it, then remain the ILISL to this MEOsatellite, till the MEO satellite is invisible. And then the LEO satellite switchesto a new MEO satellite. This policy makes sure the resource of the MEO satel-lites being utilized most reasonable.

For all of the above policies, each LEO satellite selects MEO satellite and setupILISL independently of other LEO satellites. So the reconstructing time of the IL-ISLs distributes dispersedly, leading to the frequency of the satellite network topol-ogy reconstructing increased obviously.

Unified Setup Policy for ILISL

In the new Unified setup policy, the reconstructing time of each ILISL is adjusted atthe same time base, so the network reconstructing frequency of the whole networkare cut down, and the stability of the satellite network is improved.

According to the selection methods of the MEO satellite, three different policiesare issued:

(1) Unified distance policy (U-DP): when the network need to be reconstructed,each LEO satellite finds the nearest MEO satellite, calculates the visible time ofthe ILISL, this value is a theory reconstructing time for this LEO satellite. Thenwe collect the theory reconstructing time for all of the LEO satellites, select theminimum value of all the theory reconstructing time, set it as the time base forthe next unified (practical) reconstructing time base. All the LEO satellites willswitch is ILSIL at that time base synchronously.

(2) Unified time policy (U-TP): when the network need to be reconstructed, eachLEO satellite finds the longest visible MEO satellite for its ILISL, calculates thetheory reconstructing time for this LEO satellite, calculate the theory value forall the LEO satellites, select the minimum value and set it equal to the practicalILISL reconstructing time base.

(3) Unified resource policy (U-RP): when the network need to be reconstructed,each LEO satellite finds the MEO satellite which could provide the most usableresource, calculate the theory reconstructing time for this LEO satellite, set thetime base equal to the minimum of all the theory reconstructing time.

Because all of the LEO satellites and MEO satellites running on a certain pe-riodical orbit, and its position in the geometrical space can be forecasted, we can

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 227

calculate their position for all of the LEO/MEO satellites at any time in the future.So it is easy to calculate the unified time base.

Simulation and Result Analysis

Key Parameters for the Assess of the ILISL

The stability of the network topology, stability of the ILISL, and the resource usageratio of the satellite system are important factors, the following are definition andtheory analysis of some important parameters.

(1) Number of network reconstructing: Once an ILISL is reconstructed, the networktopology will be reconstructed, the number of the network reconstructing becounted (add 1). This parameter means the stability of network topology in thegiven time.

(2) Number of ILISL reconstructing: when LEO satellite discards its ILISLs to aMEO satellite, and setup a new ILISL to another MEO satellite, the number ofthe ILISL reconstructing be counted. For a certain LEO satellite, it is expectedto reconstruct its ILISL as few as possible.

(3) Mean route length value of ILISL: the mean value of an ILISL’s route lengthin a given period of time. The power consume of a communication payload isin direct proportion to the square of the communication route length. So theILISL’s route length will affect the communication capability obviously.

(4) Resource usage ratio of LEO constellation. If many LEO satellites are con-nected to the same MEO satellite, the total loads may exceed the capacity ofthe MEO satellite, some LEO satellite must cut down its loads, and some ofthe LEO satellite’s resource will be idled. This parameter reflects the resourceusage of the LEO constellation.

(5) Load factor of MEO satellite: resource usage ratio of a specific MEO satellite.If the value of this parameter of all the MEO satellite is similar, it means theselection policy of a MEO satellite has a good uniformity.

(6) Resource usage ratio of MEO constellation. It is the mean resource usage ratioof the MEO constellation. Usually, if the ILISLs to the MEO satellites have agood distribution, it has a good resource usage ratio for the whole constellation.

Scenario and Assumptions in the Simulation

The total time for a simulation scene is a solar day (=86400 s). Because the visibletime between the LEO satellite and the MEO satellite is longer(about 100 minutes),the step of the simulation is set to 10 s. There are 8640 steps in a scene.

It is assumed that only 1 ILISL can be setup for each LEO satellite, but a MEOsatellite can be connected to several LEO satellites.

In the simulation, all of the LEO satellites are fully loaded. All of the MEOsatellite has the same payload capacity, and equals to times of the capacity of a LEOsatellite.

228 J.-C. Guo

NewICO constellation is adopted for the MEO satellite, and Globalstar constel-lation is adopted for the LEO satellite. As showed in Table 2.

Table 2 Parameter of LEO/MEO constellation

MEO constellation LEO Delta Constellation

system NewICO GlobalstarOrbit altitude (km) 10355 1414Inclination (◦) 45 52Number of Satellites 10 48Number of orbits 2 8Number of ILISL per satellite >1 1

Simulation Result

Figure 28 shows simulation result for a Globalstar/NewICO multilayered satellitenetwork for different ILISL setup policies.

Figure 28(a) displays number of network reconstructing of different policy vs.time. Figure 28(b) displays a statistics of the ILISL reconstructing number for eachof the LEO satellite in a solar day. Figure 28(c) displays the mean route length of theILISLs for each LEO satellite in a solar day. Figure 28(d) displays the resource usageratio of the LEO constellation vs. MEO satellite capacity. Figure 28(e) displays the

Fig. 28 Simulation result for different ILISL setup policies

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 229

mean loads of all the MEO satellite. Figure 28(f) displays resource usage ratio ofthe MEO constellation vs. MEO satellite capacity.

Simulation Result Analysis

(1) By adopting the unified reconstructing policies, the LEO/MEO satellite networktopology reconstructing frequency number cut down obviously, the networktopological stability is enhanced. The satellite network has the best topologicalstability with the unified time policy. The number of network reconstructingcuts down 22 times. The satellite network has the worst topological stabilitywith the distance policy, the number of the network reconstructing is 21 times asthe unified distance policy. No obvious changes for the unified resource policyor the resource policy.

(2) When the unified time policy is adopted, because some of the LEO satelliteshave to reconstructing their ILISL ahead, the ILISL’s durative time is cut down,leading to the number of reconstructing time of ILISL for the LEO satelliteincreased. But it is increased only 1 times for a specified satellite, comparing tothe whole network topology reconstructing number be cut down 22 times, theunified time policy is a valuable policy for the ILISL setup.

(3) In the unified time policy, each LEO satellite should reconstruct its ILISL at thesame time base, but the target MEO satellite of an ILISL for a specified LEOsatellite may be the same as the former. The number of the ILISL reconstructingfor the specified LEO satellite may not be increased.

(4) In the distance policy and the unified distance policy, their ILISL’s mean routelength is shorter than other policies. The mean ILISL’s route lengths for thetime policy, the resource policy, the unified time policy, and the unified distancepolicy are very similar, and no obvious changes when the unified policy areadopted.

(5) Figure 28(d), (e), and (f) display the uniformity of the selection of the MEOsatellite for different ILISL setup policies. In case of all the LEO satelliteswork in a fully load state, with the increasing of the uniformity of the MEOsatellite selection, the load of each MEO constellation has a better uniformity,in this case, the resource usage ratio of the LEO constellation and the MEOconstellation increase.

To the resource policy and unified resource policy, they have considered the re-source usage ratio of the MEO satellites when selecting a MEO satellite, so in caseof the MEO satellite has limited resource, it has a higher MEO constellation usageratio and a lower LEO constellation idle ratio. They have a better performance forthe resource-constrained MEO constellation than other policies.

In such a case, the other policies i.e. the distance policy, the unified distancepolicy and the unified time policy have similar performance. The time policy hasthe worst performance. When the MEO constellation has enough capacity, all of thereconstructing policies have similar resource usage ratio.

230 J.-C. Guo

Summary

With the unified setup policies for the ILISL, the number of the satellite networkreconstructing is cut down obviously, the network stability is enhanced. The recon-structing number of the ILISL for a specified LEO satellite is not increased greatlycompared to the cut down of the network reconstructing number.

Conclusion

With the help of the satellite network, we can have a supplementary route, or abackup route to the ground network, and even a special or proprietary route, for areliable and a portable(anytime and anywhere) internet connection. And people canget other benefits such as: doing fast business, gathering opinions in time, trying outnew ideas, allowing the business to appear alongside other established businesses,improving the standards of customer service/support resource, supporting manage-rial functions, and supporting decision functions etc.

Overall, satellite network has many unique merits than the ground network. Thesame as the research works for a ground network, we have designed the satellite net-work system architecture, network hardware, and network software etc. Especially,we have worked on a hybrids satellite network systematically, in which we cancombine the benefits of GEO, MEO, and LEO satellites. The research results couldbe transfer to the engineering projects according to the requirement. The interfacesdesign of the satellite network unit to the satellite payload and the ground gatewayare on going. Because the design and the manufacture of a satellite have a longerperiod, a satellite network standard is needed. The CCSDS has provided a goodreference for the satellite network. A standardized satellite network can facilitatethe satellite network to convergence to the ground network and the development ofthe deeper space exploration network.

Acknowledgments This chapter gives a brief summarize of our research works on a satellitenetwork project. Many thanks to CAST and my colleagues in the project. And a special thanks toProf. XU Zhan-qi, State Key Lab. of Integrated Service Networks, Xidian Univ., he and his grouphave been supporting the simulation works in our project.

References

John Farserotu, Ramjee Prasad. A survey of future broadband multimedia satellite systems, issuesand trends. IEEE Communications Magazine. June 2000.

Kevin Zhang et al., An integrated approach for IP networking. IEEE Military CommunicationConference,2004:1556–1561.

Guo Jin-Czhang et al., Design of protocol for broadband multimedia satellite communication net-work system, 57th IAC, Valencia, Spain, 2006.

Guo Jin-Chang et al., Research on multi layered satellite communication network architecture andkey technology of on-board router, 58th IAC, Hyderabad, India, 2007.

Convergence of Internet and Space Technology 231

Bibliography

M.W.Lo. Satellite-Constellation Design. Computing in Science & Engineering. 1999,1(1):58–67Tho Le-Ngoc. Switching for IP-based multimedia satellite communications. IEEE JOURNAL ON

SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL.22, NO.3, APRIL 2004.Li Xing, Wu Shi-qi. Status and future of broadband IP satellite communication technology. Chinese

Satellite Communication. 2003.4.Wang Wen-bo, Zhang Jin-wen. OPNET Modeler and network simulation, POSTS & TELECOM

PRESS, Beijing. 2003.10.

Using Inflatable Antennas for PortableSatellite-Based Personal CommunicationsSystems

Naomi Mathers

Abstract Satellite-based personal communications systems (SPCS) use the satellitenetwork to connect mobile personnel on the ground via a central support network inboth military and disaster management situations. To maintain portability these sys-tems require lightweight equipment that is quickly and easily deployed and operatedin a variety of environments. Parabolic dish antennas provide the high gain requiredfor direct satellite communication but their size and weight severely limit portability.The parabolic reflector contributes the greatest percentage of the weight and size ofhigh gain antennas and as such the aim is to replace the reflector dish and feedsystem with a lightweight, stowable alternative without sacrificing performance.

The use of inflatable structures in the space environment has been successful inreducing weight by at least 50% and stowed volume by up to 75%. For inflatablestructures to be applied to portable land-based communication it must be demon-strated that the required shape and surface accuracy can be maintained whilst underterrestrial conditions. This is achieved through material selection, structural designand internal pressure. The end objective is an antenna suitable for portable, re-usable, low-cost, land-based direct satellite communication. The inflatable antennaproposed can be manufactured in various sizes to operate at a range of frequenciesmaking it suitable for multiple applications such as mobile military communica-tion, emergency response communication, tele-education, telemedicine, and mediabroadcasting in remote areas. The possibility of transferring this technology to thelunar surface will also be discussed.

Keywords Antenna · Inflatable · Gossamer · Portable

Introduction

Satellite-based personal communications systems (SPCS) are an effective way toconnect mobile personnel with a central support network in both military and

N. Mathers (B)RMIT University, Melbourne, Australiae-mail: naomi.mathers@vssec.vic.edu.au

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 10, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

233

234 N. Mathers

disaster management situations (Mahoney et al. 1999). SPCS use the network oforbiting satellites to make broadband communication possible when there is no lo-cal infrastructure on the ground or the infrastructure has been damaged. One of thefactors that currently limits the effectiveness and practicality of these systems isportability. These systems require lightweight equipment that can be quickly andeasily deployed and operated in a variety of environments.

Parabolic dish antennas are the only antennas capable of providing the high gainrequired for direct satellite communication but their size and weight severely limittheir portability and hence their use for portable SPCS applications. Smaller, lighterantennas such as dipoles and yagi antennas do not generate the gain required fordirect satellite communication. Articulated structures have been used to addressthis problem in the form of umbrella and petal type reflectors but they offer onlylimited reduction in weight and stowed volume and do not deliver the desired shapeaccuracy (Prata et al. 1989).

The parabolic reflector is responsible for the greatest percentage of the weightand size of high gain antennas. If a parabolic dish reflector is to be used for portablesatellite-based personal communication the reflector and feed system will need to bereplaced with a lightweight, stowable alternative without sacrificing performance.Inflatable structures have been used in the space environment to overcome the lim-itations of launch vehicle size and weight restrictions (Jenkins et al. 1998). It isproposed that an inflatable structure can be used to produce an inflatable parabolicdish antenna that can be used under terrestrial conditions to overcome the limits onportability for land-based communication. Inflatable antennas are lightweight, havea low stowed volume and high packing efficiency. To make this transition it mustthen be demonstrated that an inflatable antenna can match the performance of a rigidantenna under terrestrial conditions.

Satellite-Based Personal Communications Systems (SPCS)

Historically communications satellites provided telephony services when access tofiber optic cable wasn’t possible. They are still used for mobile applications suchas communications to ships, vehicles, planes and hand-held terminals, and for TVand radio broadcasting, for which application of other technologies, such as cable,is impractical or impossible.

An emerging market is the use of direct satellite communication for broadbandinternet access. This is useful in locations where terrestrial internet access is notavailable, such as in rural areas and in developing countries, and in situations wherefrequent movement is necessary such as emergency response to natural disaster andmilitary applications.

Satellite-based personal Communications Systems (SPCS) allow the user to di-rectly access the global communications network. This network uses wireless basedtechnologies, both terrestrial and satellite-based, to offer a seamless infrastructurethat provides global personal connectivity and access to broadband wireless mul-timedia, communications and services, by anyone, from anywhere, at any time(Mahoney et al. 1999).

Portable Satellite-Based Personal Communications Systems 235

Fig. 1 Example of communications network

This type of communications network is ideal for the distribution of critical in-formation to the field in support of emergency response activities or mobile mili-tary applications. The ability to integrate interactive data access with simultaneousvideo broadcasts opens new opportunities for information dissemination to roamingclients whose needs evolve with time.

Existing Land-Based Direct Satellite Communication Technology

Parabolic dish reflectors are required for direct satellite communication. Their largeaperture provides the high gain required for image as well as voice transmission,the larger the aperture the higher the gain of the antenna. Smaller, lighter anten-nas such as dipoles and yagi antennas do not generate the gain required for directsatellite communication. When operating as part of a permanent ground station thesize and weight of the parabolic dish reflector can be supported by the mountingstructure. A permanent mounting structure can support the weight of a large aper-ture rigid parabolic reflector but when the emphasis is on portability, large rigidreflector dishes and heavy support structures are not an acceptable option. Whatis required is a large diameter, low weight antenna that can be easily stowed anddeployed.

Articulated, or umbrella, dishes have been used to reduce stowed volume butas they are a mechanical system, weight reduction is minimal. The weight of atypical 0.5 m diameter parabolic mesh reflector is 1.9 kg as compared to 5 kg for a0.5 m diameter rigid parabolic reflector. The mechanical complexity of articulatedantennas, combined with their limited shape accuracy, also make them a high riskchoice for mobile direct satellite communication.

The shape accuracy of an articulated antenna is limited by an effect knownas pillowing (Prata et al. 1989). Pillowing is caused by the localized stiffnessof the ribs combined with the weight of the mesh. The shape accuracy of anarticulated antenna can be compromised even further if one of the ribs fails to

236 N. Mathers

deploy as designed or if it is bent. In remote or military scenarios this lack ofresilience is unacceptable, especially when it is not possible to carry replacementreflectors.

When looking for a way to increase the portability of land-based satellite com-munications systems, inspiration can be drawn from the space industry. The sameissues of low weight and low stowed volume drive technology in both industries.

Inflatable Structures in the Space Environment

Until there is a viable facility to assemble structures in space, the size of space-basedstructures is limited by the capacity of the launch vehicle. The ability to deploy astructure after launch removes this limitation and increases the achievable size. Ar-ticulated structures have been used, however their mechanical complexity reducestheir deployment reliability, and they offer little weight reduction (Johnson 1994).The use of inflatable structures significantly increases the dimensions of the result-ing assembly. Other advantages include a low launch weight and a high packingefficiency which reduces the stowed volume.

The space environment offers many unique operating challenges however theabsence of a gravitational field eliminates the need for high load bearing structures.The use of rigid truss structures in this environment concentrates the applied loadsat the joints requiring them to be reinforced, which in turn increases the weightof the structure and the applied loads. The use of an inflatable structure distributesloads evenly over the entire surface. The use of the skin as a structural membereliminates the need for reinforced joints, which in turn reduces the overall weight(Prata et al. 1989).

Thin films are the most common material used for inflatable structures. Thesematerials are often referred to as membrane or gossamer materials. They have asmall thickness, which increases their packing efficiency, but they are incapable ofcarrying compressive or bending loads. The internal pressure gives the structure itsdesired shape and stability and introduces membrane stresses which enable the skinto carry bending and compression loads beyond the ability of the material alone.This allows the structure to be folded and stowed then inflated to a pre-determinedshape. To maintain this shape the film must have low gas permeation and must bedimensionally stable within the operating conditions, i.e. it must not creep. Theexcellent vibrational damping characteristics of inflated structures add to their di-mensional stability (Flint et al. 2003).

Many applications make use of the high packaging efficiency of inflatable struc-tures and the strength and durability of thin films, such as solar sails, inflatabletrusses and the impact attenuation system originally used for the Pathfinder missionand then again for the Mars exploration missions (Prata et al. 1989). However, ifinflatable structures are to be used for communications applications a number ofadditional structural and electromagnetic requirements must be met.

Portable Satellite-Based Personal Communications Systems 237

Inflatable Antennas in the Space Environment

The designer of high gain antennas for space-based operations is limited by thecapacity of the launch vehicle. As the gain of a parabolic dish reflector is directlyproportional to the aperture, this limitation in size results in limited performance.The use of an articulated antenna increases the achievable aperture beyond thatof a rigid reflector but the weight saving is negligible and their mechanical com-plexity reduces their deployment reliability (Johnson 1994). The use of inflatablestructures has the potential to dramatically increase the achievable aperture of areflector whilst dramatically reducing the launch weight and stowed volume. It isestimated that the use of an inflatable reflector would reduce the launch weightby as much as 50% and the stowed volume by as much as 75% (Prata et al.1989).

If inflatable structures are to be applied to communications applications, shapeand surface accuracy are critical and the gossamer material must fulfil electromag-netic as well as structural requirements. In 1996 L’Garde demonstrated that theserequirements could be met with the successful deployment of the Inflatable AntennaExperiment (IAE). This mission demonstrated that a shape accuracy of within 2 mmRMS is achievable with a 15 m diameter inflatable parabolic reflector in the spaceenvironment (Prata et al. 1989). The design used for the IAE, shown in Fig. 2, wasa prime focus parabolic reflector antenna with the feed supported at the focal pointby three 28 m inflatable struts.

Despite the successful demonstration of the inflatable reflector and canopy, theuse of inflatable struts to support the feed assembly proved unreliable during de-ployment and unable to maintain accurate positioning of the feed assembly withoutbeing rigidized.

The design proved to be marginal in the space environment and is also unsuitablefor use in the terrestrial environment as the inflatable struts are incapable of sup-porting the weight of the feed assembly under the influence of gravity. To transferinflatable technology to the terrestrial environment for use as an antenna, it must bedemonstrated that an inflatable structure can be developed from a material with thenecessary electromagnetic characteristics that can achieve the required shape accu-racy and retain the necessary stability for communication whilst under the influenceof environmental conditions.

Fig. 2 L’Garde InflatableAntenna Experiment (IAE),launched 1996 (picturecourtesy of L’Garde)

238 N. Mathers

Fig. 3 Deployment of theL’Garde Inflatable AntennaExperiment (IAE) (picturecourtesy of L’Garde)

Inflatable Antennas in the Terrestrial Environment

The parabolic reflector is responsible for the greatest percentage of the weight andsize of high gain antennas. If a parabolic dish reflector is to be used for portablesatellite-based personal communication the reflector and feed system will needto be replaced with a lightweight, stowable alternative without sacrificing perfor-mance. Figure 4 shows the comparison of weight and stowed volume for a varietyof parabolic reflectors. It can be seen that the use of an inflatable system offers thebest solution with regards to portability, what remains is to demonstrate that it canprovide the performance required.

Transferring inflatable structures technology to the terrestrial environment offersa solution to the limitations on the portability of SPCS due to weight and stowedvolume. The ability to stow the antenna when it is not needed, carry it without theneed for a vehicle and deploy it when required, creates the possibility of personaldirect satellite access for mobile military applications, emergency response teamsand remote media broadcasting.

Type of Dish WeightStowedVolume

Rigid Aluminium 5 kg 0.05 m3

Grid Aluminium 3 kg 0.05 m3

Mesh 1.9 kg 0.0125 m3

Inflatable 15 g 0.0004 m3

Fig. 4 Comparison of weight and stowed volume for a variety of 0.5 m diameter parabolic dishreflectors

Portable Satellite-Based Personal Communications Systems 239

When transferring this technology to the terrestrial environment the challenge isto achieve the same shape accuracy achieved in the space environment under theinfluence of gravity and weather. This is achieved using a combination of structuraldesign and material selection.

Design

A parabolic dish reflector offers the high gain necessary for direct satellite commu-nication, and an enclosed parabolic dish reflector is an ideal choice for an inflatablestructure. Fundamental antenna design principles are employed to the design of theinflatable antenna and feed horn. To sustain communication the relationship betweenthe elements must be maintained. Any displacement or distortion of the elementsresults in a reduction in performance. Accuracy is necessary on three levels, thematerial properties, the surface accuracy and the dimensional or shape accuracy.

A pressurized monocoque structure is constructed from thin film to replicate theantenna design such that it is able to maintain the shape accuracy, and positionalrelationship between the elements, under the influence of gravity and environmentalconditions. Monocoque is a design technique that utilizes the skin to carry the loadas opposed to an internal frame. This design approach is commonly used in aircraftfuselages where the combination of the fuselage design and the internal pressureenable the skin to carry bending and compression loads beyond the ability of thematerial alone.

In the inflatable antenna the monocoque structure is formed between the reflec-tive parabolic dish and the clear canopy, distributing the applied loads evenly overthe entire surface and naturally forming the curved reflector surface. As the structureis not spherical the internal pressure acts to balance the stress in the skin and rippleswill form around the edge of the reflector if it is not restrained. To counteract thisforce the diameter of the dish is maintained with the use of an inflatable torus. Thismaintains the desired parabolic shape of the reflector dish and the relative position-ing of the sub-reflector.

The inflatable antenna is designed to be fed by a feed horn manufactured fromthin film which in turn is fed by a microstrip patch. This reduces the weight andstowed volume of the antenna further and enhances the balance of the structure. Theuse of this feed system significantly reduces the stowed volume and manufacturingcost of the system making it possible to carry multiple antennas.

A dual-reflector antenna is used as opposed to a prime focus antenna to reducethe loading on the canopy and improve the balance of the structure. Placing the feedassembly at the focus of the reflector places a lot of weight at the end of a longmoment arm which in turn places additional strain on the support structure. This isundesirable when the support structure is a thin film canopy.

A dual-reflector configuration also increases the effective focal distance and al-lows all the electronics to be located behind the primary reflector dish. Placing allthe electronics behind the primary reflector reduces aperture blockage due to thefeed system and minimizes the transmission loss which occurs if the feed is placed

240 N. Mathers

at the focal point. The sub-reflector has a smaller profile and as it is supportedby a clear canopy so the aperture blockage due to the struts is eliminated. Thedual reflector configuration also reduces the antenna noise as the feed is facing thecool sky.

The sensitivity of the antenna to surface and shape distortions is proportional tothe operating frequency. As the frequency is increased the wavelength is decreasedand tolerance to shape and surface distortions is reduced. Any deviation from thedesign will result in a reduction in gain, an increase in sidelobe level, an increase incross-polar level and an increase in beamwidth.

Rigid antenna dishes suffer distortions due to gravity, wind and things settlingin the dish such as snow and rain. To maintain the required shape a rigid dish mustbe supported to prevent distortion. An inflatable antenna constructed from thin filmis so light that the internal pressure easily counteracts the impact of gravity on thedish. The aerodynamic nature of the canopy minimizes the wind loading and alsocreates a natural radome which prevents anything settling in the dish and preventsthe dish acting like a sail.

The structural design proposed can be applied to a variety of antenna designs,sizes and frequencies including offset antennas.

Material Selection

The use of the skin as a load-bearing member makes the material selection critical.The structural requirements, combined with the need to be folded then inflated toa pre-determined shape, requires a material with a unique combination of proper-ties. The materials most suitable for this purpose are thin films (Du Pont ProductDatabase).

Thin films are often referred to as membrane or gossamer materials. These ma-terials have a small thickness, which is incapable of carrying a compressive load.It is therefore necessary to use the design of the structure combined with internalpressure to give the structure its desired shape.

The material plays a crucial role in the success of inflatable structures. Forthe structure to be stowed and then inflated the material must be foldable andhave low gas permeation. To withstand being stowed and then maintain inflationit must be durable, and tear and puncture resistant. A material with these basicproperties could be used to construct an inflatable structure however if the structureis intended for communications applications the material requirements are morerigorous.

To manufacture a structure with the dimensional stability needed for commu-nication a material that is dimensionally stable under the operating conditions isneeded to maintain the dimensional relationship between the elements. In additionto structural stability a number of electromagnetic properties are required. The ma-terial must be RF transparent at the operating frequency if it is to be used as a canopyand if it is to be used as a reflector it must be metalized such that an RF signal isreflected without loss.

Portable Satellite-Based Personal Communications Systems 241

Thin films meet these requirements and have long been used in the space en-vironment. The material used for the inflatable antenna prototype, PolyethyleneTerephthalate (PET), commonly known by its Du Pont trade name Mylar (Du PontProduct Database), was initially developed for the space environment to provideradiation shielding for space structures. Its low gas permeability, structural stability,durability, tear and puncture resistance, low cost, chemical inertness, high packingefficiency, RF transparency and reflectivity when metalized, make it perfect for usefor inflatable antennas in the terrestrial environment.

With the addition of a metalized layer an RF transparent film is transformed intoa reflective surface (Hwang and Turlik 1992). As different films have different at-tenuation properties it is possible to construct the laminate such that the different RFcharacteristics are used to the advantage of the designer. This is the principle usedfor frequency selective surfaces (FSS), often known as dichroic surfaces. Dichroicsurfaces can be used to manipulate the radiation characteristic of the antenna orthe use of a polarizing layer can control the skin temperature of the antenna. Inthis way the material becomes an integral and important part of both the struc-tural and RF design process. Before the antenna testing began the RF character-istics of the material were tested. The tests showed that the clear PET film wasRF transparent at 12.5 GHz and the metalized PET film returned the signal withoutloss.

Construction

PET thin film was selected for its ability to maintain its dimensional stability overa wide temperature range but because of its chemical inertness and high meltingtemperature it cannot be bonded with an adhesive or heat welded (Du Pont ProductDatabase). The ability to form a laminate structure not only provides the ability tomanipulate the electromagnetic properties of the material, it also makes it possibleto add layers that allow the film to be heat welded.

The ability to heat weld the material makes it possible to construct straight-sidedcomponents, such as the conical feed horn, from flat panels or gores. In this casethe shape accuracy of the inflated structure is dependent on the dimensional stabil-ity of the material. In order to maintain the desired shape of the inflated structureover time the material must maintain its dimensional stability under the operatingconditions.

When manufacturing the main parabolic reflector a surface with curvature in twodimensions must be constructed from a flat, dimensionally stable material. In thiscase there is a limit to the shape accuracy achievable with a gored construction;the use of pie shaped gores imparts the curvature but the seams introduce surfacediscontinuities. The acceptable limit for surface inaccuracies is �/8, where � is theoperating wavelength of the antenna. It can be seen that at lower frequencies wherethe wavelength is longer the seams present no problem but when the antenna isoperating at higher frequencies the surface imperfection caused by the seams willreduce the performance.

242 N. Mathers

A compromise must be made between more gores offering better shape accuracyand less gores offering better surface accuracy. In addition to being a discontinuity inthe surface the localized stiffening caused by the seams also exaggerates a conditionknown as pillowing which reduces the shape accuracy further (Prata et al. 1989).

Pillowing

Pillowing is a common problem in articulated antenna dishes where the local stiff-ness of the ribs, compared to the flexibility and weight of the mesh, imparts adistortion and the performance is reduced (Prata et al. 1989). This degradation inperformance includes a reduction in gain, an increase in beamwidth and an increasein sidelobe level. The effects of pillowing can be increased due to wind loading orif material such as sand or snow settle in the dish.

When working with membrane structures the seams are commonly either tapedor heat welded, giving some flexibility. This reduces the localized stiffness and thepillowing effect but does not eliminate it. The enclosed nature of the design alsoprovides a radome which prevents the additional loads due to wind, sand or snow.

Forming Thin Films

To eliminate pillowing and the interference of the seams, as well as guarantee theshape accuracy of the reflector dish, the ideal would be to mould the dish as a singleentity. This approach has the added advantage of reducing the number of seams thatcan rupture and cause the structure to deflate.

Mackenzie et al. (Mackenzie et al. 2004) attempted to cast a self-metalizingpolyamide film. This approach achieved some success but demonstrated that it wasdifficult to control the distribution of the metal particles, which limited their abilityto produce a uniform reflective surface.

The properties of many Polyester films make them suitable for thermoforming.This process takes place under temperature and pressure. It is then necessary toquench the material to prevent crystallization. Should the material crystallize it be-comes brittle and is no longer foldable. When the film is re-heated beyond its glasstransition temperature (Tg) the crystal structure relaxes and the material becomesductile. In this state the film can be moulded. It is necessary to then rapidly coolthe material to prevent crystallization. Crystallization can also be reduced with theaddition of co-polymers. However with the addition of co-polymers dimensionalstability of the film is sacrificed.

The success of this process with a pre-metalized film relies on the strength ofthe bond between the base film and the metal layer. The inert nature of PET cancause the bond between the polymer and the metal coating to be quite weak. Thedifference in the coefficient of thermal expansion between the film and the coatingcan cause the coating to delaminate. Should the metal layer delaminate and fracturethe reflective characteristics of the surface are compromised and any improvementgained through increased shape accuracy is lost.

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Rigidizing Thin Films

For long duration space missions it was initially thought that inflatable structuresshould be rigidized to increase their durability. The same is often argued for in-creasing the durability of inflatable structures for terrestrial use. This is justifiablefor structures that are not capable of maintaining their structural integrity when de-pressurized and there are a number of mechanisms that can be employed to rigidizethe structure (Prata et al. 1989).

– stretched Aluminium laminate– hydro-gel– heat-cured thermoset composite laminate– thermoplastic composite laminate– UV curable composite laminate– Inflation gas reaction laminates

Despite still being a popular option there are some major disadvantages to rigidiz-ing inflatable structures. The two main disadvantages are that should the structure berigidized in a deformed position this deformation will be permanent, and the otheris the loss of vibrational damping. As they are constructed from a flexible mem-brane, inflatable structures have very high natural damping, rigidizing the structuresacrifices this quality. The loss of natural damping then contributes to concentratingloads at the joints rather than distributing the load over the skin (Flint et al. 2003).

It is proposed that the extra complexity added to the system to rigidize it, alongwith the loss of vibrational damping and the risk of rigidizing the antenna in a de-formed state makes rigidizing the antenna unattractive. The pressurized monocoquedesign proposed ensures the accurate relative positioning of the elements without theneed to rigidize the structure and should the antenna be damaged beyond repair theentire system is light enough and cheap enough that spare antennas can be carried.

As opposed to rigidizing, efforts have been concentrated on material develop-ment and manipulating the laminate structure of polymers to deliver the requiredproperties. Cold Hibernation Elastic Memory (CHEM) materials are promising asthe process is reversible. CHEM materials have a fully cured elastic memory. Whenheated above the glass transition temperature (Tg) the material becomes pliable en-abling it to be stowed. The material is then cooled below Tg “setting” it in its stowedform. Reheating the material above Tg returns the material to its cured shape. CHEMmaterials can undergo this process repeatedly without degradation to either physicalor mechanical properties (Prata et al. 1989).

Measuring Shape and Surface Accuracy

Given the flexible nature of inflatable structures it is not possible to measure theshape accuracy of the structure by contact methods. Scanning methods such asphotogrammetry can be employed, however the use of both transparent and highly

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reflective materials impact on the accuracy of these methods. When working withantennas the radiation characteristics can be used as an indirect method of measuringthe shape and surface accuracy of the structure. As shape accuracy has a direct im-pact on the performance of an antenna, the radiation pattern of the inflatable antennacan be compared to that of a rigid antenna to indirectly assess the shape accuracy.

Due to the highly flexible nature of the structure it is necessary to isolate and testeach element of the antenna before they are combined to form the complete system.The feed horn was tested first because of its structural simplicity. Structures withstraight-sided components such as the conical horn can be manufactured using flatpanels or gores. The shape accuracy of the inflated structure is then largely depen-dent on the accuracy of the pattern and the dimensional stability of the material. Itwas also necessary to demonstrate that a microstrip patch could be used to feed aconical horn without any loss in performance.

Results

After demonstrating that the thin film selected has the RF qualities needed to con-struct an antenna, it must then be demonstrated that an antenna can be manufacturedfrom this material that matches the performance of rigid antenna. A conical horn fedby a microstrip patch was tested first to demonstrate the concept. The geometry ofthe feed horn is simpler as it doesn’t involve any curved surfaces but it operates asa radiating body in the same way as an antenna. The horn was designed to feed a0.5 m dish with an f/d of 0.75 operating at 12.5 GHz.

The impedance characteristics of an Aluminium and PET horn of identical di-mensions, fed by the same microstrip patch, were measured and compared. It canbe seen in Fig. 5 that the rigid aluminium horn fed by the microstrip patch has a low

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return, loss indicating that the system is well matched. When the microstrip patch isused to feed the conical horn manufactured from aluminized thin film the impedanceresults are almost identical to those of the rigid aluminium horn. It can thereforebe concluded that the use of a thin film does not adversely affect the impedancecharacteristics of a feed horn.

As the horn will be stowed and then inflated a PET horn that had been severelycrushed and then inflated was also tested. The creases in the horn were more extremethan would be expected and yet the impedance characteristics were not altered.

As shape accuracy has a direct impact on the radiation patterns produced by anantenna, the radiation patterns of the gossamer structure can be compared to thoseof a rigid structure to indirectly assess the shape accuracy. Figs. 6 and 7, showthe radiation patterns for an Aluminium conical horn and a gossamer horn of thesame dimensions, fed by the same microstrip patch, operating at 12.5 GHz. It canbe seen that the use of gossamer materials had minimal impact on the radiationcharacteristics of the horn. From these results it can be implied that it is possible toconstruct a conical feed horn from gossamer material that provides the dimensionalaccuracy and structural stability required for communication whilst reducing theweight of the structure from 124.6 g to 1.5 g.

It can therefore be concluded that as long as the metalized layer is of sufficientthickness (Hwang and Turlik 1992) it is possible to use a thin film to construct afeed horn that matches the performance of an identical rigid horn. It can furtherbe concluded that a microstrip patch can be used to feed such a horn to produce anultra lightweight, cheap feed system. The success of the inflatable horn as a radiatingbody was justification to progress to the manufacture of an inflatable parabolic dishantenna. The feed horn can also be incorporated in the inflatable antenna to furtherreduce the overall weight and stowed volume.

The most suitable design to replicate as an inflatable antenna is a parabolic dishreflector. The internal pressure naturally forms the curved surfaces required and theirsuitability as high gain antennas makes them appropriate for portable direct satellitecommunications systems. To construct a parabolic dish, a surface with curvature in

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Fig. 7 Radiation pattern ofinflatable conical horn fed bymicrostrip patch operating at12.5 GHz

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two directions must be manufactured from a flat, dimensionally stable material. Theuse of pie shaped gores imparts the curvature, however the seams introduce surfacediscontinuities. This becomes a compromise between more gores offering bettershape accuracy, and less gores offering better surface accuracy. The introductionof seams introduces the same pillowing effect experienced in articulated antennadishes however the flexibility of the seams reduces the localised stiffness, whichminimizes this effect.

As with the feed horn, basic design principles are applied then replicated usingthin film materials in such a way that the integrity of the design is maintained. Theimpact of feed positioning and efficiency, as well as blockage, will be reflected inthe radiation plots for the antenna and must be distinguished from the impact of theshape and surface accuracy of the dish. To facilitate using the radiation patterns todraw meaningful conclusions as to the shape and surface accuracy of the parabolicdish, it is necessary to constrain as many variables as possible. To constrain thediameter of the dish the antenna was supported by a rigid rim support. In later teststhe rim support will be replaced by an inflatable torus.

The parabolic dish was tested with the feed at the focal point. From a structuralpoint of view using a prime focus design places a lot of weight at the end of a longmoment arm, this has the effect of placing a lot of strain on the support structure.When the support structure is a thin film canopy, which is incapable of carryingcompressive loads, a rigid feed horn is not an option. As the performance of theinflatable horn had already been confirmed it was used to minimize the loading onthe canopy. Despite the fact that the use of a clear canopy eliminated any apertureblockage due to support struts, the placement of the feed at the focal point will stillcontribute to aperture blockage. As both the inflatable and rigid parabolic disheswere tested using the same assembly this effect will be reflected equally in bothresults.

The accurate positioning of the feed is achieved via the canopy. As was discussedearlier a membrane canopy is not capable of adequately supporting a feed system.This will be resolved in the final antenna assembly by using a dual reflector sys-tem. The use of a dual reflector system will remove the undesirable loading fromthe canopy and reduce aperture blockage. The side-lobes are the best indication

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of surface and shape inaccuracies. Given the flexible nature of the material, thelimitations of using a gored construction and the issues discussed above, the resultsare very promising. The seams are within the λ/8 surface roughness limit so themain concern is shape accuracy.

Although a gored construction limits the shape accuracy, the radiation patterns inFigs. 8 and 9 show that the impact of pillowing on the gossamer dish is minimal. Anincrease in sidelobe level is observed in both radiation patterns due to the apertureblockage cased by the placement of the feed at the focal point. The radiation patternfor the rigid antenna, Fig. 8, shows a non-symmetrical increased side lobe level dueto the additional structure needed to support the feed horn. In Fig. 9 this blockageis eliminated as the feed assembly in the inflatable antenna is supported by the clearcanopy.

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248 N. Mathers

These results show that it is possible to manufacture a gossamer dish thatachieves the desired shape accuracy in a terrestrial environment. The antenna, in-cluding inflatable feed horn, weighs a little over 12 g, and can be stowed in a packagethe size of a CD case.

The Use of Inflatable Antennas on Earth

The availability of a high gain antenna capable of direct satellite communication thatcould be carried by an individual would remove the current reliance on vehicles andpermanent ground stations. This would increase the flexibility and effectiveness ofthe communications networks used in military and disaster management situationsby providing individuals with direct access to the latest information and imagery.

Although military and disaster response are the main drivers of this technol-ogy there are many other applications that would benefit from low cost, portable,direct satellite communication. An emerging market is the use of direct satellitecommunication for broadband internet access. Broadband internet provides accessto information, email, and video conferencing. This is useful in locations whereterrestrial internet access is not available, such as in rural areas and in developingcountries, and in situations where frequent movement is necessary such as the me-dia, telemedicine and farming.

In short the substitution of the rigid reflector and feed system with a lightweightinflatable system would make any of the services currently available via satellite,including satellite TV, available to an individual on the move.

Expanding the Use of Inflatable Antennas Beyond Earth

The inflatable antenna presented for land-based portable direct satellite communica-tion was inspired by space based technology but its application is not limited to thisenvironment. When unmanned spacecraft or humans travel beyond Earth the DeepSpace Network (DSN) provides the two-way communications link that guides andcontrols the mission and receives the images and scientific data they send back. Theamount, quality and regularity of the data sent back is dependent on the capabilitiesof both the Earth-based and space-based systems.

On Earth the three communications complexes of the DSN are equipped with arange of large, rigid, high precision, high gain antennas supported by ultra sensitivereceiving and processing systems. In space the restrictions placed on the size, weightand power supply of the communications equipment by the cargo area and weight-lifting capacity of the launch vehicle limit the gain of the antenna and result inextremely weak signals being received by the DSN.

These restrictions place limits on the scientific information that can be returnedto Earth for analysis. To increase the scientific return, endeavours are being made toincrease the gain and bandwidth of the space-based antennas in order to increase the

Portable Satellite-Based Personal Communications Systems 249

available data rates and facilitate video, high definition still images and hyperspec-tral imaging. To achieve this, communication capabilities at higher frequencies areunder development as well as investigating new technologies to increase the size ofparabolic dish antennas in space. An increase in the gain of the antenna via eithermethod also has the advantage of narrowing the beamwidth resulting in an improvedsignal-to-noise ratio and higher resolution.

In addition to physical limitations, space presents a challenging environment fordata communication. There are many constraints, including high signal propagationdelays and data corruption rates due to the enormous distances traveled and noisegenerated by solar radiation. Microwave signals are also degraded when they travelthrough the Earth’s atmosphere. Rain and atmospheric gases attenuate signals athigher frequencies and at certain frequencies the ionosphere reflects signals com-pletely (Compton 1989).

Microwave frequencies between 1 GHz and 15 GHz are the optimum region forearth to space communications as they are the least affected by interfering noise andionospheric reflections at lower frequencies and absorption by atmospheric gassesand weather at higher frequencies (Compton 1989). As the frequency is increasedthe demands on shape and surface accuracy of the antenna are also increased. Theinflatable antenna presented has been demonstrated to deliver the required shapeand surface accuracy within this optimum range at 12.5 GHz.

One of the greatest concerns associated with the long-term use of inflatable struc-tures for space applications is the impact the environment has on the material. Forexample PET goes brittle under prolonged exposure to the space environment. Poly-mers degrade due to particulate radiation, Atomic Oxygen (AO), UV radiation andthermal cycling (Dever et al. 2001). In response to this deficiency specialist filmssuch as Kapton, CP1 and CP2 have been developed which overcome some of theseproblems. The development of new materials is also concentrating on optical trans-parency, low solar absorptivity and high thermal emissivity to avoid overheatingand allow for thermal energy dissipation (Dever et al. 2001). The enhancement ofthese characteristics will improve the performance of the material and expand theapplications that inflatable structures can be used for.

The gain of the antenna dish can be increased by either increasing the operatingfrequency of the system or the diameter of the parabolic reflector. Increasing theoperating frequency has the advantage of reducing the minimum required size ofthe reflector, which is appealing given the restrictions placed on launch weight andvolume, but the shape and surface accuracy requirements become more demandingas the frequency is increased.

Space missions demand reliable, proven technology so rigid antennas are thecommon choice for high gain antennas. Despite their weight and the limitationsplaced on the achievable size by the launch vehicle, they will always be the mostreliable choice. However, if the improvements in performance sought by the sci-entists are to be realized other alternatives need to be considered. To deliver anincrease in performance and satisfy the launch limitations calls for an increase indish diameter whilst maintaining shape and surface accuracy and reducing weightand stowed volume.

250 N. Mathers

After demonstrating the performance of the inflatable antenna under terrestrialconditions it is proposed that the structural approach developed could be applied tohigh gain communication on the lunar surface to increase antenna gain and porta-bility and reduced cost.

Inflatable Antennas on the Lunar Surface

As already discussed the restrictions placed on the size and weight of communi-cations equipment by the cargo area and weight-lifting limitations of the launchvehicle limit the size of the parabolic reflector, limiting the gain of the antenna andrestricting the scientific information that can be returned to Earth. The current use ofeither rigid or articulated reflectors also limits the portability of the communicationsystem and prevents carrying multiple antennas.

It is proposed that the inflatable antenna developed for portable terrestrial com-munication could be applied to the lunar environment to address these limitations.However, space missions are risk averse, only when it can be demonstrated thatthe new technology is mission enabling and that it can operate reliably in the harshenvironment of space will it be considered.

Delivering Shape Accuracy on the Lunar Surface

It has been demonstrated that the use of thin film materials to construct the inflatableantenna proposed, delivers the shape accuracy and stability between the elementsrequired under terrestrial conditions. It is suggested that the reduced gravity andabsence of wind on the moon will reduce the loading on the structure and thatadditional loading due to moon dust settling in the dish will be prevented by theenclosed design.

To adapt the structural design to the lunar environment the selection of a suitablematerial is the greatest obstacle. The material used for the inflatable antenna proto-type, Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), was initially developed for the space envi-ronment to provide radiation shielding for space structures. Its low gas permeabil-ity, structural stability, durability, tear and puncture resistance, low cost, chemicalinertness, high packing efficiency, RF transparency and reflectivity when metallizedmake it perfect for use in inflatable antennas in the terrestrial environment. Despitebeing developed for the space environment, it has been shown that prolonged ex-posure to the space environment degrades PET due to particulate radiation, AtomicOxygen (AO), UV radiation and thermal cycling.

Specialist films such as Kapton, and the polyimides CP1 and CP2 have beendeveloped specifically for long duration exposure to the space environment (Deveret al. 2001), making them suitable for use in inflatable antennas on the lunar sur-face. The development of these new materials is also concentrating on optical trans-parency, low solar absorptivity and high thermal emissivity to avoid overheating

Portable Satellite-Based Personal Communications Systems 251

and allow for thermal energy dissipation, allowing the power levels of the antennato be increased. Solar winds contribute to antenna noise but they also carry elementssuch as Hydrogen, Helium, Nitrogen, Carbon and the Noble gases Krypton, Xenonand Argon, which are volatile to many materials. The thin films proposed are notdegraded under the influence of these elements.

Limiting the Noise in High Gain Communication

The enormous distances involved in space communication combined with the noisegenerated by solar radiation and loss in signal due to atmospheric attenuation makesantenna noise reduction critical. The loss in signal due to noise cannot be eliminatedbut as the signal received on Earth is already weak, it is important to demonstratethat any new technology will reduce antenna noise not degrade already weak signalsfurther.

It has already been shown that inflatable structures are capable of offering theshape and surface accuracy required, so performance degradation as a result of shapedistortion will be minimal compared to the increase in the dish size which wouldincrease the gain of the antenna and narrow the beamwidth resulting in an improvedsignal-to-noise ratio. The use of a dual reflector configuration also helps to reducethe antenna noise and other measures such as filtering can be applied to a systemusing an inflatable dish in the same way as a system using a rigid or articulateddish.

Fixed Radio Astronomy on the Lunar Surface

In addition to providing portable high gain communications on the lunar surfaceinflatable antennas could enable astronomers to access the low frequency windowbetween 50 kHz and 30 MHz to make observations related to the early universe.These frequencies are not accessible from the Earth’s surface due to attenuationof the ionosphere and radio interference. The two weeks of Lunar night on thefar side of the moon provides an environment free from solar radiation and radionoise from the Earth, and the lack of seismic activity and wind provide a stableenvironment.

Concept studies from the 1960’s to present (Takahashi 2002) have explored whatmight be possible by establishing an array of antennas on the far side of the moon,including a Very Low Frequency Lunar Array proposed by ESA in 1997. The dis-advantage of all proposals to date has been the cost and logistics of placing an arrayof antenna having an estimated weight of 100 kg over an area of 20 km to 30 km onthe far side of the Moon.

The use of inflatable antennas would reduce the launch costs associated withtransporting the antennas to the moon and also increase the achievable diameter ofeach antenna thus increasing the gain. The use of lightweight, inexpensive infras-tructure also reduces establishment, maintenance and replacement costs.

252 N. Mathers

Fig. 10 Radio Astronomy onthe lunar surface. (picturecourtesy of ESA)

Conclusion

Technology is constantly being transferred between the terrestrial and space envi-ronments. In this case a concept that addressed the limitations placed on the size ofspace structure by the launch vehicle has been used to inspire a design for increasingthe portability of terrestrial-based communication antennas. By replacing the rigidparabolic reflector and feed assembly with a lightweight inflatable reflector and feedhorn fed by a microstrip patch, the portability of the system is greatly increased andthe cost of the system reduced.

It has been demonstrated that the proposed structural design delivers the shapeand surface accuracy and the stability between the elements of the antenna neededto maintain reliable communication under environmental conditions. The materialis also durable and puncture resistant to ensure a long operating life under normalconditions. This is achieved with a fraction of the weight and stowed volume of arigid or articulated dish, thus providing an antenna suitable for portable, re-usable,low-cost, land-based direct satellite communication.

This design can be replicated in various sizes to operate at a range of frequenciesmaking it suitable for multiple applications such as mobile military communica-tion, emergency response communication, tele-medicine, tele-education and mediabroadcasting in remote areas. Many of these applications would be new capabil-ities currently restricted by the portability and cost of existing communicationssystems.

It has also been shown that the structural design developed for lightweight,portable high gain communication in the terrestrial environment could be transferredback to the space environment and, with the use of materials already developedfor long term space exposure, be applied to the lunar environment. The use of alightweight inflatable structure would increase the scientific information that couldbe returned to Earth for analysis through both increased size and increased porta-bility whilst reducing launch costs. Alternatively inflatable antennas could provide

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a cost effective way of establishing an array of large antennas on the far side of theMoon for radio astronomy at the yet unexplored region of the spectrum between50 kHz and 30 MHz.

The concept discussed supports the move toward centrally managed communi-cations networks for military and natural disaster response. The possibility of trulyportable direct satellite communication ensures the individual maintains direct com-munication with the network, aiding co-ordination and providing access to the mostrecent information, including imaging. The possibility of transferring this conceptback to the space environment could also provide cost effective high gain commu-nication for future missions to the Moon.

Acknowledgments The author would like to thank her PhD supervisor, Assoc. Prof LachlanThompson, and to acknowledge Dr K. Ghorbani for the design of the microstrip patch used inthese trials.

References

Compton, W. D., “Where No Man Has Gone Before: A History of Apollo Lunar ExplorationMissions”, The NASA History Series, SP-4214, 1989

Du Pont Product Database: http://www.dupont.com/cgi-bin/corp/proddbx.cgiFlint, E., Bales, G., Glaese, R., Bradford, R., “Experimentally Characterizing the Dynamics of 0.5

m+ Diameter Doubly Curved Shells Made From Thin Films”, 44th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHSStructures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, 7–10 April 2003, Norfolk, Vir-ginia, AIAA 2003–1831

Hwang L., Turlik I., “A Review of the Skin Effect as Applied to Thin Film Interconnections”.IEEE Transactions on Components, Hybrids, and Manufacturing Technology, vol. 15, No. 1,Feb 1992

Jenkins, C.H., Freeland, R.E., Bishop, J.A., Sadeh, W.Z., “An Up-to-Date Review of InflatableStructures Technology for Space-Based Applications,” Space 98 Conference, Albuquerque,NM, April 27, 1998

Johnson, M. R., “The Galileo High Gain Antenna Anomaly”, 28th Aerospace Mechanisms Sym-posium, NASA Lewis Research Center, May 18–20, 1994, NASA CP-3260, Accession numberN94-33291, pp. 359–377

Dever, J. A., Messer, R., Powers, C., Townsend, J., Wooldridge, E., “Effects of Vacuum Ultra-violet Radiation on Thin Polyimide Films”, High Performance Polymers, 9, 2001, vol. 13,pp. S391–S399

Mackenzie A., Cravey R., Miner G., Dudley K., Stoakley D., Fralick D., “Fabrication and Electro-magnetic Characterization of Novel Self-Metallized Thin Films”, IEEE Aerospace Conference,Big Sky, Montana 5–12 March, 2004

Mahoney, T., Kerr, P., Felstead, B., Wagner, L., Wells, P., Cunningham, M., Ryden, K., Baumgart-ner, G., Demers, H., Dayton, W.L., Jeromin, L., Spink, B., “An Investigation of the MilitaryApplications of Commercial Personal Satellite Communications Systems” MILCOM 99 IEEE0-7803-5538-5 1999

Prata, A., Rusch, W. V. T., Miller, R. K., (1989), “Mesh Pillowing in Deployable Front-Fed Um-brella Parabolic Reflectors” Antenna and Propagation Society International Symposium, 1989.AP-S Digest 26–30, vol 1 pp. 254–257

Takahashi, Y. D., “Radio Astronomy from the Lunar Far Side: Precursor Studies of Radio WavePropagation around the Moon” In New Views of the Moon, Europe: Future Lunar Exploration,Science Objectives, and Integration of Datasets. ESTEC RSSD, Noordwijk, January 2002

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System

Peter A.I. Brouwer, Mark Visser, Ramses A. Molijn, Hermes M. Jara Orue,Bart J.A. van Marwijk, Tjerk C.K. Bermon and Hans van der Marel

Abstract In reaction to the devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean on December26, 2004, a project team from the faculty of Aerospace Engineering, part of theDelft University of Technology, started to investigate the feasibility of a tsunamiglobal early warning system using reflections of a Global Navigation Satellite Sys-tem (GNSS). A conceptual design of a demonstrator satellite to prove the princi-ples of the Space-borne Tsunami Warning System (STWS) was made. This chapterprovides background information about the characteristics and impact of tsunamis,about a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) in general, and about the use ofGNSS-Reflections (GNSS-R) in detecting disasters, as well as the actual design anda cost estimation for the Space-borne Tsunami Warning System.

Keywords GNSS · GNSS-R · GPS · Galileo · Tsunami · Disaster prevention ·Seismic confirmation · Satellite · Reflections · Detection · Warning

Introduction

On December 26, 2004 a disaster struck the island of Sumatra and other countriesaround the Indian Ocean. A large earthquake with a moment magnitude of around9.2–9.3 triggered a tsunami in the Pacific Ocean, killing over 250,000 people andcausing approximately e6 billion of economic damage in the affected countries(UNESCO-IOC, 2006). In reaction to the disaster several humanitarian and researchprojects were started. One of the fields of research is the design and construction ofa global system to detect tsunamis in order to give an early warning signal to peoplein threatened areas.

The Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) system is anoperational warning system, expanding to cover the Indian Ocean, in addition to the

P.A.I. BrouwerDepartment Earth Observation & Space Systems, Delft University of Technology, Kluyverweg 1,2629 HS Delft, The Netherlandse-mail: p.a.i.brouwer@gmail.com

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 11, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

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already covered Pacific Ocean. This system uses deep ocean pressure measurementsto compute sea level heights for tsunami detection (Gonzalez et al., 2001).

Another principle to detect tsunamis is to use a space-borne satellite constel-lation, because this could provide global coverage, and could possibly replace theDART system. To ensure low cost of these satellites, one could make use of a passivemeasurement technique, namely Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflections(GNSS-R). The system proposed in this chapter will make use of this techniquefor the detection of tsunamis and will be called the Space-borne Tsunami WarningSystem (STWS).

The challenge of GNSS-R for altimetry purposes is that it is an experimentaltechnique. Various research teams have performed feasibility tests from aircraft andconcluded that it is possible to use airborne GNSS-R for ocean altimetry. To performspace-borne feasibility tests, a demonstrator mission needs to be carried out.

In this chapter first some background information on GNSS, GNSS-R andtsunamis is given. The characteristics of the STWS system are discussed, followedby a method to estimate magnitudes of earthquakes using GNSS-R. This creates thefoundation of the demonstrator mission design and subsequently the costs. Finallyconclusions are drawn together with the recommendations.

Global Navigation Satellite System

Since the 1960s, the use of satellites was established as an important means of navi-gation on or near the Earth at any time and under any weather condition. The earliestsystems were designed primarily for position updates of ships, but were also founduseful for the navigation of land vehicles. During the early 1970s satellite naviga-tion was under intense development. These efforts led to the implementation of theNAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) (Kayton and Fried, 2004). The GPSnetwork is widely used worldwide for civil applications; nevertheless it remainsa military system that eventually can be switched to transmit deteriorated signalsto the user. Therefore, it does not offer the required integrity and availability ofthe signal for real-time applications. The need for a civil, independent navigationsystem, which guarantees the integrity of the transmitted signal; led to the ap-proval of the European Program for Global Navigation Services (Galileo) (ESA,Galileo, 2005, Galileo Joint Undertaking, 2004). This section will introduce somerelevant information about the signal, orbits and services of both GPS and Galileo,due to their large effect on the design of the Space-borne Tsunami Warning System(STWS).

NAVSTAR Global Positioning System

The U.S. Department of Defense’s NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS)is basically a ranging system, which consists of 29 satellites. The GPS satellites

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System 259

Fig. 1 The GPS signal. Source (Delft University of Technology, authors (Mark Visser))

are distributed in 6 orbital planes at an altitude of 20,180 km. As a consequenceof the choice of these orbital parameters, the ground tracks repeat approximatelyevery day.

Each satellite transmits signals at two frequencies in the L-Band: L1 at 1,575.42MHz, and L2 at 1,227.6 MHz. The signals are modulated with synchronized satellite-unique, so called Pseudo Random Noise (PRN), codes that provide the instanta-neous ranging capability. Figure 1 shows a schematic representation of the GPSsatellite signals. L1 provides the Coarse/Acquisition (C/A) code which is availableto all users and used to be deliberately degraded with the so called Selective Avail-ability (SA). It also provides the Precision (P) code which is encrypted and onlyavailable to authorized military users. The L2 carrier frequency only provides the Pcode. The use of two different frequencies enables some users to perform correctionsfor ionospheric delay uncertainties.

Besides the previously described codes, both frequencies carry the navigationmessage. The GPS navigation message is a 50 Hz signal consisting of bits thatdescribe the GPS satellite orbits, clock corrections and other system parameters,which is called the almanac.

European Program for Global Navigation Services

The European Program for Global Navigation Services (Galileo) is the first satellitepositioning and navigation system specifically designed for civil purposes and willoffer state-of-the-art services with outstanding performance in accuracy, continu-ity and availability. The 700 kg Galileo satellites will be in a Medium Earth Orbit(MEO), in a constellation of 27 operational satellites plus 3 in-orbit spares, using the

260 P.A.I. Brouwer et al.

spare to replace a failed satellite and launching a new satellite to replace the spareone. The MEO constellation consists of three planes, all with an inclination of 56degrees, with equally-spaced operational satellites, all at an altitude of 23,222 km.

The Galileo satellites all transmit at the same frequency bands but will each con-tain a unique code used for identification. Galileo is designed to transmit 10 differentsignals (ESA, Galileo, 2005), ranging between 1.1 GHz and 1.6 GHz band. Thisenables the opportunity to offer various services to the users. Within the 10 signals,there are signals that contain navigation data, the data channels, and signals withoutdata, the pilot channels. The navigation signals will comprise ranging codes anddata messages. The data messages will include satellite clock, ephemeris, space ve-hicle identity, status flag, constellation almanac information and a Signal-in-SpaceAccuracy parameter providing the users with a prediction of the satellite clock andephemeris accuracy over time. A range of data message rates, up to 1,000 symbolsper second, is considered, maximizing the potential for value-added services suchas weather alerts, accident warnings, traffic information and map updates.

The use of frequency bands can be found below and is visualized in Fig. 2.

� The Open Services use the signals at L1, E5a, and E5b, and a combination of thesignals for ionospheric error cancellation for very precise applications

� The Safety-of-Life services use the open signal and make use of the integritydata from dedicated messages within this signal

� The Commercial Services use additional signals in the 1,278.75 MHz band andcommercial data within the open signals

� The Public Regulated Service use two signals, one in the 1,575.42 MHz bandand one in the 1,278.75 MHz band, which are encrypted

A key asset of Galileo is its ability to offer the integrity required for the pro-vision of service guarantees and for the support of safety-of-life applications. It isplanned to provide integrity by broadcasting integrity alerts to the user which willindicate when the Galileo signals are outside specification. The user receiver canthen reject signals from satellites to which an alert refers, using the outputs of thereceiver signal processing in conjunction with other receiver techniques. The needfor several service categories in terms of accuracy, service guarantees, integrity, andother parameters, has been identified. Since GPS and Galileo make use of the sameL1 frequency, a Binary Offset Carrier (BOC) of rate (1, 1) modulation is used toavoid interference.

Fig. 2 Frequency Filling of the Galileo System

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System 261

Global Navigation Satellite System Reflections

Use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems Reflections (GNSS-R) is a new andpromising technology. The reflections of GNSS signals from the Earth surface mayprovide the means for a passive, precise, long term, all-weather, multi-purpose andwide coverage measurement system. Therefore, it forms a potential and powerfultechnology for remote sensing applications (Ruffini, 2006).

There are two possible applications of GNSS-R that have rapidly gained inter-est in the scientific community. The first is sea surface altimetry, which aims atretrieving the mean sea level like classical radar altimeters do. The second is surfacereflectometry, used for the determination of sea roughness, near-surface winds andsoil moisture.

Description of GNSS-Reflections

GNSS-R is a form of passive, bistatic radar. GNSS satellites emit signals whichreflect on the Earth surface, especially the oceans. These reflected signals can bepicked up by a satellite receiver in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The scattering pointson the surface span an area approximately equal to two times the altitude, h, of thesatellite (Fig. 3).

A GNSS-R detection system would act as a multiple-point altimeter, which pro-vides multiple tracks of an observed phenomenon. The detectable points are ex-pected to be within a Field Of View (FOV) of approximately 100 degrees. A single

Fig. 3 GNSS-R receiver passively detects multiple reflected GNSS signals

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GNSS-R receiver is able to collect information from a simultaneous set of reflectionpoints associated with different GNSS emitters, therefore the GNSS-R system iscalled multistatic. A system in LEO capable of collecting GNSS signals could po-tentially combine more than twenty reflection tracks at the same time (using GPS,GLONASS, and Galileo). The major advantage of this property would be the im-provement of the quality of altimetric measurements. Important parameters suchas temporal and spatial resolution and swath-width will be improved with respect toconventional altimeters. Potentially GNSS-R altimetry makes the detection of majortsunamis possible.

GNSS was designed for navigation and positioning purposes, not radar applica-tions. Unlike radar pulses, the GNSS signal is not aimed at confined areas of theEarth surface, making its reflected signals quite weak. Nevertheless, they can bedetected, and contain a lot of useful information. In 2005, GPS-R L1 C/A signalshave been successfully detected in space by the UK-DMC mission, using a moderateantenna gain of 11.8 dBiC (Gleason et al., 2005). The reflection process affects thesignal in several ways, at the same time degrading it and loading it with informationfrom the reflection surface. Normally, the amplitude will be reduced, the waveformshape distorted and the coherence mostly lost. Signals scattering from off-specularlocations arrive later than the ones from the specular point, as the specular pointcorresponds to the shortest path (Ruffini, 2006).

Altimetry Applications

Altimetry with GNSS-R can be carried out in two ways: by means of the codecontained in the signal, or by means of the signal phase. Both methods comparethe direct and reflected signal. As mentioned earlier, the reflection process affectsthe GNSS signal. It distorts the triangular waveform and reflects the signal veryincoherently (Fig. 4).

The basic principle of GNSS-R altimetry (Fig. 5) is that the reflected wave arriveslater than the direct one, since it will travel a longer distance to the receiver.

At low altitudes the path difference (DR − DD) is proportional to the altitude (h)over the reflecting surface and the local elevation (ε) of the satellite as seen from thespecular point:

DR − DD = 2h sin ε (1)

Fig. 4 The direct (left) and reflected (right) waveform as a function of time

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Fig. 5 The principle of GNSS-R altimetry: The path difference between the reflected and directsignal is proportional to the altitude

The arrival time difference is called lapse, l. Uncertainty in the lapse translatesrather directly into altimetric uncertainty. The altimetric error (σh) is related to thelapse error through:

σh = σl

2 sin ε(2)

where σl is the lapse precision. In turn, this parameter depends on four terms:

1. Delay precision of the direct waveform, σd

2. Delay precision of the reflected waveform, σr

3. Effect of the ionosphere, fiono

4. Effect of the troposphere, σtropo

and can be written as (Starlab, 2005):

σ 2l = fionoσ

2R + σ 2

D + σ 2tropo (3)

GNSS code ranging can be compared to pulse ranging. Indeed, after correlationwith a clean replica, the continuous signal in the C/A code can be represented bya triangular pulse (Fig. 4). The triangle’s base is twice the chip length (293 m inGPS C/A). One of the most interesting characteristics of GNSS is the fact that theattainable centimeter precision is orders of magnitude smaller than the chip length.The resolution obtained by a radar system is assumed to be in the order of magnitudeof the pulse length. Hence, it would seem unlikely that a system like GPS C/A, witha bandwidth of about 1 MHz and an associated pulse length of 293 m, could providecentimeter precision ranging. However, it can be shown that the ranging uncertaintyis not only proportional to the pulse width, but also inversely proportional to the

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signal to noise ratio (Starlab, 2005). In practice, the precision can be greatly im-proved by a fitting procedure, for example least squares. The waveform is affectedin several ways: change of the peak height, and modification of the leading andtrailing edges due to ocean roughness. These effects can be modeled. Some aspectsof the waveform are less sensitive to the precise roughness model than others. Forexample, the leading edge of the waveform is typically used in GNSS-R altimetry.

Tsunami Characteristics

Tsunamis are large waves that can be generated by many different mechanisms in-cluding submarine earthquakes, landslides, submarine volcano eruptions and mete-oroid impacts. Earthquakes are the most common cause of large tsunamis (Peder-sen, 2001). Tsunamis can potentially have enormous impact on societies. As seenwith the tsunami near Sumatra in 2004, the loss of life and economic damagecan devastate communities. This section will give an overview of how and wheretsunamis originate and what is the impact on societies.

Tsunami Causes and Propagation

Most Tsunami Warning Systems (TWS) depend on seismic data to identify deep-seaearthquakes that could potentially cause a tsunami. Although the seismic magni-tude and epicenter of the earthquake provide important clues on whether a tsunamimay or may not occur there is not a one-to-one relationship between the occur-rence of a tsunami and the seismic magnitude. First of all, the epicenter must belocated beneath the oceans, but above all, vertical slip along the fault line mustoccur (Fig. 6).

An unambiguous tsunami quantification scale would aid risk assessment and al-low for meaningful comparison of tsunami events. However, there is still no singletsunami quantification scale that has been widely agreed upon.

Since a tsunami can be considered as a particular type of seismic wave, problemsrelated to tsunami quantification are usually approached analogously to seismology.It is important to note the difference between intensity and magnitude. Accordingto seismology, magnitude is an objective physical parameter that measures eitherenergy radiated by a source, or the moment released in a source. On the contrary,intensity is a rather subjective estimate of the effects of an earthquake.

Tsunamis are waves that extend through the entire water column, form ocean bot-tom to sea surface. Consequently, these phenomena carry a large amount of energythrough the ocean. Since the energy loss is inversely related to the wavelength, theenergy of the tsunami is not dissipated on the deep ocean (Starlab, 2005). Therefore,this type of waves can travel long distances without significant loss. The total energyper unit area of a wave is given by:

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Fig. 6 Tsunami resulting from vertical displacement of the seabed. Source (Modified fromhowstuffworks.com)

E = 1

8ρgH 2 (4)

In which, ρ is the water density, H is the wave height and g is the acceleration ofgravity. Since tsunamis are characterized by a wavelength of hundreds of kilometers,the propagation speed of the wave can be determined:

ν =√

ghw (5)

where ν is the wave speed and hw is the water depth. From equation (5) follows thattsunami waves propagate slower when traveling through shallow water.

In addition, the energy of a tsunami wave is inversely proportional to its wavespeed because tsunamis can be considered as shallow-water waves, i.e. wavesfor which the ratio between the water depth and its wavelength is very small(Sterna, 2005). Since the energy, in its turn, is proportional to the square of thewave height (equation (4)), the following relation holds:

ν1

ν2=

(H2

H1

)2

(6)

The consequence of equation (6) is that reduction of the propagation speed resultsin a large increase of the wave height. This explains the reason why tsunami wavesbecome meters high when approaching the shore.

At this point it seems obvious to state that a tsunami with large wave height ismore likely to claim human lives than a tsunami with small wave height. However,there is no specific or formal correlation between magnitude and intensity. Even

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the largest tsunami will have the lowest intensity if it hits an uninhabited area (Pa-padopoulos and Imamura, 2001). To give an accurate prediction of local tsunamiintensity, many aspects have to be taken into account. These include:

� Detected wave height� Ocean depth at the site of the detected wave.� Distance from the wave to endangered areas.� The tide at the endangered coast.� Depth of coastal waters and steepness of the seafloor.� Friction coefficient of the sea floor.� Elevation of the coast.� Population of the endangered region.

It follows that the decision on whether or not to issue a warning will be inaccurateif it is exclusively based on measured wave height. Information on bathymetry, pop-ulation density and tidal flows could improve the estimate of the tsunami intensity.Predictive modeling of tsunami propagation and the effect of the tsunami on coastalcommunities will be vital aspects of the warning system, because both false alarmand failure to alarm are highly undesirable.

The height above mean sea level at the maximum intrusion point of a tsunamiis called the run-up height (Fig. 7). A run-up height of more than one meter iscommonly considered dangerous for human life. Since it is very unlikely that atsunami with a wave height of less than 10 cm at open sea would cause a dangerousrun-up height, a reliable and accurate detection system should be able to detect waveheights of 10 cm at open sea.

Tsunami Prone Locations

Vertical ocean bed displacements, which are the prime cause of tsunamis, usuallyoccur at tectonic plate boundaries. It follows that populations in coastal regions close

Fig. 7 Tsunami intrusion and run-up. Source (Modified from UNESCO IOC)

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Fig. 8 Worldwide earthquake epicenters. Source (NASA (via Wikipedia Commons))

to seismically active plate boundaries suffer the most tsunami events. As illustratedin Fig. 8, the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and the Alpine belt-which ranges from Atlantic through the Mediterranean and the Himalaya and intoIndonesia- are the area’s most in danger (Starlab, 2005).

Tsunamis in History

Tsunami events occur with a frequency of approximately 10 per year. Of the 1,043events recorded during the twentieth century, 141 were damaging, whereas 902were not (Starlab, 2005; NOAA, 2008). Throughout history many events have beenrecorded that cost over a 1,000 casualties per event (Table 1). Although there is nodirect correlation between the casualties and economic damage, it can be imaginedthat also the economic consequences are devastating for the affected regions. Afterthe tsunami that originated near Indonesia in 2004, the world community pledgedto give over $ 7 billion in aid.

Current Systems & Developments

Shortly after the devastating tsunami on 26 December 2004, initiative was takenby the International Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO for an In-dian Ocean Tsunami Warning System (IOTWS) (UNESCO-IOC, 2007). At thesame time, Tsunami Warning Systems (TWS’s) were established for the NortheastAtlantic Ocean, Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas. A TWS for the Pacific alreadyexisted since 1968. This means that the large oceans, except the South AtlanticOcean, are covered by Tsunami Warning Systems. Each of these Tsunami WarningSystems is coordinated regionally, resulting in four individual Intergovernmental

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Table 1 The deadliest tsunamis in history (note: numbers before the 20th century are approxima-tions), source NOAA

Year Location Deaths

2004 INDONESIA 250,0001883 INDONESIA 36,0001707 JAPAN 30,0001783 ITALY 30,0001896 JAPAN 27,1221771 JAPAN 13,4861815 INDONESIA 11,4531765 SOUTH CHINA SEA 1,00001586 JAPAN 8,000365 GREECE 5,700

1703 JAPAN 5,2331605 JAPAN 5,0001611 JAPAN 5,0001687 PERU 5,0001941 INDIA 5,0001746 PERU 4,8001792 JAPAN 4,3001899 INDONESIA 3,7301512 JAPAN 3,7001498 JAPAN 3,1001933 JAPAN 3,0641854 JAPAN 3,0001341 JAPAN 2,6001992 INDONESIA 2,5001696 JAPAN 2,4501976 PHILIPPINES 2,3491674 INDONESIA 2,2431998 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 2,1831923 JAPAN 2,1441751 JAPAN 2,100887 JAPAN 2,000

1570 CHILE 2,0001692 JAMAICA 2,0001707 JAPAN 2,0001946 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 1,7901766 JAPAN 1,7001819 INDIA 1,543

Coordination Groups (ICG’s), with the Mediterranean and Caribbean regions as oneICG. The International Tsunami Information Center (ITIC) of the UNESCO IOCassists establishments of new TWS’s for the Member States and acts as an educa-tional and information resource for the IOC’s Tsunami Program. This program hasbeen established to provide tsunami mitigation trainings to support capacity buildingof the Member States. The program also acts as an information clearinghouse forthe promotion of research, and the development and distribution of educational andpreparedness materials to mitigate the tsunami hazard (UNESCO-IOC, 2006).

All the established TWS’s are based on the Pacific example and as a conse-quence they rely on the same principle for detecting tsunamis and the distributionof information to the ICG’s. After the location and size of the earthquake has been

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System 269

determined, through seismic parameter analysis from buoys and seismographic sta-tions, the potential that the earthquake generates a tsunami is computed. Thereafterthe tsunami wave arrival time and run-up on the coast are predicted. The next oper-ation is to provide effective tsunami information and warnings to the authorities andpopulation (UNESCO-IOC, 2006). For the actual warning at the high risk zones,several systems have been proposed including the distribution of the warning viacell phones, by sending text messages, and by using air raid alarms. Two differentwarnings can be distinguished. The fist type holds the initial and most importantwarning to the areas the tsunami could reach within a few hours. This messageincludes the predicted tsunami arrival times at the selected coastal communities.The communities outside these areas will receive the second type of warning urg-ing a tsunami watch or advisory status. For both messages the same holds that thewarnings, watches and advisories are distributed over appointed officials, which intheir turn warn the general public. At the same time, scientists at warning centerswill monitor the impact and severity of the tsunami. In case of significant tsunamiactivities and long-range destructive potential, the warning is extended to remotelocated authorities and communities (UNESCO-IOC, 2006).

Benefits

After the Sumatra-Andaman in 2004, the existing systems did not issue a notifi-cation of a possible tsunami event until 65 min after the occurrence of the earth-quake. This is 41 min after the first tsunami waves struck the coasts of Indonesia.Not until two and half hours after the tsunami, internet newswire reports providedthe Tsunami Warning Centers with real indication of a destructive tsunami. TheSpace-borne Tsunami Warning System is a global system, in contrast to these othersystems. Although the expenses of a space borne system will be higher, it is notthreatened by natural hazards and human interference. In such events the availabil-ity and the integrity of the system decreases and the maintenance cost expands. Thethreats of the STWS are not like Earth-based systems, but could consist of eventssuch as (micro-) meteorite and atomic oxygen impacts. However, the probability ofa hit is negligible with respect to the lifetime of the system.

Next to tsunami detection, other applications can make the system economi-cally more feasible. These applications include wind speed and direction, significantwave height, salinity, pollution and soil moisture (Ruffini et al., 2003). Furthermore,the availability of the STWS can lead to new advances in the use of GNSS-R forcurrently unexplored applications. Apart from the humanitarian benefits, more ben-efits have the possibility to arise in other fields.

Characteristics of the Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System

For proper definition and understanding of the STWS, first some essential require-ments and constraints are set and discussed. Based on these, the required methodsand limitations can be identified and a correct overview of the actual capabilities

270 P.A.I. Brouwer et al.

of the system can be produced. For example, it is important to know how the sys-tem detects a tsunami, when an actual warning is required and how much time ittakes to execute a warning. This overview will be demonstrated by discussing thecapabilities for a hypothetical case of a tsunami. Eventually, a requirement compli-ance analysis will be performed and the conclusion of this analysis can verify thefeasibility of the system.

Requirements of the STWS

The system requirements are divided into three groups; operational requirements,functional requirements and constraints. These form the boundary conditions to bemet for a well-performing system. Operational requirements describe the systemoperations and the related human interactions to achieve the mission objectives.Functional requirements are definitions of the performance of the system in orderto meet its objectives. The system constraints are usually set by the client, which inthis case will be a collaboration of countries or global a organization.

Operational Requirements

Errors in the detection of a tsunami can greatly affect the reliability of the system.The public confidence in the system will recede if a tsunami is not detected or if awarning is falsely issued. A direct consequence could be significant loss of life. Eventhough ideally a tsunami should never be missed, any real system always takes intoaccount system imperfections and human mistakes. As a consequence, detection ofevery tsunami cannot be guaranteed and a feasible and realistic requirement shouldbe set. Therefore, the reliability requirement is that the system should not miss morethan one out of a thousand tsunamis, and the frequency of false warnings must beless than once in three years (Brouwer et al., 2006). The availability of the systemis directly related to this requirement and is required to be at least 99.9 percent(Brouwer et al., 2006).

System maintenance is essential in order to achieve such a high availability.This requirement implies virtually no inactivity of the system during the criticalocean passes. Included in system maintenance are orbit control, software updatesand satellite replacement due to failure or lifetime expiration. This translates into asystem lifecycle of around 10 years (Brouwer et al., 2006).

Functional Requirements

The first step in the process of a tsunami detection and warning is the receptionof a signal with sufficient signal to noise ratio (SNR). This directly influences thephysical dimensions of the antenna. The system, which passively collects GNSS-Rdata, must be able to handle this data amount and must be able to store it, beforedown-linking it to the ground station. The raw signal is processed on board prior tothe downlink and in the case of a possible tsunami it will transmit to the satellite

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System 271

already in contact with a ground station. This implies that even though a satellitedetecting a tsunami cannot directly downlink its information to a ground station, theinformation can be sent through STWS satellite(s) in contact with a ground station(Brouwer et al., 2006).

Immediate (direct or indirect) relay of the data is needed because of the required45 minute warning time. This delay is based on a trade-off between observed traveltimes of past destructive tsunamis and a reasonable estimate of the detection, pro-cessing and warning time. A shorter warning time is not realistic, because of allthe processes involved and the requirements on the quality of an executed warning.Efficiently distributing the warning is needed to reach the goal of warning 98 percentof the endangered people. Knowledge about which area to warn first is an essentialfactor of interpretation of the processed data.

System Constraints

The system is constrained by the detection time, and will therefore require a con-stellation of satellites to achieve global coverage. The use of GNSS-R impels designconstraints on the power consumption of the satellites, and the dimensions and typeof the antenna. The final constraint concerns the minimization of the cost of thesystem. The total cost of the system is determined by research, production, launchand operational cost.

Hypothetical Case of a Tsunami

The devastating power of a tsunami can be explained from tsunami physics.A tsunami wave with a small wave height at open sea could produce a potential life-threatening tsunami wave at the shore, since its energy is not dissipated as the wavetravels through deep water. Moreover, a tsunami wave propagates rapidly throughdeep water, reducing its velocity once the wave approaches shallow water.

These physical characteristics of tsunamis impose two important requirements onthe tsunami warning system. First, the minimum detectable wave amplitude shouldcorrespond to the minimum height of a potential life-threatening tsunami wave atopen sea. Second, the warning signal should be generated before the tsunami wavereaches the coast. For the present description of the system, a minimum wave heightof 10 cm (Starlab 2005) at open sea and a warning time of 45 min is considered.These two values are realistic and feasible estimates; however it might happen thatthe coast of a threatened area is located closer in time to the source of the tsunami.

Receiving the Signal

The thirty minute detection time constraint on a global scale implies the use ofa constellation of satellites to continuously scan the oceans. Every satellite, whenflying over a liquid surface, receives reflected GNSS signals that could contain in-formation about a generated tsunami wave. Due to the unique spatial characteristics

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of a tsunami wave, i.e. large wavelength and relatively small amplitude; a tsunamiwave can be detected if the error in the altimetry measurement remains smallerthan the physical quantity to be measured, i.e. the amplitude. An acceptable error of10 cm in the altimetric measurements leads to antenna diameters between 1.6 and2.2 m when the P code reflections are used, where the lower values for the antennasize correspond to lower altitudes of the constellation (See section Requirementscompliance analysis). However, a low orbit will require more satellites to obtainglobal coverage within the given timeframe and also require more fuel to compen-sate for atmospheric drag perturbations of the orbit. Consequently, a trade-off has tobe made between the altitude of the constellation’s altitude and the required antennasize. The optimal system would provide a combination altitude-antenna size, whichis the most cost-efficient over a lifetime of 10 years. The proposed system, althoughnot optimal, consists of approximately forty satellites at an altitude of 650 km, withan antenna diameter of 1.8 m.

The inclination of the orbits also plays a role in the determination of the num-ber of satellites, because it determines the area on Earth covered by the satellites.Satellites with high inclinations provide global coverage, but they need more pas-sages in order to provide a full coverage of the low latitude regions. On the otherhand; global coverage of life-threatening tsunamis implies the detection of tsunamiwaves at 60 degrees latitude, because of two reasons. First, because 96 percent ofthe earthquakes with a magnitude six or higher on the Richter scale are locatedwithin sixty degree latitude (Sterna, 2005). Second, due to the fact that high lati-tude regions on Earth have a very low demographic density. Since the inclination ofGPS is approximately 56 degrees and the minimum elevation angle of the reflectedsignals has been set to 30 degrees for the P code reflections, the detection of atsunami travelling at 60 degrees latitude implies an inclination of approximately 68degrees for the constellation’s orbit. The given orbital inclination will result in somecoverage gaps at low latitudes, if applied to the proposed constellation. Thereforeit would be advisable to set some satellites in a low orbital inclination to cover theresulting gaps.

Calibration and Processing

The satellites are provided with three signals, the direct, the reflected, and the navi-gation data. These signals are all used in the processing and calibration of the signal.

Calibration of both direct and reflected signals is done in order to use the mod-ified GPS receiver as an accurate reflectometer. This calibration will take into ac-count the differences between the direct and reflected signal. Multipath resultingfrom satellite surfaces should also be taken into account simulating what shouldbe a nearly constant source of illumination (Katzberg et al. 1996), although chokerings for the direct antenna will minimize this effect. Over-the-water-calibrationuses the observations from several satellites of reflected power values correspondingto smooth-surface and reflections at high elevation over the water. In the case of atsunami, the reflected signals of multiple satellites will show a height anomaly ofthe ocean surface, resulting in a difference with respect to the calibrated model.

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System 273

Processing of the signal is relatively simple, because both processing of the directand reflected signals is done in the same way (Martin-Neira et al., 2001).

A clear replica of each direct GPS signal is generated and up-converted withits own Doppler due to GPS motion. Each signal is then cross-correlated with thedirect and reflected signal, resulting in two signals resembling the autocorrelationfunction of a PRN code. For a pulse-limited system the autocorrelation function ofthe reflected signal should look like a typical altimeter waveform. The peak of thetwo (interpolated) cross-correlation functions is determined and the delay is derived.The delay between the peaks is assumed to be the time lag of the reflected signalwith respect to the direct signal (Fig. 8).

With the known geometry, the expected surface height with respect to all themeasurements can be computed. An anomaly larger than the error incorporated inthese measurements corresponds to the detection of a possible tsunami.

Tsunami Warning Execution

After detecting a tsunami, the information is sent to a ground station and the tsunamiwarning is broadcast. The tsunami warning can be distributed using various meth-ods, where a combination of methods will result in a maximum number of warnedpeople. Not all methods and combinations need to be implemented everywhere,because in some areas it may be unfeasible or unnecessary.

The first broadcasting method is SMS (text message) cell broadcasting, which isthe simultaneous distribution of SMS messages to a given geographic area. It is oneof the most effective options because of the dense mobile phone usage all over theworld. However, not everyone has access to a mobile phone, especially in areas suchas the eastern coast of Africa, or some coastal parts of Asia. Therefore the warningshould also be distributed over private fixed lines. For SMS cell broadcasting, theaffected areas should be known and for the private lines (such as those of localauthorities, hotels and restaurants) the relevant phone numbers should be knownbeforehand. After broadcasting the warning, mouth-to-mouth alerting should informthe unaware bystanders of the threat.

Another method is the Emergency Alerting Service (EAS), which uses FM andAM radio, and television broadcasting. A signal is sent out directly, as soon as theauthorities receive such an alert. The time it takes to initialize such a system isestimated to be less than five minutes when using pre-recorded messages or liveinterruption. Again, the parties (e.g. local broadcast stations) to be contacted shouldbe known beforehand to minimize the time to broadcast.

For regions not accessible through communication methods mentioned above,there is the option for setting up air raid sirens emitting sound and light signals. Atsome places on Asian shores this system already exists and the principle could beexpanded to other regions with a high tsunami risk.

Another application, currently under development is the “Alert Interface via EG-NOS” (ALIVE) and is concerned with the provision of early warning messages tocitizens or governmental/local authorities in case of a major event or disaster. It will

274 P.A.I. Brouwer et al.

use the Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) message broadcasting capa-bility as a means of disaster announcement (Javier Ventura-Traveset et al., 2007).

Seismic Confirmation

Current seismic methods cannot quickly determine the moment magnitude for verylarge earthquakes. This is clearly illustrated by the magnitude 9.2–9.3 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of December 26, 2004, which was first estimated at magnitude8.0 using rapid seismological techniques. As the minimal magnitude to generate ma-jor ocean-wide tsunamis is 8.5 (Blewitt et al, 2006), this explains why the tsunamigenerating potential of the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was initially underes-timated. Seismological techniques tend to underestimate earthquakes larger thanmagnitude 8. This is because seismic instruments are easily saturated in higher fre-quencies. Another thing to bear in mind is that not every large earthquake will gen-erate a tsunami as mentioned in the section discussing the background of tsunamis.

A new method to compute the magnitude moment using GPS measurementshas been proposed by (Blewitt et al, 2006). This method is based upon measuringprecisely the position of GPS receivers within a few thousand kilometers of theearthquake. From this data scientists can compute the displacement of GPS stations,because of the earthquake, with millimeter accuracy and then derive the earthquakesmagnitude and tsunami generating potential as early as 15 minutes after the occur-rence of the earthquake.

Somewhat surprisingly, many GPS networks are already in place for surveyingand geophysical applications, and could be used for a tsunami warning system withsome additional effort. The additional effort is mainly in establishing reliable real-time communication with these stations and in setting up the necessary real-timedata-processing infrastructure. Additional high-end GPS receivers will cost less thane13.000 per item. Examples of existing networks are the world-wide network ofthe International GNSS Service (IGS) with 300 receivers; the European permanentnetwork (EPN) of 200 receivers and its national densifications by national mappingagencies and commercial companies with in total over 2000 receivers; GEONETof the Geographical Survey Institute (GSI) of Japan consisting of 200 continuousGPS stations in Japan; and the US CORS and plate-boundary observation systemwith several thousands of receivers. Significant efforts are already being made togenerate near real-time data and products from these networks for Earth observationapplications. One of these initiatives is the real-time IGS network (RT-IGS) andreal-time GPS orbit and clock analysis products, pre-requisite products for a tsunamiwarning system. At the same time standards have been developed for the real-timedissemination of GPS data, such as the NTRIP standard for the transfer of GPS dataover the Internet which is supported by most major GPS receiver manufacturers.

The displacements caused by the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake have been ob-served by GPS stations in South-East Asia (Vigny et al., 2005, Blewitt et al, 2006).The displacements computed by (Vigny et al., 2005) are given in (Fig. 9). In anoperational system these displacements can be computed within 15 min after theoccurrence of the earthquake (Blewitt et al, 2006). Using these displacements and

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System 275

Fig. 9 Panel (a) shows a large scale overview of the co-seismic displacement related to theSumatra-Andaman earthquake of December 26, 2004. Panel (b) provides more detail, zoom-ing in on a smaller area (rectangular box in a). Bold numbers next to arrow heads give thedisplacement in mm. Ellipses depict the 90% confidence level. Thin black lines depict majorfaults. The USGS earthquake epicenter location is portrayed by the star symbol, near bottom leftof box. Figure courtesy of (Vigny et al., 2005). Source (Vigny, C.; Simons, W. J. F.; Abu, S.;Bamphenyu, R.; Satirapod, C.; Choosakul, N.; Subarya, C.; Socquet, A.; Omar, K.; Abidin, H.Z.; Ambrosius, B. A. C; Insight into the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake from GPS mea-surements in southeast Asia. Nature 436, 201-206 (14 July 2005) | doi: 10.1038/nature03937http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7048/abs/nature03937.html)

the initial epicenter from seismology, a modeled displacement field and momentmagnitude can be computed, and hence the vertical displacement of the ocean. Thisin turn can be used to initialize real-time tsunami models and generate warnings forspecific areas.

Unlike seismometers and accelerometers, which measure the velocity and ac-celeration of the ground, the GPS receivers measure the movement of the grounddirectly in real-time. Seismometers and accelerometers are therefore very sensitiveto short-period seismic waves, but less sensitive to longer-period ones. In contrast,GPS measures the ground displacement directly, including long- and short-periodiccomponents depending on the sample rate of the receiver, which may be as high as1–10 Hz. As discussed above, the permanent component of the displacement is adirect function of the earthquake magnitude and can be used to estimate the magni-tude and tsunami generating potential. High rate kinematic GPS measurements alsocan give long-period components of seismic waves, which will never be saturatedand can be detected over large distances for large seismic events. Seismic waves for

276 P.A.I. Brouwer et al.

the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake have been observed by GPS receivers as far as inEurope with amplitude of a few centimeters (Sohne et al., 2005).

Displacements measured at the Earth surface by GPS are not the only way to de-tect tsunamis. Incredible as it may seem, a tsunami will also generate a signature inthe Earth ionosphere, a region approximately 50 km to 1000 km above the Earth sur-face. The small displacement in the ocean surface displaces the Earth atmosphere,and this propagates into the Earth ionosphere as pressure waves, causing changes inthe electron density which can be tracked by GPS (Occhipinti et al, 2008).

Requirements Compliance Analysis

In this section the capability of the instrument to perform altimetry observations willbe discussed in some detail. The instrument performance, expressed as the measure-ment signal to noise ratio (SNR), can be related to the altimetric precision by meansof equation (2).

The lapse precision (σl) is a parameter expressing the accuracy of the estimationof the relative delay between direct and reflected signals. This parameter is theoret-ically defined by Equation (3). However, in reality, the lapse precision is dominatedby the delay precision of the reflected signal (Starlab 2005). Consequently, equa-tion (2) can be written as follows;

σh = σr

2 sin ε(7)

The determination of the range precision (σr ) is not a straightforward task. Tofirst order accuracy, the range precision of the reflected signal can be evaluated inthe same way as for the direct signal (Lowe et al., 2002). For direct GNSS signals,the estimated delay error is a function of the 1-sec voltage SNR (SNRv) and is givenby the following expressions (Thomas, J.B., 1995);

σr (C/A) = 0.50√

2

SNRν

τC/A

√1 − C (2) (8)

σr (P) = 0.37√

2

SNRν

τ P (9)

In equations (8) and (9), the parameter τ represents the chip length of respec-tively the C/A and P code. The parameter C (2) is the correlation factor betweenamplitudes separated by two lags and is equal to 0.9 for the present analysis (Loweet al., 2002).

The approach presented above shows several limitations. As it could be observedfrom Fig. 4, the shape of the reflected signal is far from the triangular form of thedirect signal. Moreover, the model does not take into account signal fluctuationscaused by speckle noise. Furthermore, “the approach is only valid for relativelyhigh thermal signal to noise ratio (SNRv) and the derived expressions assume a

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System 277

direct signal statistical model, which is tied to the choice of a particular estimator”(Germain et al., 2006).

A different approach, which makes use of Estimation Theory, solves most of thelimitations of Lowe’s approach (Germain et al., 2006). In this approach, the delayprecision of a signal is estimated from the probability density function (PDF) of thesignal’s complex waveform. The resulting model does not show deviation from themodel defined by Equations (7), (8), (9) if the triangular shape of the direct signal isused. However, since the geometry of the reflected wave is not triangular (Fig. 4), thereflected complex waveform is modeled by a Gaussian probability density function.(Germain et al., 2006) shows that this method leads to a more pessimistic value forthe range precision. In most cases the predicted value of σr is four times larger thanthe value estimated by means of Lowe’s method.

As stated before, the performance of the instrument can be expressed in termsof the SNR. The calculation of the SNR for one pulse, SNR0, can be carried out bymeans of the multi-static radar equation for distributed targets (Martin-Neira, 1993):

SNR0 = 0.5

(Pt Gt

4π R21

)σb A

(1

4π R22

)(λ2

4πGr

)(1

KTSB

)(10)

As it can be seen from Equation (10), the SNR for one pulse depends on theGNSS transmitted power (Pt ), the transmitter antenna gain (Gt ), the mean distancefrom the GNSS satellite to the reflecting footprint surface (R1), the mean normalizedbistatic radar cross-section across the receiver antenna footprint (σb), the area ofthe receiver antenna footprint on the Earth surface (A), the mean distance betweenthe reflecting footprint and the STWS receiver (R2), the wavelength of the signal(λ), the gain of the receiver antenna (Gr ), the Boltzmann constant (K ), the systemtemperature (Ts) and the signal bandwidth (B). Most of these parameters are fixed orcode-dependent. Nevertheless; a couple of them act as design variables, since theydepend on a combination of the altitude of the receiver satellite, the reflection (orelevation) angle of the reflected signal (ε) and the diameter of the receiver antenna(Dr ). A detailed description of the steps involved in the calculation of SNR0 can befound in (Martin-Neira 1993).

The reflected signal is correlated with the direct signal in order to perform thecomputation of the sea level height. If the correlation process is coherent, an im-provement by a factor N is achieved with respect to the single pulse SNR0. Conse-quently, the SNR for one shot can be expressed as follows,

SNR = N (SNR0) (11)

If one assumes a triangular waveform, the one-shot SNRv can be derived by mul-tiplying the obtained one-shot SNR by the square-root of two (Germain et al., 2006).The one-second SNRv can be, in its turn, derived by multiplying the value of theone-shot SNRv by the square root of the number of shots in one second. In gen-eral, the time-dependent thermal SNRv can be related to the one-shot SNRv throughEquation (12) (Le Traon et al., 2003).

278 P.A.I. Brouwer et al.

SNRv (t) = √nT SNRv (12)

In Equation (12), the number of shots (nT ) is equal to the inverse of the signalintegration time (Ti), times the observation time (t). The integration time of thereflected signal, in its turn, depends on the GNSS code. A good approximation ofthe value for the C/A code is Ti = 0.8 ms, and for the P code is Ti = 2.4 ms (Germainet al. 2006). A simple calculation shows that one second of observations contains1250 shots in the case of the C/A code and about 417 shots in the case of the P code.

An interesting characteristic of a tsunami wave is its long wavelength. This prop-erty enables the satellites to observe the sea-anomaly during a longer lapse of timethan the mentioned one second. If a conservative assumption of the wavelength istaken (λw ≈ 50 km), then a satellite traveling at approximately 7 km/s will haveslightly more than 7 s to perform measurements of the sea level anomaly. Thethermal SNRv corresponding to this measurement time can then be obtained fromequation (12).

Based on the theoretical background presented above, the altimetric precision(σh) of the STWS measurements can be computed for different orbital altitudes,elevation angles and antenna dimensions. The range of the most important inputparameters are presented in Table 2. Therein, the worst-case scenario is taken intoaccount, i.e. reflection under the smallest feasible value for the elevation angle (ε).

Figure 10a describes the altimetric precision for C/A code reflections as a func-tion of the orbit altitude and the antenna diameter, if Lowe’s approach is used. FromFig. 10a, it could be concluded that an altimetric precision of 10 cm can be achievedthrough the implementation of receiver antennas with a diameter smaller than onemeter. Based on these results, although optimistic, various authors proposed thefeasibility of a Tsunami Warning System based on C/A code observations (Germainet al. 2006).

Figure 10b, based on Germain’s model of the reflected wave, illustrates why thepremature conclusion taken above is optimistic. By comparing both results, one canobserve that the improved model of the reflected wave leads to more pessimistic re-sults than in previous analysis (Starlab 2005). As it could be observed from Fig. 10b,the altimetric precision of the measurements is considerably reduced to values thatdo not satisfy the imposed requirements on the accuracy of the measurements. Con-sequently, it can be safely concluded that tsunami detection from space using theC/A code is not feasible, unless the objective of the mission is modified to onlydetect strong tsunami waves (Germain et al. 2006).

Table 2 Input parameters STWS measurements

Parameter C/A P

Altitude [km] 500–900 500–900Antenna gain [dB] 15–40 15–40(Antenna diameter [m]) (0.42–7.5) (0.42–7.5)Elevation angle [degrees] 40 30Coherence time [ms] 0.8 2.4

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System 279

00

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

Altimetric precision [m]

0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0.22 0.24 0.26 0.28

Altimetric precision [m]

Altimetric precision as a function of antenna diameter and satellite height forC/A code (Lowe model) for real measurement.

Altimetric precision as a function of antenna diameter and satellite height forC/A code (Germain model) for real measurement.

Ant

enna

dia

met

er [m

]

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

5.5

b

aA

nten

na d

iam

eter

[m]

h = 500 kmh = 600 kmh = 700 kmh = 800 kmh = 900 kmh = 1000 km

h = 500 kmh = 600 kmh = 700 kmh = 800 kmh = 900 kmh = 1000 km

Fig. 10 Altimetric precision as a function of antenna diameter and satellite height for C/A codereflections. (a) Lowe’s model. (b) Germain’s model

The previous analysis leads to the fact that the feasibility of STWS as a tsunamidetection system from space depends on the altimetric accuracy of the P code obser-vations. Figure 10 shows the altimetric precision of P code measurements, based onGermain’s model. As it could be observed from the presented results, the requiredaccuracy of 10 cm is feasible for any combination of input variables. In other words;

280 P.A.I. Brouwer et al.

for orbits ranging between 500 and 1000 km, the diameter of the antenna will varyfrom approximately 1.6 m to 2.2 m. A trade-off between the available options canthen be performed, by taking into account that lower orbits imply an increase of thenumber of constellation’s satellites and that larger antennas imply larger satellites.A good compromise would be to choose an orbit between 650 and 700 km, leadingto an antenna with a diameter close to 1.8 m (27 dB < Gr < 28 dB) (Fig. 11).

At this stage, it is important to emphasize that the P code is encrypted, andtherefore not available for civil applications. Nevertheless, the analysis presentedabove shows the potential of GNSS reflections for tsunami detection from space.The availability in the near future of P-like code for civil (commercial) applicationsfrom Galileo and the modernized GPS, will certainly provide a better foundation forreal measurements.

Warning Timeline

A critical aspect of the STWS is the timely delivery of the warning signal. Thebenefits of the system for society are only relevant if the warning reaches the com-munities to be affected in time. The tsunami warning delay is defined as the time ittakes from the tsunami initiation until the execution of the warning.

This delay is dependent on several phases:

1. data acquisition, preprocessing and down-link by the satellites2. processing, validating and simulation of the tsunami at the ground stations3. execution of the tsunami warning

00

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.20

Altimetric precision [m]

Altimetric precision as a function of antenna diameter and satellite height forP code (Germain model) for real measurement.

Ant

enna

dia

met

er [m

]

h = 500 kmh = 600 kmh = 700 kmh = 800 kmh = 900 kmh = 1000 km

Fig. 11 Altimetric precision as a function of antenna diameter and satellite height for P codereflections, based on Germain’s model

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System 281

The detection of a tsunami from space takes up the main part of the warningtime. The instrument on board of the STWS satellite will pick up the GNSS datareflected by the ocean surface. In the worst case scenario, the time elapsed betweenthe initiation of the tsunami event and the acquisition of the reflected GNSS signalsis 30 minutes. This time is required by the satellite constellation to cover the entireEarth and is called the detection time, part of the first phase.

Each satellite constantly pre-processes the data to check for an initial indicationof tsunami forming. In case the pre-processing indicates a possible tsunami, the datais down linked to a ground station. If the satellite cannot be in direct contact withthe ground station, inter-satellite communication will be used. No sensor data willbe sent to ground stations if the satellite does not have an indication of tsunamiforming, which saves a significant amount of power and bandwidth.

Since tsunamis are caused by events which generate seismic waves, seismolog-ical data can be used for verification of the satellite observations and as a resultreduce the possibility of a false warning. This implies that the ground stations willmonitor the seismological data received by seismic stations constantly.

After satellite data is received and stored by the ground station, the processing ofthe data starts immediately, to minimize the time delay. Initial processing includesthe correction of the measured data for orbit and attitude errors, correction of thedata for ionospheric and tropospheric errors and extraction of noise. If processingat the ground station indicates tsunami forming and the seismological data con-firms this possibility, the actual warning will be generated. First of all, a tsunamipropagation model is simulated to determine the locations with highest risk. Basedon experience of existing models, such a simulation would need to run for abouttwo minutes, to be able to determine and analyze the high risk coast lines. Thesimulation will be able to predict the propagation of the tsunami and subsequentlyidentify in which order which shores will be hit. The information provided by thesimulation will be distributed amongst call centers on the ground station to informthe authorities immediately. This distribution stage is estimated to last one minute.Finally, after the higher and local authorities and institutes have been informed, theactual tsunami warning will be broadcasted to the public, which will take another5 minutes. The used methods at a specific region are most likely to be selected bythe authorities of that country. It is assumed that the warning needs to go via the au-thorities since they are responsible for the consequences of evacuations. Authoritieswill use different methods for broadcasting of the Tsunami signal for redundancy.Figure 12 shows the worst case scenario warning time line.

Demonstrator Satellite

The design of the Space-borne Tsunami Warning System shows the need for ademonstrator mission to validate the experimental technology. The key differencesbetween the constellation and demonstrator satellite are found in four aspects. First,the GNSS-R antenna used for the demonstrator satellite is designed conservatively.Since the technology is experimental, it is important to show that it works. Thereforean oversized antenna is developed to ensure the satellite will receive a signal.

282 P.A.I. Brouwer et al.

Fig. 12 The Spaceborne Tsunami Warning System timeline

After the mission lifetime of the demonstrator mission, a lot more will be knownabout the signal properties and the required antenna gain to meet the system require-ments. This knowledge will provide the background for further optimization of theantenna, i.e. its size reduction.

Second, the lifetime of a STWS satellite will be ten years, compared to one yearof the demonstrator satellite. Third, the cost of the STWS satellites is expected tobe reduced significantly. At the time the constellation will be launched, the GNSS-R technology will be in a more mature stage. Furthermore the development costsare spread out over more satellites. Moreover, engineering teams will experience alearning curve in building the same satellites, which will be translated in cost reduc-tions. Fourth, since the STWS constellation of satellites should be in contact withthe ground segment at least every 30 min, additional requirements for the communi-cation subsystem will appear. Inter satellite communication should be investigated,since the demonstrator satellite will not be able to test this. However the CHAMPsatellites (Chinn et al., 2002) have proven in flight that this kind of communicationtechnology is mature enough to apply it to the STWS satellites.

A conceptual design study was performed for the demonstrator mission (Brouweret al., 2006). The payload consists of three systems, a standard GPS antenna, a stan-dard receiver and a GNSS-R instrument. The first two are proven technology, whilethe latter is at the moment of writing experimental and in development. The support-ing systems are all build from “Commercial of the Shelf” components. The completedesign can be seen in Table 3. The most critical systems are outlined below.

The choice for a receiver is based on the mass, power consumption and dimen-sions, in which mass is the most important. A standard GNSS receiver cannot beused, because the time and phase differences between the direct and the reflectedGNSS signal have to be determined. A standard GNSS receiver must therefore bemodified to accomplish this requirement.

The direct GNSS receiving antenna is Zenith pointing and must be a geodetic an-tenna, because of its characteristics, such as multi-path, multi-frequency, calibrationand construction specification, and the high quality.

For the reception of the much weaker reflected GNSS signals, a phased arrayantenna with digital (multi) beam steering is required. The beam steering is needed,because multiple reflection points of the GNSS-R signals have to be tracked and

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System 283

Table 3 Demonstrator satellite: technical resource budget

Spacecraft subsystem Mass [kg] Power [W] Size [mm]

Payload 40.57 57 –GNSS-R instrument 40.00 50 Ø 1900×80Receiver 0.12 7 178×100×13Zenith Antenna 0.45 – Ø 152×57Spacecraft 65.38 31 1900×1900×500Margin (10%) 11.77 – –Dry Mass 117.72 – –Propellant mass 12.05 – –

Total 129.77 145

the gain in the direction of these reflection points must be significantly increased.This Antenna has to be designed for Left Hand Circular Polarized (LHCP) sig-nals, because when the signals are reflected by the ocean, the polarization changesfrom RHCP to predominantly LHCP. Despite the fact that there are a few antennascommercially available, none of those is an option for this mission because of thestrict requirements on gain, weight and power usage. Therefore it is required todevelop an antenna specifically for this mission. It is expected that this antenna hascharacteristics as described before with a gain of at least 28 dB.

The orbit of the demonstrator is determined by the same parameters as the orbitof the constellation satellites. Therefore the altitude is set to the altitude used forthe constellation, 650 km. The inclination of the orbit is also the same as for theconstellation satellites, 68◦.

The supporting subsystems are all standard. Solar panels and batteries provideenergy during daytime and eclipse respectively, the latter are charged by the solarpanels. The solar panels provide the power needed for all the subsystems of thesatellite. The demonstrator satellite will require approximately 300 W (cf. Table 3,while taking into account the time the satellite is in eclipse). Attitude determinationis an important aspect for the satellite since accurate knowledge of how the GNSS-Rantenna is pointed to the Earth must be known at all times. Furthermore a reliabledata storage system is implemented with appropriate downlink capacity to the Earth.

The data gathered with the demonstrator mission will determine whether a ded-icated constellation of satellites for tsunami detection is a feasible option. At thesame moment, the possibility to use the acquired data for alternative applicationswill be investigated. These applications can form a source of income to earn backpart of the investment needed for the system. In developing the constellation thesealternate data uses might then be taken into account.

Costs

The costs for STWS and its demonstrator mission are estimated using parametriccost relations (Wertz and Larson, 1999), which are based on historical data and is thepreferred method by the US Department of Defense. The cost of the demonstrator

284 P.A.I. Brouwer et al.

mission can be estimated more accurately than the complete constellation. Sincecost specifications of the satellite components are not available, Cost EstimatingRelationships (CER) are used to approximate the mission cost. A small satellitecost model (Wertz and Larson, 1999, Bearden et al., 1996) is used to estimate thecost of the demonstrator mission. This method uses, amongst others, the volume,weight, power and fuel requirements as input. These costs then form the basis forthe complete system.

Demonstrator Mission

The cost of the demonstrator mission is a relatively small, but significant part of theSTWS mission cost. The costs are split in recurring and nonrecurring factors. Non-recurring costs include, amongst others, design, drafting, engineering and groundsystems. Recurring costs are related to flight hardware and operations. Nonrecurringcosts are denoted by Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) and re-curring by the Theoretical First Unit (TFU), the first satellite of a production series.It is clear that for a bigger series the cost per unit will decrease significantly. For thelaunch the use of a Russian Tsyklon rocket is assumed. This provides a relativelycheap opportunity for launch. In the calculation contractor fees have been excluded,but these are often estimated to be around 10% of the total cost (excluding launch).The total cost of deployment amounts to approximately e96 million (Table 4).

Since the demonstrator mission is planned for 1 year, operational costs are rela-tively low (Table 5).

Table 4 Costs for the space segment of the demonstrator mission

Estimates [in millions of e] RDT & E [FY08e] FTU [FY08e] Cost [FY08e]

Spacecraft e 23,7 e 15,8 e 39,5Structure e 1,0 e 0,4 e 1,4Thermal e 0,1 e 0,1 e 0,2Electrical Power System e 9,6 e 5,9 e 15,4Telemetry Tracking & Command e 5,5 e 2,2 e 7,7Command & Data Handling e 1,8 e 0,8 e 2,6Attitude Determination & Control e 3,5 e 6,0 e 9,5Propulsion e 1,3 e 1,3 e 2,6Payload e 9,5 e 6,3 e 15,8Integration Assembly & Testing e 0 e 5,5 e 5,5Program Level e 4,5 e 4,5 e 9,0Ground Support Equipment e 2,6 e 0 e 2,6Software e 8,3 e 0 e 8,3Launch & Orbital Operations Support e 0 e 2,4 e 2,4Research costs e 1,1 e 0 e 1,1Launch (Russian Tsyklon) e 12,2 e 12,2

Total Cost of Deployment e 49,7 e 34,5 e 96,4

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System 285

Table 5 Costs for the total lifecycle of the demonstrator mission

Initial deployment Cost [millions FY08e]

Space e 84,2Launch e 12,2Ground e 50,5OperationsOperations per yr e 5,8Total operations for 1 yr e 5,8

Total LCC for 1 yr e 152,7

Space-Borne Tsunami Warning System

The total Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of the STWS consists of the demonstrator mission,constellation hardware, launch and operational costs. The total LCC is estimated one 1.5 billion for a period of 20 years (Table 6). The production cost of the TFU wasestimated at e 34.5 million (Table 4). This is based on satellites with comparableweight and orbit characteristics (Wertz and Larson, 1999, Bearden et al., 1996). Thelifetime of a satellite is limited due to the atmospheric drag, which is approximately5000 days (+/− 13 years) for an altitude of around 650 km. The lifetime used in thecost estimation is set to 10 years. For a constellation of 40 satellites 80 satellites haveto be produced for a life cycle of 20 years, assuming equal satellite lifetimes and nosatellite losses. Taking into account the learning curve, the production cost of 80satellites in 20 years will be significantly less. This results in an average productioncost of e12.8 million per satellite for a production series of 80 satellites, assuminga learning curve slope of 85% (Wertz and Larson, 1999).

In the estimation of the costs of the launch a few assumptions are made: All thesatellites can be launched in groups of five. The satellites will then be transferred

Table 6 Total lifecycle cost of the Space-borne Tsunami Warning System

Segment Cost [millions FY08e]

Space SegmentFirst theoretical unit (FTU) e 35Av. cost per satellite [# = 80] e 13Total Cost Space Segment e 989Operationsp/a operations e 6warning segment e 5Total Operations for 20yr e 216LaunchTsyklon launcher e 12Total launch costs e 195Total Costs Constellation e 1.400Demonstrator Mission e 153Overall Total Cost STWS e 1.553

286 P.A.I. Brouwer et al.

into the desired orbits. Launching more satellites simultaneously is possible butsince the constellation has a lot of different orbital planes, the fuel budget to movethe satellites into the different planes would be inefficiently large. The launcherassumed to be used is here also the Russian Tsyklon, with an expected launch costof about e12.2 million (Wertz and Larson, 1999). Not taken into account here is thepossibility that the satellites might survive longer than expected or that a satellitefails before its intended end of life. The total launch cost is expected to be e195million, with 16 launches.

Operational costs are divided into two parts, the satellite operations and the warn-ing segment. The latter comprises mainly the data analysis at the ground.

Many uncertainties remain at this stage of cost modeling. From experience itis known that it is possible to produce large series of equal satellites at low cost,especially when commercial interests are at stake (Wertz and Larson, 1999). Whenthe GNSS-R antenna reaches a next stage of development, the size might be reduced,resulting in a smaller satellite and lower costs than estimated here. Alternative datauses have not been taken into account, but these could generate significant revenueto offset the costs.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Conclusions

Using satellites to perform passive altimetry by means of GNSS-Reflections appearsto be a feasible option for timely detection of dangerous tsunamis. A Space-borneTsunami Warning System could provide nearly global coverage, in contrast tobuoy systems. The Polar Regions would be outside of the covered latitudes, sincetsunamis very rarely originate in these areas. In the unlikely event of this occurrence,the wave will be detected when it propagates to latitudes below 60◦. By using aconstellation consisting of approximately forty satellites, it is expected that a worstcase detection time of thirty minutes can be achieved. However, the preliminaryconstellation design conducted in this study is very crude. The configuration of theconstellation requires optimization before clear conclusions can be drawn.

To minimize the time elapsed between the acquisition of observation data by thesatellite and the delivery of this data to an accessible ground station, inter-satellitecommunication is required.

Using C/A code measurements an altimetric precision of 24 cm is achievable.This quantity assumes an antenna diameter of 1.9 m at an altitude of 650 km for a re-flection angle of 40◦. Therefore, this analysis shows that C/A code measurements donot satisfy the requirement for altimetric precision. However, P-code measurementscan achieve 10 cm altimetric precision for the same orbital altitude and antennadiameter of 1.8 m. This is sufficient for detection of a life-threatening tsunami.

The accuracy of the measurements is dependent on antenna gain. For the de-tection of a tsunami wave, the required antenna gain will be approximately 28 dB.

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This calculation of the link budget, and hence the sizing of the antenna, should beregarded as an estimate however.

Next to the direct measurements of the STWS, GPS measurements can be usedto compute magnitude moments of earthquakes. These magnitude computations arebetter than seismic wave detections, because these seismic wave detections can be-come saturated in high frequencies for large earthquakes.

The feasibility of sea-surface altimetry with GNNS-R technology should bedemonstrated before the development of the complete warning system is approved.The demonstrator satellite designed in this study is slightly different from the pro-posed STWS-satellites. It will be heavier, due to the fact that the GNSS-R antennais in an early stage of development and because the antenna is dimensioned conser-vatively in order to ensure sufficient gain.

The worst case warning time for the STWS is 44 min, which is the time from theearthquake and tsunami generation till the moment the warning is broadcasted.

The total cost of the systems amounts to approximately e 1.5 billion for a periodof 20 years. This excludes alternative data uses, which might generate income.

Recommendations

It is recommended to focus research on shortening of the detection time by opti-mizing the constellation design. This implies removal of the existing gaps in theground coverage and, if possible, reduction of the number of satellites. A probabil-ity distribution should be calculated to indicate the expected detection time, usinginformation from historical events and the constellation design.

A critical part of the development that lies ahead is to define a well establishedlink budget for the GNSS-R instrument. This is the basis for the development andoptimization of the phased array antenna. An optimized instrument design will leadto a lower instrument mass and power usage, which will in turn translate into asmaller satellite and therefore lower cost.

Tsunami intensity prediction models have to be developed to translate sea levelheight observations into real-time, reliable tsunami warnings. Also, alternativeapplications of the obtained GNSS-R data require further investigation. Additionalcommercial and scientific benefits may justify the cost of the system.

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Brouwer, P.A.I., Visser, M., Baldee, M., Gunneman, J.C.T., Masselink, B., Molijn, R.A., Jara Orue,H.M., van Marwijk, B.J.A., Bermon, T.C.K., Space-borne Tsunami Warning System. Delft Uni-versity of Technology, July 2006.

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Gleason, S., Hodgart, S., Sun, Y., Gommenginger, C., Mackin, S., Adjrad, M., Unwin, M., De-tection and Processing of bistatically reflected GPS signals from low Earth orbit for the pur-pose of ocean remote sensing. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 43(6),1229–1241, June 2005.

Gonzalez, F.I., Meining, C., Bernard, E.N., Milburn, H.B., Early detection and real-time reportingof deep-ocean tsunamis. Technical report, NOAA, 2001.

Katzberg, S.J., Garrison, Jr., J.L., Utilizing GPS to determine ionospheric delay over the ocean,NASA technical memorandum 4750, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, USA,December 1996.

Katzberg(∗), S.J., Torres(∗), O., Grant(∗), M.S., Masters(∗∗), D., Utilizing calibrated GPS reflectedsignals to estimate soil reflectivity and dielectric constant: Result from SMEX02. Science Di-rect, November 2005. (∗) NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, USA. (∗∗) University ofColorado, Boulder, USA.

Kayton, M., Fried, W.R., Avionics Navigation Systems. John Wiley and Sons, 2004.Le Traon, P.Y., Dibarbourne G., Ruffini, G., Germain, O., Thompson, A., Mathew, C., PARIS

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Lowe, S.L., LaBrecque, J.L., Zuffada, C., Romans, L.J., Young, L.E., Haij, G.A., First spaceborneobservation of an Earth-reflected GPS signal. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California institute oftechnology, Pasadana, California.

Martin-Neira, M., A passive reflectometry and interferometry system (PARIS): Application toocean altimetry. ESA journal, 17, 331–355, November 1993.

Martin-Neira, M., Caparrini, M., Font-Rosello, J., Lannelongue, S., Vallmitjana, C.S., The PARISconcept: An experimental demonstration of sea surface altimetry using GPS reflected signals.IEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing, 39(1), January 2001.

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swopnet.com/waypoints/images/gps sat.gif.UNESCO IOC global tsunami website, last updated 10-2007. Last accessed March 2008,

http://www.ioc-tsunami.org/index.php?option=com frontpage&Itemid=1.

GEONETCast Americas – A GEOSSEnvironmental Data Dissemination SystemUsing Commercial Satellites

Richard Fulton, Paul Seymour and Linda Moodie

Abstract GEONETCast Americas is a regional contribution to a global, near-real-time, environmental data dissemination system in support of the Global Earth Ob-servation System of Systems. It is a contribution from the United States NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration whose goal is to enable enhanced dis-semination, application, and exploitation of environmental data and products forthe diverse societal benefits defined by the Group on Earth Observations, includingagriculture, energy, health, climate, weather, disaster mitigation, biodiversity, wa-ter resources, and ecosystems. GEONETCast Americas serves North, Central, andSouth Americas beginning early in 2008 using inexpensive satellite receiver sta-tions based on Digital Video Broadcast standards and will link with similar regionalenvironmental data dissemination systems deployed around the world.

Keywords Data dissemination · Commercial communication satellites · Digitalvideo broadcast-satellite DVB-S · Environmental data · GEOSS · GEONETCast

Introduction

Ministers from 58 countries and the European Commission agreed at the third EarthObservation Summit in February 2005 to put in place a Global Earth ObservationSystem of Systems (GEOSS) to meet the need for timely, quality, long-term globalinformation as a basis for sound decision making and to enhance delivery of bene-fits to society. The ministers also established the intergovernmental Group on EarthObservations (GEO) to take the steps necessary to implement GEOSS. The UnitedStates, formerly represented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra-tion (NOAA) Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher, serves as co-chair of GEO whichnow includes 76 member countries, the European Commission, and 56 participatingorganizations.

R. Fulton (B)National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS),1335 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910e-mail: richard.fulton@noaa.gov

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 12, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

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GEO’s vision for GEOSS is the global leveraging of existing and future regional,national, and global environmental observation and data management systems forthe benefit of all society. In many cases, organizations or governments develop andimplement environmental observing and data management systems for their nationaland regional users’ needs without linking them with other similar systems in otherregions, often resulting in a comprehensive yet disconnected patchwork of valuableenvironmental resources that cannot be exploited by all of society. And often thesesystems are built originally for specific limited purposes without realization of thepotential value to other scientific or other disciplines for little or no added cost (e.g.,the value of meteorological satellite observations for critical decision-making in thehealth or energy communities). In the current resource-constrained age of trying todo more with less, it has been shown to be imperative that world leaders reduceincreasing impacts of environmental disasters by working together to share theirindividual resources across political borders and across scientific disciplines sincemany environmental problems are fundamentally global in scope.

It is the objective of GEOSS to engage organizations and governments to taketheir existing environmental observing, value-added data processing, and distribu-tion systems and integrate them together into a globally linked “system of systems”that can provide societal benefits for a global audience. The participation of no lessthan 76 member countries in GEOSS is a testament to the common understandingof the need for global cooperation to address global environmental challenges thatcross political boundaries. GEONETCast is envisioned as one piece of this broaderinitiative and a step forward in the free global exchange of environmental informa-tion using a common and inexpensive receive station platform based on the latestcommunication technology. For more information on GEOSS, please see the GEOweb page http://earthobservations.org, GEO (2007), and GEO Secretariat (2007).

GEONETCast1 is an important near-real-time data distribution system withinGEOSS by which environmental data and products from participating data providersare transmitted to users through a global network of communications satellites usinga multicast, broadband capability. This general dissemination capability, manifestedthrough a small number of regional but interconnected GEONETCast systems, maybe especially useful in parts of the world where high speed terrestrial communica-tion lines and/or internet are not available or in regions where these lines have beendisrupted by natural disasters. It is intended to be complimentary with other existingdata dissemination systems using other data delivery methods.

A motivating factor to increase the use of environmental data across the Americasand the world is to make it accessible to all nations in a cost-effective and efficientmanner. GEONETCast promises to facilitate and enhance access to environmentaldata in the nine defined societal benefit areas of GEO (agriculture, weather, water,energy, health, climate, biodiversity, disasters, and ecosystems). NOAA, in supportof the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System (IEOS) (CENR/IWGEO, 2005) andconsistent with its own mission requirements, is a key global player in environmental

1 Loosely “Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Network Broadcast”.

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data dissemination and the development of a GEONETCast system covering theAmericas.

Potential societal benefits of GEONETCast exist in all nine of GEO’s definedsocietal benefit areas. GEONETCast is a pipe (not unlike the internet) throughwhich environmental data is transmitted from the originating data providers to thedata end users, so its benefits encompass all of the benefits derived from usingthe diverse environmental data that it carries. It is therefore an enabler of benefitsthrough enhanced communications so that users that once may not have had accessto data can now be a part of the network, at limited cost, to derive their associatedbenefits.

Following co-chair Lautenbacher’s presentation to the GEO Executive Commit-tee in September 2005, NOAA and the European Organization for the Exploitationof Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) presented their vision for GEONETCastat the second GEO Plenary meeting in December 2005. The basic need was identi-fied, and the GEO endorsed the concept and created a new GEO task that identifiedthe development of the integrated GEONETCast system on a regional basis acrossthe globe as a high priority for demonstration of early GEOSS success. In November2006, early success in the development of GEONETCast was showcased at the thirdGEO Plenary meeting in Bonn, Germany, through an international press conference.The importance of continued forward movement in development of the GEONET-Cast system in the Americas was discussed to add to similar developing systems inEurope, Africa, and Asia to achieve the desired global coverage.

System Concept

The GEONETCast system follows the GEOSS concept in being a system of regionaldissemination systems working together to form a global system. GEONETCast is auser-driven interconnected global network of near-real-time regional disseminationsystems to link GEOSS environmental data/products/service providers and usersacross the globe. Each regional system will be focused on a specific sector of theglobe, primarily supporting the specific needs of users in that sector. However, theseregional systems will be interoperable with each other to allow data files to flowacross the regional boundaries in both directions as needed by users in other regions.

The primary responsibility for development, management, and operations ofGEONETCast within each region will reside with the GEO partner in that regionthat voluntarily agrees to perform that function. NOAA, in support of the IntegratedEarth Observation System, which forms the U.S. contribution to GEOSS, will func-tion as the initial GEONETCast operator and data/products/services purveyor in theAmericas. This GEONETCast region includes North, Central, and South Americaand island regions of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean (see notional outlinebelow in Fig. 1). The initial operating capability for the operational demonstrationperiod will cover most of continental North, Central, and South America but not thePacific Ocean region. It is the intention that the initially non-covered regions will

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Fig. 1 Notional approximate geographic coverage of GEONETCast Americas

be covered in the future as additional funding becomes available or through othercommunications mechanisms as deemed appropriate among the cooperating parties.

This regional component of GEONETCast is called “GEONETCast Americas”,and it is integrated with similar GEONETCast systems such as EUMETCast (op-erated by the European Organization for Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites,EUMETSAT) and FengYunCast (operated by the China Meteorological Adminis-tration, CMA) in other parts of the world (Fig. 2). GEONETCast Americas utilizesmodern telecommunication technology including communication satellites and up-link ground stations. Data originating from each region is disseminated within that

Fig. 2 Notional approximate geographic coverage of the global GEONETCast including otherregional components

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region from a central network hub using one or more satellites with broadcast foot-prints that cover the identified region containing potential GEOSS data users.

Capabilities

The three primary capabilities of GEONETCast Americas include:

� Data acquisition – near-real-time receipt of diverse GEOSS environmental datasetsat a central regional location(s) from GEONETCast data providers in the Amer-icas and eastern Pacific Ocean region,

� System and data management – data management, prioritization, and schedulingof GEOSS data for dissemination, and system administration

� Data dissemination – timely dissemination of GEOSS data within the Americasand Pacific Ocean region using satellite telecommunication infrastructure (uplinkground stations, satellites, and turnaround stations).

This near-real-time satellite-based dissemination system is one component of alarger GEOSS data dissemination system that may include the internet and fiberoptic land lines in the future.

Data Products, Formats, and Channels

GEONETCast Americas is envisioned to become a “one stop shopping” systemfor distribution of diverse environmental data and products for receipt by userswith a single GEONETCast receive station. These data and products will be inthe form of electronic data files. GEOSS data that will be disseminated throughGEONETCast Americas may include diverse raw data or processed value-addedproducts or services from any of the nine defined GEO societal benefit areas, partic-ularly those areas that are currently underserved by existing dissemination systems.The products may include environmental data or products from any observing dataplatforms including operational or research-based, in situ or remote sensing sys-tems such as satellites (polar or geostationary), ground-based, or airborne platforms.Other non-observational environmental information will also be disseminated suchas text-based environmental data or products, e.g., climate assessments, fisheries an-nouncements, earthquake advisories, or even environmental training materials thatmay support GEOSS user needs.

A channel capability will be developed for users to selectively choose categoriesof products they wish to receive on their receiver station and disable reception offiles within product categories they do not need through NOAA’s establishmentof broadcast channels that contain common data types or themes as appropriate,e.g., separate categories for each of the nine GEO societal benefit areas is an initialpossibility. These product categories will be developed in cooperation with the U.S.Group on Earth Observations (USGEO) and participants from the Americas region.

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A special category of environmental products for urgent emergency response pur-poses, including Common Alert Protocol (CAP) products, may be appropriate andmay be distributed via a dedicated emergency channel(s) or, at a minimum, be as-signed highest priority for dissemination when the need arises. A low bandwidthannouncement channel will also be implemented for distribution of administrativeor other general use messages that all GEONETCast users would generally tune into for information on new products, service change notices, or other informationneeding wide distribution.

Although dissemination of meteorological satellite products is within the scopeof GEONETCast Americas, it is not intended to be the primary dissemination mech-anism for NOAA’s meteorological satellite data nor a replacement for its exist-ing meteorological satellite data dissemination systems. Neither is GEONETCastAmericas intended to replace any other primary dissemination system(s) for en-vironmental data, advisories, watches, warnings, etc. in NOAA or elsewhere. Inthese cases, GEONETCast Americas should be viewed only as augmenting existingdissemination systems via an alternative means.

Regarding data file formats, there is technically no restriction on formats fordata products that a data provider might wish to contribute to GEONETCast forbroadcast. Any of a wide variety of standard formatted products can be used, e.g.,ASCII, JPEG, GIF, HDF, BUFR, NetCDF, GRIB2, and others. It is obviously in thebest interest of the data providers that the data that they disseminate be in standardformats for ease of use, but the system itself imposes no specific requirements onfile format other than the information be file-based. Provision of any special decod-ing or processing software required to decode and/or use data files distributed byGEONETCast resides with the original data providers who contributed that data forbroadcast.

A catalog of information about data products being carried on GEONETCastAmericas and associated channel assignments and technical receive station infor-mation will be routinely updated as necessary and distributed by satellite broadcastas well as via the GEONETCast Americas internet web page (http://geonetcasta-mericas. noaa.gov) for the benefit of the users and others desiring information on theservice.

GEONETCast will comply with the data policies of GEO, i.e., full and opendistribution while respecting existing data sharing policies of contributing organiza-tions. There will be no recurring subscription charges to obtain the GEONETCastAmericas broadcast other than perhaps optional nominal software licensing costsfor the client datacasting software that will reside on the receive station. Data filesare distributed in the original file formats of the data providers. If particular dataproviders impose restrictions on dissemination of their data to certain subscription-based users or classes of users, the providers are required to encrypt those files priorto sending it to the NOAA system for broadcast since GEONETCast Americas willprovide no inherent access control services for either data providers or data users.Users wishing to use any of these encrypted data files are required to work directlywith the data provider to obtain any necessary decryption keys or software and/orpay any subscription fees if appropriate.

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Global Participants

There are four major categories of participants in GEONETCast (Fig. 3). The keyparticipants are the end users who receive environmental data through GEONET-Cast to serve their near-real-time needs. This data is supplied to the system by themany diverse data providers who voluntarily contributed data and products in fileformat for broadcast to the users. Often these two groups work together so that theproducts produced and disseminated are the ones required by the users.

The communication “pipe” extending between the data providers and the endusers is GEONETCast. It is composed of two main participants, the disseminationservice managers and the satellite service providers. The service managers, in-cluding NOAA, EUMETSAT, and CMA, are the organizations who are currentlydeveloping and operating each of the regional systems for the benefit of the usersin their regions. They provide the resources that make the system possible and sus-tainable. Together they form the GEONETCast Implementation Group and meetroutinely to coordinate activities and assure interoperability of the regional compo-nents. The satellite service providers are generally commercial telecommunicationvendors who provide the satellite broadcast infrastructure (processing hardware andsoftware, ground stations, telecommunication satellites). They work directly withthe dissemination service managers to assure that the system is operationally robustand reliable.

Fig. 3 Major participants in the global GEONETCast system

System Architecture

There are two main system components of GEONETCast Americas: (1) a regionaldata collection, management, and dissemination system, and (2) distributed userreceiver stations. These components are illustrated schematically in Fig. 4.

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Fig. 4 System architecture illustration

Data Collection, Management, and Dissemination System

The general capabilities of the regional components of this system include one ormore data collection, management, and dissemination data hubs that receive, prior-itize, and schedule the incoming GEOSS data files originating within the Americassector as well as ones coming in from adjacent regional GEONETCast data hubs.For GEONETCast Americas, one single data hub resides at Intelsat General Cor-poration’s commercial teleport facility in Ellenwood, Georgia. This hub, utilizingcommercial KenCast Inc. datacasting servers, then processes and forwards the pri-oritized data files to the satellite uplink ground station which receives the data files,processes them for broadcast, and then immediately uplinks them to a communica-tion satellite for dissemination within the footprint of each satellite. This service willbe configured and managed remotely by NOAA from our NOAA Satellite Opera-tions Facility in Suitland, Maryland. The GEONETCast Americas services uses theIntelsat-9 (IS-9) communications satellite at C band which is one of the frequencybands typically used for commercial DVB-S broadcast. These components of thesystem are enclosed in the dashed box in Fig. 4. Figure 5 below shows the footprintcoverage area of the IS-9 satellite over the Americas and the minimum antennadiameter needed (yellow: 2.4 m, green: larger). The GEONETCast Americas serviceis currently being configured and tested by NOAA and is broadcasting an initial setof products for demonstration purposes.

GEONETCast Americas is a near-real-time dissemination system. This meansthat once data or information products arrive at the data hub they are turned aroundand rebroadcast in a timely manner. No near-real-time dissemination guarantees areimplied for products that are late in arriving at the data hub from the data providersdue to circumstances beyond the control of NOAA or the GEONETCast Americassystem. Data providers may contribute any approved data or information productsaccepting the dissemination timeliness of the system.

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Fig. 5 Intelsat-9 satellite coverage area and minimum antenna size required to receive thebroadcast

Receiver Stations

The satellite broadcast is received on the ground by relatively low-cost user receiverstations with commercial off-the-shelf components to the maximum extent possi-ble to minimize user costs. These stations will include an appropriately-sized dishantenna (2.4 m or larger, see Fig. 5) and a standard personal computer and hard-ware and software components necessary to decode the incoming satellite signaland create the data files on the station’s hard disk. See Fig. 6. These componentsinclude a standard commercial Digital Video Broadcast-Satellite (DVB-S) receiverbox and client datacasting software. The client software for the Americas service isproduced by KenCast Inc. and is available from them directly. Standards and speci-fications for these components have been developed and published by NOAA on theGEONETCast Americas web page (http://geonetcastamericas.noaa.gov) for use bypotential users and commercial vendors, and a suggested reference implementationof hardware and software will be implemented by NOAA for service demonstration,monitoring, and validation purposes. However the purchase and operation of thereceiver station are the responsibility of the user and not the GEONETCast projector NOAA. Required receiver station hardware, software and instructions will beavailable from commercial vendors to decode the signal, select the data types ofinterest to the user, translate the signal into data files in their original format, and

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Fig. 6 Components of a typical GEONETCast Americas receiver station

distribute the incoming data products into appropriate product category folders onthe receiver station.

These receive station components are intended to be relatively affordable with aprojected cost of approximately $2000–2500 with the antenna probably being thelargest cost at roughly $1500. The commercial DVB receiver boxes cost approxi-mately $80–200.

It is recommended that the receiver station’s personal computer be dedicated toreceiving data to eliminate potential loss of data that might occur if the user is run-ning other highly intensive processing applications concurrently. Further softwareprocessing of the received data, including data decompression, decoding, archive,and other value-added user processing and analyses, is best performed on externalcomputers, which may be networked to the receiver station, again to prevent loss ofincoming data. This additional software is not a part of the GEONETCast Americassystem and is the responsibility of the users in cooperation with commercial vendorsor other service organizations.

GEONETCast Global Interoperability

Each of the regional GEONETCast systems, including NOAA’s GEONETCastAmericas service in the Americas, EUMETSAT’s EUMETCast in Europe andAfrica, and CMA’s FengYunCast in the Asia-Pacific region, will be interoperablewith each other. Although each system may have unique system architecture char-acteristics, they will all be able to exchange data files in both directions in a mannerthat is transparent to the user. For example, data files originating in China or Africaor Europe will be received by GEONETCast Americas for broadcast as needed byusers in the Americas, and similarly data files originating in the Americas will besent to these other regional systems for broadcast in their regions (Fig. 7).

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Fig. 7 GEONETCast global data exchange within and across regional boundaries

EUMETSAT’s EUMETCast data dissemination system, which is their regionalcontribution to the GEONETCast system, actually predated the development ofGEONETCast, and many of the design concepts ultimately utilized by the newglobal GEONETCast system originated in the early 2000s from the EUMET-Cast model, including the use of DVB-S technology on commercial satellites asa means to distribute real-time environmental data. Once EUMETSAT developedand demonstrated the benefits of such a DVB-S-based system compared to exist-ing legacy dissemination systems, the wider meteorological satellite community,led by the World Meteorological Organization, then began promoting this conceptglobally as a standard for broadcast of meteorological satellite data. It was calledthe Integrated Global Data Dissemination System (IGDDS). Then the GEONET-Cast concept for distribution of a much more diverse selection of environmentaldata (beyond just meteorological satellite data) naturally followed and was devel-oped and implemented by the international GEONETCast Implementation Groupin direct support of the GEOSS concepts for globally linking environmental datamanagement systems to maximize international societal benefits.

The EUMETCast system uses several commercial satellites and transpondersto cover their region of Europe and Africa as shown previously in Fig. 2. Addi-tional details can be found at http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/What We Do/EUMETCast/System Description/index.htm. They are using Ku-band and C-bandfrequencies with several satellite footprints. Unique sets of data are broadcast overeach footprint based on regional user needs.

The commercial multicasting software used by EUMETCast at their teleport andin their receive stations differs from that used by the U.S. and China in their re-spective systems. Therefore, even though the regional systems are globally linked,one could not transport a EUMETCast receive station to the Americas or Asia-Pacific region and expect it to work, and vice-versa. Users must purchase a receivestation that is configured for the broadcast in their particular region of the world.Regardless, the receive station costs are very similar between systems and rela-tively inexpensive. The advantage of this for the GEONETCast Implementation

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Group is that, while the regional systems are linked in terms of data exchange,they remain loosely connected from a system architecture perspective which per-mits flexibility of regional implementation approaches to meet regional needs orconstraints.

CMA’s contribution to GEONETCast is called FengYunCast and was deployed in2007. Similar to EUMETSAT, they started out with an IGDDS focus on distributionof their Chinese meteorological satellite data to users but have since expanded toinclude a broader set of environmental data from other environmental disciplines aswell. As a result, FengYunCast also became CMA’s contribution to GEONETCastfor the Asia-Pacific region. One of the requirements of deploying a GEONETCastsystem that goes beyond an IGDDS is that the system accommodates all types ofenvironmental data from as many of the nine societal benefit areas as possible.FengYunCast started out initially using Ku-band but has now switched to C-bandfrequencies that have the advantage of a larger footprint coverage area than Ku-bandin general.

There are two possible approaches to implement the global data exchange be-tween these regional systems, either through exchange by satellite telecommunica-tion methods (assuming there are overlapping satellite footprints extending acrossregional boundaries) or through terrestrial communication lines (Fig. 8).

It is not expected, however, that all data from a given region will be distributedto the other regions as this has resource impacts on each system (e.g., availability oflimited satellite transponder bandwidth to carry all extra-regional data). Thereforethere will need to be a coordination mechanism established to determine what prod-ucts are required to cross regional system boundaries and what are their prioritiesfor broadcast so that sufficient bandwidth is acquired and allocated to carry as manyproducts as is affordable, particularly the highest priority products.

Fig. 8 GEONETCast Americas (GNC-A) data flow to and from the Americas

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Summary

GEONETCast Americas is an environmental data dissemination system that usescommercial communications satellites for broadcasting information direct to usersover the Americas. It is a regional implementation of a global integrated GEONET-Cast system which is a component of the Global Earth Observation System ofSystems. The objective is to enable increased availability and utilization of envi-ronmental information across the globe and to foster improved communication anddecision making for diverse societal benefits. One of the driving forces is to in-crease access to environmental information through a relatively inexpensive deliverysystem based on modern commercial telecommunication technology so that user’scosts are kept low. As the U.S./NOAA completed the service implementation inearly 2008, this vision can begin to be realized in the Americas and beyond throughcollaboration among all the GEONETCast Americas partners. These partners areencouraged to contact us now to participate either as data providers or end users.

References

CENR/IWGEO, 2005: Strategic Plan for the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System, Na-tional Science and Technology Council Committee on Environmental and Natural Resources,Washington, D.C. [Available from CENR Executive Secretariat, 1401 Constitution Ave. NW,Washington, DC 20230 or at http://www.ostp.gov].

GEO Secretariat, 2007: The First 100 Steps to GEOSS, Edited by GEO Secretariat, 212 pages.Available at http://www.earthobservations.org.

GEO, 2007: The Full Picture, Edited by GEO Secretariat, Tudor Rose Publishers, 143 pages.Available at http://www.earthobservations.org.

Space Technology for Disaster Monitoring,Mitigation and Damage Assessment

Jesus Gonzalo, Gonzalo Martın-de-Mercado and Fernando Valcarce

Although sometimes eclipsed by the tremendous expansion of the space communi-cation and navigation applications, space remote sensing is a continuously emergingtechnology providing valuable help to decision-makers in local, regional and globalscale.

At very early stages, complex general purpose satellites allowed for roughweather predictions and terrestrial mapping, involving huge computers for data pro-cessing and ineffective storage media. The advances in remote sensing payloadsquickly follow that of the rest of space technologies to the point that today a con-siderable number of remote sensing satellites exist, from the multi-purpose, high-precision, scientific, global missions to the small, dedicated, local-oriented ones. Asan example, ESA-ENVISAT is an 8-Tm satellite embarking 10 high quality sen-sors for scientific purposes whereas SSTL provides 300-kg satellites for the remotesensing data provision to town or small country administrations.

In this scenario, applications demanding quick and effective response, usingtimely available geographical or atmospheric information, have incorporated thenew techniques and data sources very quickly. Among those, the management ofdisasters is one of the priorities for administrations and taxpayers.

The different types of disasters, the number of final users and the variety of theirrequirements imposes great care in the definition of the space systems, that are oftenthe bottleneck for the consecution of the final goals. For most of the services, currentspace assets may lead to satisfactory results if a dedicated processing chain and datadistribution network is setup; for others, new satellites may be necessary.

In the present chapter an overall view of the use of remote sensing data in emer-gency management is provided. Multiple classifications of users, types of disasterand their phases, from prevention to damage assessment, covering prediction, detec-tion and crisis management, will allow the lector to understand the key difficultiespresent in the definition of services from current space systems and the definition ofnew ones.

J. Gonzalo (B)University of Leon, Leon, Spaine-mail: jesus.gonzalo@unileon.es

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 13, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

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For the sake of clarity, real examples will be given, customising the general re-sults for the particular case of forest fire management, both from and engineeringand final user points of view.

Introduction to Management of Disasters

In the last years, natural and man-made disasters have become one of the main con-cerns for Administrations. Human causalities and large economical and ecologicallosses often come along with earthquakes, wildland fires, oil spills and the rest ofunmitigated events so-called disasters.

Lately, human efforts measure up to the problem. Risk areas often provide dedi-cated bodies to prevent and alert, to quickly actuate and eventually to recover fromthe noxious effects.

Space remote sensing, as a global, accurate and available tool, is helping civilprotection decision makers for the last decades. At the beginning, the resources,procedures and dissemination channels were local and much focused on the partic-ular problem of the region. The main space agencies all over the world developedremote sensing systems. The American NOAA as the precursor and the new Eu-ropean GMES (together between ESA and European Commission) with modernsatellites under construction can be good representatives of this scenario.

However, it was quickly understood that the nature of the issue is global, thecoverage of the satellites is global and the research in each area is of great valuefor the rest; thus, inter-agency initiatives were established to exploit the synergiesamong users and applications. Two of these collaborations are remarkable: the Inter-national Charter on Cooperation to Achieve the Coordinated Use of Space Facilitiesin the Event of Natural or Technological Disasters (CHARTER) and the GlobalEarth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

The CHARTER, operative from 2000, promotes cooperation between spaceagencies and space system operators in the use of space facilities as a contribution tothe management of crises. The main objectives are to supply data providing a basisfor critical information for the anticipation and management of potential crises andto participate, by means of this data and of the information and services resultingfrom the exploitation of space facilities, in the organisation of emergency assistanceor reconstruction and subsequent operations.

On the other hand, but fully compatible with the former, the GEOSS repre-sents a worldwide effort to federate disaster management users, air and space dataproviders, data archives, research groups and communication channels with the sin-gle aim to be more efficient in the understanding of the key processes of our planet.In this connection, in the published list of areas of interest for GEOSS outcomes andbenefits, the term ‘disaster reduction’ appears in the first position.

When considering services based on remote sensing assets, there is no a singleclassification of natural and man-made disasters, since the order of priority in thedifferent characteristics is not fixed: the user demand, the potential impact and the

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social benefit for risk management ability, the maturity of research and technology,the willingness of potential operators to develop and operate these applications,the added value gained by the dedicated data processing, the programmatic thatis required to develop a coordinated actions with other parallel applications, theavailability of past data, among others.

As a reference, the following list of areas of remote sensing application isprovided:

� Windstorms: risk mapping and awareness, early warning and forecasting� Floods: medium-range plain flood early warning and forecasting, short-range

plain flood forecasting, very short range flash flood forecasting� Forest fires: fuel parameters monitoring, high resolution fire risk anticipation,

winter fires risk index, hot-spot monitoring, fire-line monitoring, fire propagationtools, fire damage and severity assessment

� Earthquakes: activity prevention and alert, earthquake monitoring and damageevaluation

� Volcanoes: volcano activity prevention, volcanic monitoring and damage evalu-ation

� Landslides: monitoring of deep-seated, slow-moving landslides, prediction ofshallow rapid slope movements

� Oil spills: quick and continuous monitoring, propagation tools, impact measure-ments

� Man-made: industrial accident management support� Others: general services, assets mapping, rapid mapping (including international

Charter), damages and disaster intensity assessments

Along this chapter, forest fires will be taken as reference example of remotesensing techniques for disaster management.

The Fire Services proposed are aimed to support all the phases involving thefire events: prevention (fuel parameters mapping and fire risk index), early warningand crisis (fire monitoring and propagation forecast) and post-crisis (fire damageassessment).

Some History on Space Based Fire-Fighting

Space-based Earth observation technologies, whilst being a fundamental pillar insome fields, such as meteorology, is far from being fully exploited in other areas,for example under crisis situations, where the availability of this kind of data in realtime can provide a major advantage in emergency management. It has to be notedthat in these particular case, the later the information is supplied, the less useful itbecomes.

Forest fire emergencies are possibly one of the best candidates in the civil andenvironment protection fields to develop Earth observation applications: small forestfires can be detected and observed from space using infrared sensors, much better

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Fig. 1 The precursor: theAVHRR instrument (courtesyof NASA)

than other emergency situations and with better observation geometry than terres-trial observers.

Space remote sensing applied to forest fires was just an idea until the adventof the first Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) instrument, onboard the TIROS-N and NOAA-6 satellites (launched in 1978 and 1979 respec-tively). Through the data acquired, it was demonstrated that it was possible not onlyto locate, but also to analyse physical parameters of different heath sources.

However, the nature of the activity done through these forerunner instrumentswas more scientific and informative than operational; potential users found it inter-esting, and somehow, useful for some off-line activities.

In the mid-90’s of the last century, the first operational system for forest-firedetection and monitoring was proposed, called FUEGO programme. The idea be-hind it was to build a constellation of 12 small satellites able to provide high-spatialresolution data every 25 min over a regular basis, covering the temperate forestsaround the world.

The programme was adopted by the European Space Agency, ESA, that fundedseveral studies and prototypes. In 2003, due to the apparition of new infrared sourcesand the improvement of the technology, funds were moved to demonstration initia-tives that can justify the necessity of building such a system. These demonstrationswere successful and still operational nowadays.

In 2001, the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) launched the BI-spectral InfraredDetection micro-satellite (BIRD), equipped with a payload similar to the one pro-posed for the FUEGO programme satellites.

ESA helped to exploit the capabilities of this micro-satellite as a demonstrationconcept of the FUEGO constellation, and to see if the detection capabilities copewith requirements expected by the final users. The experience was remarkable,consolidating the capability of space technology to provide a fire inventory serviceas well as early detection features (during demonstrations, even fires unnoticed byforest fire-fighting services were reported). However, the lack of temporal resolutionwas considered as a major drawback by end-users.

In parallel to the space-segment development and test, ESA started the Real-time EMergency via SATellite (REMSAT) programme, oriented to the provisionof remote sensing, communication and navigation services taking advantage of thespace technology for emergencies.

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Fig. 2 Artistic representationof the FUEGO constellation

The development of the programme in Spain (named RemFIRESat) was ori-ented to fire crisis situations. A whole network based on Commercial Off-the-Shelf(COTS) hardware and managed by a dedicated Geographical Information System(GIS) software was deployed in several forest-fire fighting centres, including a mo-bile unit, to take advantage of all space capabilities even in the fire front.

Remote sensing services were supported by means of a special node inside thenetwork called External Data Gateway (EDG), capable of processing data comingfrom different sources, either in real-time conditions and off-line. The products gen-erated covered all phases of forest fire emergencies, from fire risk analysis to damageassessment.

Fig. 3 BIRD micro-satellite and hot-spot map 30-May-2003 (courtesy of DLR and INSA)

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Fig. 4 Mobile and portable units of REMSAT

Navigation features were provided through the Global Positioning System (GPS).The information was transmitted by means of ORBCOMM devices to the manage-ment centres, where they were analysed in deep.

Communication features consisted in satellite voice links with GLOBALSTARand THURAYA, while data transmission was provided through GLOBALSTAR,ORBCOMM, and Internet satellite links.

Remote Sensing Satellites for Fire Fighting Applications

The major drawback of satellite Earth observation technology is the lack of re-visittime, especially for crisis situations, when the availability of data in real-time iscritical. Up to today, the satellites used for fire detection and monitoring were alllow-Earth orbit satellites, providing few images of a specific region a day, being thenumber of these satellites not enough to cope with the requirements of a fire man-agement service; however, with the advent of the new generation of geo-stationaryEarth observation satellites, the strategy to provide data to the fire services maychange.

The first geo-stationary satellite to be considered is the METEOSAT SecondGeneration (MSG), launched in August 2002. The MSG satellite is equipped withthe Spinning Enhanced Visible & InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) instrument that, amongother capabilities, is able to provide data of the Earth every 15 min with a resolutionbetween 9 and 16 km2, depending on the site of interest.

SEVIRI has infrared channels that can be used to determine the presence of fireand to estimate somehow fire-related parameters thanks to their Short-Wave Infrared(SWIR), Medium Infrared (MIR) and Thermal Infrared (TIR) channels. Being thespatial resolution not the most appropriate for emergency situations, the frequentacquisition together with an analysis of differences can report small changes on thesurface of the Earth, for example, forest fires. An example of fire detected withSEVIRI is shown in Fig. 5.

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Fig. 5 MSG and SEVIRI products (RGB and MIR channels)

The only way to cope with the spatial resolution today is with the utilisa-tion of low Earth orbit satellites. Of all the infrared sensors available now, oneof paramount importance in fire applications is the Moderate-resolution ImagingSpectro-radiometer (MODIS), a payload developed by NASA, onboard the TERRAand AQUA satellites.

These satellites provide data two times a day, and the resolutions on groundare between 250 m and 1 km. MODIS provide information in 36 different spectralbands, and thanks to its MIR and TIR channels, it is possible to detect and to provideprecise parameters associated to a fire. MODIS system has been largely tested andits efficiency demonstrated either for forest fire detection and characterisation, pro-viding medium-range resolutions largely appreciated by a wide community of users.The major inconvenience, again, is the few number of daily acquisitions allowed,insufficient to meet the requirements of an operational service.

Interesting data fusion techniques allow the combination of the information ofboth MODIS and SEVIRI sensors, so that it is possible to provide a near-operationalservice. A high re-visit time using SEVIRI data, and a fine tuning using MODIS.The proposed solution requires not only to receive images from both sensors in real-time, but to improve fire detection algorithms as well, adapting to the capabilities ofeach sensor to obtain the maximum performance.

Services for Disaster Detection and Mitigation

Two important products can help decision-makers with the management of runningfires. First the hotspot realtime map. Second, the realtime fireline map. The quali-fication ‘realtime’ corresponds to the need of having fresh information compatiblewith the reaction time, that is often different in the two cases.

During the detection phase, the position of a new small fire outbreak is unknown.The area of interest must be scanned for anomalous hot spots. A hotspot, by nature,is conspicuous in an infrared image. However, given the physics behind infraredimaging and the undefinition of the position, the required large map is often incom-patible with a high resolution per pixel. At this point, data processing must be ableto separate false alarms from real suspicious hotspots.

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With respect to the monitoring of the fire-line, image saturation can be a majorproblem. Most of the infrared instruments onboard current satellites are not specifi-cally designed to deal with the huge amount of energy emitted by a wildfire. Expo-sure time programming and reduction of the resolution are some of the techniquesthat can be applied if available. When fires are large, short wave infrared can avoidsaturation.

Data Sources

As mentioned, the use of NOAA-AVHRR sensor, with high time resolution andconvenient spectral characteristic, initiated the era of space based products for firefighting. The low spatial resolution led to the development of ingenious algorithms(Dozier, 1981) to extract sub-pixel information thanks to the data from differentspectral bands; it is then possible to determine the size and temperature of a smallhot spot as small as 1/1000 of the pixel surface. Currently, revisions and expansionsof these procedures (Li et al., 1999) are being applied.

Other low resolution sensors have been used to monitor fire activity at globalscale. Such is the case of European sensor Advanced Along Track Scanning Ra-diometer (ATSR), able to yearly generate the World Fire Atlas (Arino et al., 1999),validated in Mediterranean regions and China. The new version of the sensor, on-board ENVISAT, allows the continuation of the task.

But the arrival of MODIS was a quantum leap. Up to 36 spectral bands, im-proved resolution, 12 bit quantisation, high infrared saturation level and in general,fire products considered during design time (Kaufman & Justice, 1998) made itthe most advanced sensor for fire monitoring ever. MODIS infrared performance isastonishing: 03 K error over a top of scale of 500 K. besides, MODIS is availableonboard TERRA and AQUA, with data broadcast in real time as it is acquired.

Another important source of infrared data for fire mapping was the Bi-spectralInfrared Detection Satellite (BIRD) developed and operated by the German Instituteof Space Sensor Technology and Planetary Exploration (DLR) (Bries et al., 2003).This satellite, prototype of future fire-fighting constellations, provided a sensor ded-icated to the monitoring of hot-spots: two spectral bands (MIR and TIR) with anexcellent resolution of 190 m/pixel and a saturation level around 1000 K in the 4 �mspectral region. BIRD, and its experimental mission, finished by 2004, establishingan unquestionable reference for the sensors dedicated to wildfires.

Other polar platforms that have been notorious in fire monitoring efforts are theDefence Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), Operational Linescan System(OLS) and the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS). In all these, althoughthe radiometric necessities of detection were fulfilled, the main obstacle was thetime resolution, requested to provide the adequate calibration campaigns and preop-erational services.

The fire monitoring from geostationary satellites has been and extension of theirprimary meteorological use. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite(GOES) has been the reference for the worldwide monitoring of fires, running the

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Geostationary Wildfire Automated Biomass Burning Algorithm (WF ABBA) forthe west hemisphere in real time with a resolution of 30 min (Prins and Menzel,1992).

The European Meteosat Second Generation (MSG), situated at Greenwich merid-ian, provides an excellent thermal product every 15 min (Spinning Enhanced Visibleand Infrared Imager, SEVIRI). Although the resolution is still rough, 3 km at nadir,multi-temporal data processing provides valuable information on fire evolution.

The Japanese Multifunctional Transport Satellite (MTSAT), situated 140◦E,completes the scenario, although with slightly worse performance than the previous.

Processing for Products

A generic data flow for the resolution of fire-lines and hot spots, false alarms andother features interesting for the mitigation of during the crisis can be the following:

– Data reception– Front-End Processing

– De-packet/de-multiplexing– De-compression

– Medium infrared (WMIR) data processing Level 1A– Thermal infrared (TIR) data processing Level 1A– Visible (VIS) data processing Level 1A– Near infrared (NIR) data processing Level 1A– Detection Product Processing Level 1A

– Geometric correction and de-staggered– Radiometric calibration– Preliminary Hot spot detection

– Level 1B image generation [optional]– Brightness Temperature– Cloud Classification and Masking– Surface Radiation/Reflectance– De-correlated Scenes– Fire detection and Monitoring Product Processing

– Fine geo-location– Hot spot detection– Mask of known alarms– Mask of sun glints– Fire-line extraction

– Consolidated Products for the Historical Database

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The historical database plays an important role in the data process. The benefitsof the frequent revisit are fully exploited. The results (final and partial) of the pro-cessing, the user inputs and the relevant external data need to be stored for algorithmoptimisation and future playback. In a reverse manner, the algorithm can use datafrom the historical database to avoid known alarms and to improve its performance.

Following the standard nomenclature for remote sensing products, but alwaysconsidering that the image is not the primary output of the system but an interimstep to detect the presence of a fire and its shape, the scheme of Fig. 6 identifiesthe contents of the different products generated along the processing chain. (Theproducts that are not essential are marked in discontinuous line).

LEVEL 1

LEVEL 0

LEVEL 2

Level-0 Data Set

Raw Data in a continuous stream of packets embedding payload and spacecraft data. Synchronisation of packets from different satellite sources is not assumed.

Level-0A Data Set

Five blocks (cameras + telemetry) of Raw Data after de-packetising and de-mux the Level-0 stream. Part of the satellite telemetry can be added in the headers.

Level-1A Data Set

Level-0A is complemented with the radiometric and geometric correction coefficients. De-staggering process.

Level-1B Data Set

Level-1A is projected onto the map and the radiometric and geometric coefficients applied. The image is re-sampled.

Rapid Fire Detection Product

Rapid detection algorithm applied. Hot spot geo-location, fire surrounding cutting and resample.

Precise Geo-located Scenes

Consolidation of geometric corrections (system and de-correlation) Digital terrain model, ephemerids and GIS. Scene re-sampled.

Brightness Temperature

Brightness temperature at TIR sensor entrance (and also WMIR sensor during night).

De-correlated Scenes

Generation of inter-channel correlation parameters. Parallax correction if needed. Data re-sorted and de-correlation parameters calculated

Cloud Masking

Multi-step Cloud detection algorithms applied (with and without surface radiation calculations)

Surface Radiation/Reflectance

For VIS, NIR and WMIR cloud free pixels, atmospheric corrections applied, TOA estimations included. For TIR, only surface radiation is obtained

Fire Detection Product

Fine detection algorithm applied to Fire Detection Product 1A. Sub-products are obtained during the process.

Fig. 6 Summary of products for Detection and Monitoring

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Level-0A Data Set

Level-0 Data Set

Level-1B Data Set

Pre-processed Fire Detection

Brightness Temperature

Correlated scenes

Precise Geo-location

Archive

Level-1A Data Set

Compression for archive

De-packetisingDe-compression

Radiometric and Geometric coeff.

De-stagger User mask

Map selection and re-sample

ThresholdingScene cutting

Rapid Cloud cover

Rapid Sun/ Atmosphere

Cloud Masking

Cloud analysis

Static calibration

Atm. Model Emmisivity/reflectance separation

Surface radiation

Correlation Parallax error

DTM GCP identify.

Known scene features

Sun glint Rejection

Hot Spot Identification

Historical Database

ConsolidationDISPLAY

Inter-band Geometry

For algorithm usage

NDVI Map

Vegetated area

Quality control Scene

Enlargement

Post-process

Fire Detection & Monitoring

Fig. 7 Scheme of data flow for Detection and Monitoring products

Although a sequential process could be envisaged, the need of real time data de-livery required a more powerful mechanism. An iterative process (Fig. 7) combinedto multi-level algorithms would allow a progressive process where both the surfacecovered and the detail of the process are improved in successive iterations. This isin line with the requirement of having a real time alarm and fire-line representationfor rapid movement of the resources and posterior refinements to inform the crewsonce they are in the way.

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Example of Validation Campaign

The Spanish Ministry of Environment, by means of the Direccion General para laBiodiversidad (DGB), has been requesting from 2004 the provision of near real-timefir products using space data, as well as other sources of useful information.

The data reception centre, located in Valladolid, Spain, was prepared to receivedata from TERRA-MODIS, AQUA-MODIS and MSG-SEVIRI. The images re-ceived and stored were made available to the processors to automatically start thegeneration of fire products.

Table 1 Images received from MODIS and SEVIRI

Satellite Images per day Delay (min)

TERRA 2–4 12 (download)AQUA 2–4 12 (download)MSG 96 (every 15 min) 15 (EUMETCast)

The whole process, including all the steps explained in former paragraphs, isfinished in approximately 25 min in the case of MODIS, and 15 min in the case ofSEVIRI. Apart from these real-time products, other remote sensing products, likerisk index maps, cloud coverage or burned area estimations, are obtained by meansof additional processors, also connected to the data acquisition servers.

Fig. 8 GUI for real-time hot spot mapping

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Table 2 Products delivered and times achieved

Product Delivery Time Number of products per day

Fire risk 1 h – 1:30 h 2Hot spot < 30 min 100–104Fire line (medium resolution) < 30 min 4–8Cloud coverage < 30 min 40–60Burned area 2 days As demanded

Then, the dissemination network allows all authenticated users to display andmanage the information. A decision support system (Fig. 8) provides the necessaryelements to calculate statistics, to manage archives and to generate value addedinformation that can also be transferred to colleagues or press.

As a matter of example, the data in Tables 2 and 3, taken during the whole 2005campaign in Spain, are provided. Users validated the figures, confirming more than95% of the hotspots and reporting less than 0.5% of skipped fires (very short fireoutbreaks that maybe were not active at the pass of MODIS).

Table 3 Number of products delivered in 2005

Product Number of products during the campaign

Fire risk 484Hot spot 10,179Fire line (low resolution) 871Cloud coverage 4,876Burned area 21

Services for Damage Assessment

Technical Needs

The most important post-crisis activity in wildfire management is the assessmentof the burned areas and protection of critical resources. Remote sensing by 2007has already proven its usefulness in this activity, and the number of authorities us-ing space-borne data operationally for assessment of wildfire damage is increasingyear after year. The ‘Global Monitoring for Environment and Security’ (GMES)(http://www.gmes.info/) is a European initiative for the implementation of infor-mation services dealing with environment and security and represents a concertedeffort to bring data and information providers together with users, so they can bet-ter understand each other and make environmental and security-related informationavailable to the people who need it through enhanced or new services. Within thisinitiative that started its consolidation phase in 2003, several civil protections fromthe main European countries are actively participating in the different projects devel-opment. This participation is done in three ways: first defining their real operationalrequirements in terms of products definition, resolution, accuracy, secondly in terms

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of services delivery, availability and continuously doing a follow up of the projectsreleasing recommendations related to the project adjustment to the user require-ments, and thirdly, progressively integrating the use of remote sensing informationwithin the Fire Fighter users and decision maker operational chain.

When speaking about technical needs, the levels of application are two fold:

� Local burned area assessments that is focused on local, regional or even nationalauthorities in charge of fire risk management and land management that are fo-cused which main activities are: prevention to avoid as much as possible fireoccurrence, fire attack to extinguish any fire outbreak and fire damage assessmentto carry out the task needed for the best vegetation restoration

� Global Burned area assessment focused on international authorities that requirea global understanding of the scale and impact of biomass burning to undertakecorrective actions

With respect to regional-local burned area, we distinguish between the rapidmapping of the damage and the systematic provision of burned areas. Rapid damageassessment usually includes information only on the burnt area size, location andtype of vegetation affected. The provision of these burnt areas should be as soonas possible after the fire occurrence, typically with only one day delay and reso-lution better than 30 m. To fulfil these requirements, since there are no dedicatedconstellations of satellites dedicated to fire monitoring, the best solution is foundin the co-scheduling of satellites acquisition such as Spot 5 together with the useof other satellites available such as LANDSAT; one example is the CHARTER ini-tiative for the quick provision of data for emergencies. With respect to the spectralrequirements, the discrimination of burnt areas requires the availability of spectralinformation in the RED and NIR bands, generally available in the EO satellites wementioned before.

Other examples are The ITALSCAR project as well, inserted in the frame of ESAData User Program, was aimed to generate reference Burn Scars Maps (BSM) andthe associated catalogue, based on the use of historical Remote Sensing data fromEuropean Earth Observation (EO) satellite missions, for supporting the operationalFire Disaster management over Italy at national and at regional level.

The systematic provision of burnt areas is delivered every specific period of time(i.e. every 15 days, every month) or just once after the fire campaign. This serviceincludes information such as severity of burnt, potential vegetation regeneration,and soil erosion. Sensors used are from high (IRS AWIFS) to medium resolution(TERRA/AQUA MODIS), (Valcarce et al., 2006).

For the discrimination of the level of damage caused to the vegetation insidethe fire perimeter, the SWIR data is required with the advantage that provided thecapability to see through some light smoke and haze (CEOS report). One exampleis this systematic provision is the EFFIS:European Forest Fire Information System.The European Commission DG Joint Research Centre set up since 1999 a researchgroup to work specifically on the development and implementation of advancedmethods for the evaluation of forest fire risk and mapping of burnt areas at theEuropean scale. These activities led to the development of the European Forest Fire

Space Technology for Disaster Monitoring, Mitigation and Damage Assessment 319

Information System (EFFIS). Since the year 2003, EFFIS is aimed to provide rele-vant information for the protection of forests against fire in Europe addressing bothpre-fire and post-fire conditions.

On the post-fire phase, EFFIS is focused on the estimation of annual damagecaused by forest fires in southern EU. All burned areas larger than 50 ha, whichaccount for around 75% of the total area burnt in southern Europe are mapped everyyear using satellite imagery. The first cartography of forest fire damages in southernEU was produced on year 2000 and continued for the subsequent years. Wide Fieldof View Sensor (WIFS) on board Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) providesthe satellite imagery used. This type of satellite imagery presents a spatial resolutionof 180 m that permits detailed mapping of fires of at least 50 ha. The validation ofthe burned area maps has been made using high resolution satellite images (LandsatTM/ETM) presenting an overall accuracy in the order of 92%.

Additionally, as from 2003 a new activity for rapid assessment of forest firedamage has been developed in order to map all the fires larger than 100 ha twiceduring the fire season: at the beginning of August and at the beginning of October(EFFIS – Rapid Damage Assessment). Analysing MODIS daily images at 250 mspatial resolution carries out this system.

The outcome of research topics on forest fires currently investigated at the JRCwill be implemented in EFFIS in the forthcoming years. These topics are all re-lated to the post-fire phase and refer to forest fire atmospheric emissions, vegetationregeneration, and post-fire risk analysis.

Regarding global burned area assessment, some examples of the users interestedare: Global Change Research; public health officials, concerned ministries and de-partments of tourism, IGBP. The information that has to be provided is the totalburnt area, the intensity of burnt and the vegetation and fuel type. In this case, res-olution of data is not that critical and the global coverage in the main requirement.To achieve this, there is a need to develop an international agreement to improveaccess to timely and affordable data for the fire management community. Someinitiatives are on going such as that from the Fire Implementation Team of theGlobal Terrestrial Observing System panel on Global Observation of Forest Coverand Land Cover Dynamics (GOFC/GOLD) which are making right steps in theuse of the available GEO meteorological satellites for the estimation of the globalburnt areas and carbon emissions. There are other several services attempting toobtain systematic maps of burned areas worldwide. the most well-known are: theGLOBSCAR project launched by the European Space Agency to analyse a timeseries of imagery provided by the Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) on-board the ERS-2 satellite, at global level for the year 2000 (ESA/ESRIN 2002).The Global Burnt Area – 2000 (GBA 2000) initiative has been launched by theGlobal Vegetation Monitoring (GVM) Unit of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) inpartnership with several institutions around the world. The specific objectives areto produce a map of the areas burnt globally in the year 2000, using the mediumspatial resolution satellite imagery provided by the SPOT-VEGETATION systemand to derive, from this map, statistics of area burnt per country, per month, and

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per main type of vegetation cover. We have to mention also the MODIS Burnedproducts, which is still a prototype.

Data Sources

In Europe, space borne remote sensing data have only been used for mapping burntforest areas at local or national level, being of limited use to map burnt areas at theEuropean Union level. This is due to the difficulty of assembling a complete mo-saic of high-resolution satellite images, such as Landsat or SPOT, to cover all thesecountries immediately after the end of the fire season. The higher spatial resolutionof these systems is balanced by a decrease in other data sensitive parameters, suchas the swath width, that leads to a decrease in temporal resolution.

Alternatively, medium-resolution satellite images have been used to map theburnt areas in Southern European Union countries (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy,and Greece). This has been accomplished using the 188 m spatial resolution WideField Sensor (WiFS), on board the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites (Barbosaet al. 2002). Although WiFS has been successfully used to map burnt areas largerthan 50 ha, it lacks information on the short-wave infrared (SWIR) part of the spec-tra. While the red and near infrared (NIR) bands are useful to detect burnt areas,some authors have suggested that the shortwave infrared bands can be an additionalimportant input in order to accurately map burnt areas.

Thus, the new mission of Indian Remote Sensing Satellites (IRS), called Reso-urcesat-1, provided enhanced imaging services. Resourcesat-1 carries three imagingsensors—a moderate resolution camera Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS), amoderate resolution Linear Imaging Self Scanning—III device (LISS-III) and a highresolution Linear Imaging Self Scanning—IV device (LISS-IV). The satellite inorbit provides for LISS-III basic repetitively of 24 days and AWIFS camera has arepetitively of 5 days. AWiFS camera provides enhanced capabilities over the WiFSin terms of spatial resolution (60 m and 180 m, respectively) and has four bands incoverage—red, green, near-IR and shortwave IR. All the four bands have 10 bitquantization. AWiFS images given the large area covered, good spectral resolutionand high frequency of passing could be effectively used in regional and nationalscales analysis and are clearly an advantage against other type of images, especiallywhere cloud cover is a critical factor in the image availability.

Other medium resolution images are provided by the Medium Resolution Imag-ing Spectrometer (MERIS) on board ENVISAT satellite. MERIS is a 68, 5◦ field-of-view push broom imaging spectrometer that measures the solar radiation reflectedby the Earth at a ground spatial resolution of 300 m in 15 spectral bands in the visibleand near infrared. Because of its fine spectral and moderate spatial resolution andthree-day repeat cycle, MERIS is a potentially valuable sensor for the measurementand monitoring of terrestrial environments at regional to global scales. MERIS hastwo product levels and two product resolutions. (Chuvieco 2005).

For the assessment of global impact of burned areas, SEVIRI instrument onboard the GEO meteorological satellite METEOSAT Second Generation allows the

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estimation of the Fire Radiative Energy (FRE) released by the fire. This informationtogether with the fuel type consumed results in the estimation of the carbon emissioncaused by wildfires.

Processing for Products

Methods for Mapping Burned Areas

The restoration and protection of burnt areas originated by wildfires requires from aaccurate mapping and location. Experts propose a wide set of techniques for map-ping the burned areas (Justice et al. 2002, Gregoire et al. 2003), going from singlechannel threshold algorithm application to other more complex such as spectralmixture analysis and neural networks. The methodologies used in the evaluationof burned areas depend on the temporal, spatial and spectral resolution of availableimages (Vazquez et al. 2001).

Spectral Values and Derived Indexes

The burnt areas can be enhanced combining spectral bands in different ways (NDVI,BAI, PCA . . .). Each index, although subjected to specific limitations, is able tooutline peculiar characteristics of the burnt areas and can consequently be exploitedin classification techniques using thresholds or more sophisticated methodologies.

Vegetation Indices

Vegetation indices have been very common tools for burnt area mapping, in bothunitemporal and in multitemporal frameworks. When examining the general re-flectance curve of vegetation, the deviation observed between the red and near in-frared constitutes a variable sensitive to the presence of green vegetation. Vegetationindices take into account the spectral contrast between those two spectral bands toenhance the vegetation signal while minimizing atmospheric, solar irradiance andsoil background effects. These vegetation indices have shown to be very suitablefor the discrimination of fire-affected areas. As several studies have reported, burntplants tend to show a higher reflectance than healthy vegetation in the visible partof the spectrum and lower reflectance in the near infrared. But this spectral responsecauses a great deal of confusion with water, shaded areas and, in some cases, certainconifers (Chuvieco et al. 2002).

Note that there are a group of spectral indexes that attempt to reduce soil noisebut at the cost of decreasing their dynamic range. These indexes are slightly lesssensitive to changes in vegetation cover than NDVI at low levels of vegetation coverand also more sensitive to atmospheric variations than NDVI (Qi et al. 1994).

Hereinafter, are listed the most common vegetation indexes used for burned areamapping.

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Fig. 9 Distribution ofreflectance values in the redand near-infrared regions arefound in the gray shadedarea. The greater the amountof photosynthetically activevegetation present, the greaterthe near infrared reflectanceand the lower the redreflectance. (from Jensen,John R. Remote Sensing ofthe Environment: An EarthResource Perspective.Prentice-Hall, New Jersey)

The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index was initially proposed by Rouseet al., (1974) and has been extensively used in burned land discrimination (Fernandezet al. 1997).

NDVI = �NIR − �RED

�NIR + �RED

where �NIR and �RED are the reflectance values in the near infrared and red bandsrespectively.

The Normalized Difference Infrared Index (NDII)

It has been recently proposed to detect water content in vegetation status and it isdefined as:

NDVI = �NIR − �SWIR

�NIR + �SWIR

where �NIR and �SWIR are the reflectance values in the near infrared and short-wave infrared channels respectively (bands 4 and 7 Landsat-TM/ETM). The NDIIwas first developed by Hunt and Rock (1989).

Space Technology for Disaster Monitoring, Mitigation and Damage Assessment 323

The Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI)

When the vegetation cover has a low density the soil reflectance increases in boththe red and infrared channels. This index includes a soil adjustment factor L thatranges from 0, for very high vegetation cover, to 1, for very low vegetation cover:

SAVI = (1 + L) ∗ �NIR − �RED

�NIR + �RED + L

where the L term accounts for the differential Red and NIR canopy transmission and(1+L) is a multiplicative factor to maintain the same bounds as NDVI. Huete (1988)has shown that a value L = 0.5 permits the best adjustment.

The Generalized Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (GESAVI)

The GESAVI index as well try to correct for the soil backscatter influence in thespectral response of vegetation. It is defined in terms of the soil line parameters (Aand B) as:

GESAVI = �NIR − B ∗ �RED − A

�RED + Z

where Z (Martınez et al. 2001) is defined as a soil adjustment coefficient and �NIRand �RED are the reflectance values in the near infrared and red bands respectively.Z depends on the type and vegetation amount being so influenced from the proper-ties of the considered scene. This implies a prior knowledge of the analysed scene.

The Global Environmental Monitoring Index (GEMI)

It has been introduced by (Pinty and Verstraete 1992) in order to reduce both theeffect of atmosphere and soil:

GEMI = η ∗ (1 − 0.25 ∗ η) − ρRED − 0.125

1 − ρRED

where � is defined as:

η = 2 ∗ (ρNIR

2 − ρRED2) + 1.5ρNIR + 0.5ρRED

ρNIR + ρRED + 0.5

and �NIR and �RED are the reflectance values in the near infrared and red bandsrespectively.

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The Burnt Area Index (BAI)

This index defined by Martın (1998) as the inverse quadratic distance to the conver-gence point of the burnt areas:

BAI = 1

(PCR − ρR)2 + (PCNIR − ρNIR)2

Where �R and �NIR are reflectances in the red and near infrared bands and PCRand PCNIR the convergence points for burned areas in these two bands. The con-vergence reflectances were extracted by previous studies done using AVHRR andconfirmed with Landsat-TM. They were estimated as 0.1 reflectance in the red bandand 0.06 reflectance in the near infrared band.

Moreover, it has been demonstrated that BAI perform much better than NDVI,SAVI, and GEMI for burnt scar detection in different situations and to discrimi-nate healthy vegetation from different levels of burnt vegetation (Martın et al. 2005)However, the BAI index gives potential confusions with other non-vegetated covers,such as water bodies and relief shadows, which also present low reflectance in thered and near infrared bands.

Classification Techniques

Photo-Interpretation

This is considered the simplest and often the most effective method. The humanphoto-interpreter generally is able to combine the radiometry of the colour compos-ite images with texture and contest information. Sometimes it is applied togetherwith the Density Slicing that only requires defining a threshold that is then iterativelyre-adjusted based on visual interpretation of results. This method is principally usedon single images but can also be applied in a multi-temporal procedure relatingthe three basic guns (red, green and blue) to three different data sets of the sameband instead of to three different bands of a single image (Multi-temporal ColourComposite). Consequently colour changes in the colour composition would refer tomulti-temporal changes, otherwise pixel of a stable area would be grey (Barbosaet al. 1999). However, the major problem of these methods is that the identificationis subjective and manual.

Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA)

The reflectance value at pixel level is the result of a mixture of various sub-homogeneous components having different spectral behaviour. This method, alsoknown as Spectral Unmixing, (Adams et al. 1995) assumes that the pixel values,expressed as digital numbers (DNs), are linear combinations of reflectances from alimited set of constituent elements, called end-members.

Space Technology for Disaster Monitoring, Mitigation and Damage Assessment 325

This technique has been applied both in multi-temporal and single image ap-proach and it has been considered efficient in detecting the charcoal signal even inlight burnt areas that preserved a strong vegetation signal (Caetano et al. 1996).

Single and Multiple Thresholding

Although it is not easy to detect burnt areas just defining a single threshold, someauthors had good results from thresholding NIR band (Kasischke et al. 1994) or aselected vegetation index (VI, NDVI, etc.).

Instead, multiple thresholding is based on establishing a set of consecutive orparallel rules that imply accepting or rejecting any specific pixel (Martın 1994). Forexample, (Barbosa et al. 1999) compared NDVI with AVHRR channel 2 (0.725–1.00 �m) and other vegetation indexes (GEMI, GEMI3, VI3) for a study area inPortugal, concluding that for Mediterranean land cover types NDVI was the leastadequate to map burned surfaces and GEMI3 the best.

The problem of using fixed thresholds is related to the fact that reflectances,temperatures and vegetation indexes are dependent on the atmospheric effects aswell as on the land cover. Multitemporal thresholds, on the other hand, are basedon the variations observed in the different spectral spaces. (Barbosa et al. 1999)by using different sets of AVHRR channels and derived indexes, obtained spectralsignatures for burned and unburned surfaces. Indexes making use of channel 2 andchannel 3 resulted to be the best in detecting burned areas.

Multi-temporal Analysis

One of the most commonly used method to detect burned areas is based on atemporal sequence of spectral-data analysed pixel-by-pixel but taking into ac-count only pixels not affected by clouds, shadow or other perturbing factors.This kind of analysis has resulted to be very effective in the enhancement ofburnt area spectral characteristic, especially in quick detection, because the signalshortly after the fire is more unequivocal of fire occurrence than vegetation coverdecreasing.

Anyway, this type of application requires consistency in illumination condi-tions (solar angle or radar imaging geometry) to provide reliable and compara-ble classification results. It depends on calibrated data as well. As a matter offact, only by relating the image brightness values to physical units, can the im-ages be precisely compared and the nature and degree of the observed changes bedetermined.

Summary of Classification Techniques

In the following Table 4 pros and cons of each technique above mentioned arecompared:

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Table 4 Pros and cons of the introduced classification techniques

Methodology Pros Cons

Photo Interpretation Very simple; Very effectiveand accurate on a singleimage approach but alsoused in multi-temporalanalysis (colorcomposite).

Subjective identification(depends on the photointerpreter); Notautomated procedure;Laborious (time).

Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA) Takes into account thewhole spectralinformation Estimationof reflectance pixelfraction relevant todifferent component(vegetation, soil etc.)

Auxiliary ground truth data(spectral signature)required Limitedapplication in burnt areamapping

Single Multiple Thresholding Very simple; Simplicity ofimplementation;

Fixed thresholds do not takeinto account thereflectances,temperatures andvegetation indexesdependency on theatmospheric effects aswell as on the land cover

Time Series Analysis Reduction of the likelihoodof confusion with similarspectral land cover type;Very effective in theenhancement of burntarea spectralcharacteristic, especiallyin quick detection;

Dependency on calibrateddata; Sensitivity togeometrical conditions ofillumination andobservation; Requirespre-fire images.

Data Delivery and Archive

When dealing with international or global applications, where the temporal require-ment is not critical, the typical way of delivering the information is through a “WebMapping Interface”. This is the case for example of EFFIS, where users can see thedifferent products produced, such as different fire risk indices mapping, burn areasover 50 ha from 2000 to 2007 and it is possible to choose different backgrounds:WiFS images, DEM, Land Cover (from CORINE) and fuel map.

A EU Fire Database is also included in EFFIS, which contains the forest fireinformation compiled by some of the EU Member States. The forest fire data areprovided each year by individual Member States, checked, stored and managedby JRC within EFFIS. At present the database covers seven Member States of theUnion with fire-risk areas: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece (data availablefrom 1985 to 2001), Germany (1994–2001) and Cyprus (2000–2001).

When dealing with operational users, such as the National or Regional authoritiesthat have to make quick decisions based on the information received, customised

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applications based on FTP protocol have to be designed. This is the case of the NOD(Near Operational Demonstration) project funded by ESA where the National FireFighting Authority (DGB) and the Regional Authority of Galicia where involvedmaking use of the information provided. A desktop application was developed andinstalled at user premises. Every time a new Burnt Area product in the area underthe authority responsibility is available, the server notifies the application and anautomatic download of the product is done. Also a catalogue based on XML tags isavailable to download any product that was not automatically downloaded in pastdays. The products are sent in Shape format that has become a de-facto standard andthe archive is done based on a tree folder structure classified by days.

Validation

Validation is a very important task in order to demonstrate the accuracy of theproducts provided. In the next example, we present the validation of three differenttechniques already presented in the processing methods section for two mediumresolution sensors such as MERIS and MODIS. Burned areas from AWIFS highresolution image was used to carry out the validation of the results. The confusionmatrix shows the calculated Omission and Commission errors (Table 5).

It can be observed that MERIS image offers better results than MODIS in termsof commission errors but has a higher omission error, when the spectral anglemapper method was used. In the other hand the results obtained with the indexescalculated from MERIS image are better than the ones from MODIS image.

Fig. 10 Burnt area from a fire occurred in Guadalajara (Spain) for the summer 2005

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Table 5 Omission and Commission errors table

Meris Modis

Omission Commission Omission Commission

SAM 16,77 3,06 11,4 10BAI 8.33 11.95 29.47 22.4GEMI 13.95 4.38 9.4 17.19

Globally, the MERIS image offers better results than the MODIS image. Thesmaller commission error with regard to MODIS results is a very important point topay attention. The worst results have been found with BAI index in MODIS image.

Conclusion

The improvements on space technology, in combination with appropriate strategies,allow the building of real-time services for disaster management and damage as-sessment. Satellite revisit frequency is, at this very moment, the bottleneck of thewhole process.

With respect to detection and monitoring of forest fires, MODIS is the referenceamong all polar platforms whereas SEVIRI is the proof of the value of geostationaryinfrared data. Both are best exploited when processed together for a combined finalproduct, which can nowadays be offered to the administrations as a pre-operationalservice.

For damage assessment, there is a 30-year history in the development of studiesfor the applicability of space remote sensing. However, it has not been until theadvent of new Earth Observation satellites with enhanced capabilities, the improve-ment in data availability and dissemination, and the support of large institutions tostart initiatives like CHARTER or GMES on major disasters; it is now when theauthorities on command can use effectively such an information source. Althoughthe use of the data produced is not fully integrated in the fire fighters procedures,it is increasingly becoming a support tool in their activities, and the interest in thiskind of information grows year after year.

The cost of all these complex and high quality systems and the growing access tospace for medium and small agencies should lead to the development of dedicatedsystems for disaster management products, i.e. a constellation of small satelliteswith compact bi-spectral infrared payloads onboard for wildfire fighting, to providehigh-frequency non-saturated data at affordable cost.

References

Adams, J.B., Sabol, D.E., Kapos, V., Filho, R.A., Roberts, D.A., Smith, M.O., and Gillespie, A.R.(1995), Classification of multispectral images based on fractions of endmembers: application toland-cover change in the Brazilian Amazon. Remote Sensing of Environment; 52:137–54.

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Arino, O., and Rosaz, J.M. (1999), 1997 and 1998 World ATSR FIRE Atlas using ERS-2 ATSR-2Data, Proceedings of the Joint Fire Science Conference, Boise, 15–17, June 1999.

Barbosa, P.M., Gregoire, J.-M., and Pereira, J.M.C. (1999), An Algorithm for Extracting BurnedAreas from Time Series of AVHRR GAC Data Applied at a Continental Scale, Remote Sensingof Environment, Vol. 13, No. 04, 933–950.

Barbosa, P.M., San-Miguel Ayanz, J., Martınez, B., and Schmuck, G. (2002), Burnt area mappingin southern Europe using irs-wifs. In Forest Fire Research & Wildland Fire Safety. Millpress,Rotterdam

Briess, K., Jahn, H., Lorenz, E., Oertel, D., Skrbek, W., and Zhukov, B. (2003), Fire recognitionpotential of the bi-spectral detection (BIRD) satellite, International Journal Remote Sensing, 24,865–872.

Caetano, M.S., Mertes, L., Cadete, L., and Pereira, J.M.C. (1996), Assessment of AVHRR datafor characterising burned area and post-fire vegetation recovery. EARSeL Advances in RemoteSensing, 4(4): pp. 124–134.

Chuvieco, E., Martın, M.P., and Palacios, A. (2002), Assessment of different spectral indices inthe red-near-infrared spectral domain for burned land discrimination. International Journal ofRemote Sensing, 23, 5103–5110.

Chuvieco, E., De Santis, A. (2005), Fire Damage Assessment Scientific Report, published withinEC prevention, information and Early warning project.

Dozier, J. (1981), A method for satellite identification of surface temperature fields of subpixelresolution, Remote Sensing of Environment, 11, 221–229.

Fernandez, A., Illera, P., and Casanova, J.L. (1997), Automatic mapping of surfaces affected byforest fires in Spain using AVHRR NDVI composite image data. Remote Sensing of Environ-ment, 60, 153–162.

Gregoire, J.M., Tansey, K., and Silva, J.M.N. (2003), The GBA2000 initiative: Developing a globalburned area database from SPOT-VEGETATION imagery. International Journal of RemoteSensing 24: 1369–1376.

Huete, A.R. (1988), A soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI). Remote Sensing of Environment, 25,295–309

Hunt, E.R., and Rock, B.N. (1989), Detection of changes in leaf water content using near andmiddle-infrared reflectances. Remote Sensing of Environment, 30, 43–54.

Justice, C. O et al. (2002) The MODIS fire products. Remote Sensing of Environment, 83, 244–262.

Kasischke E.S., Bourgeau-Chavez L.L. & French N.H. (1994), Observations of variations in ERS-1SAR image intensity associated with forest fires in Alaska. IEEE Transactions on Geoscienceand Remote Sensing, 32(1), January 1994.

Kaufman, Y., and Justice, C. (1998), MODIS Fire Products, Algorithm Theoretical Basis Docu-ment. MODIS Science Team. EOS ID#2741.

Li, Z., Kaufman, Y.K., Ichoku, C., Fraser, R., Trishchenko, A., Giglio, L., Jin, J., and Yu, X.(1999). A review of AVHRR-based active fire detection algorithms: Principles, limitations andrecommendations. Forest Fire Monitoring and Mapping: A Component of Global Observationof Forest Cover, Editors: Ahern, Gregoire and Justice, Ispra, Italy, 3–5 November 1999.

Martın, M.P. (1998), Cartografıa e inventario de incendios forestales en la Penınsula Iberica a partirde imagenes NOAA-AVHRR. Tesis Doctoral. Universidad de Alcala, Alcala de Henares.

Martın, M.P., Gomez, I., and Chuvieco, E. (2005), Performance of a burned-area index (BAIM) formapping Mediterranean burned scars from MODIS data. In Proceedings of the 5th InternationalWorkshop on Remote Sensing and GIS applications to Forest Fire Management: Fire EffectsAssessment. Universidad de Zaragoza, GOFC-GOLD, EARSeL, Paris, pp. 193–198.

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Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for NaturalDisaster Monitoring

Luca Martino, Carlo Ulivieri, Munzer Jahjah and Emanuele Loret

Abstract On 26 Dec 2004, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off the west coastof northern Sumatra, Indonesia. Over 300,000 people lost their lives in this disaster.Areas near to the epicentre in Indonesia, especially Aceh, were devastated by theearthquake and tsunamis.

The work was developed for the post emergency analysis in collaboration withEuropean Space Agency – European Space Research Institute – (ESA-ESRIN)and the University of Rome – Centro Ricerca Progetto San Marco (CRPSM).Multi source and multi sensor data were used such as Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR) images and, SPOT5,CHRIS/PROBA,QUICKBIRD images; a GeographicInformation System (GIS) multi relational database was built and integrated withgeophysical, topographic and hazard maps. A geo-statistical analysis was done tocalculate the probability of changes. Different change detection algorithms wereused. The active and passive remote sensing and GIS integration of the Tsunamiaffected area of Banda Aceh, were efficient instruments for evaluating and quanti-fying damages. The applied methodology showed how remote sensing techniquescould be adopted for the quasi-real time and the post emergency operations.

Keywords SAR · SPOT · GIS · Change detection · Classification · Statistics ·Tsunami

Section I: Introduction

It is a well known fact that natural disasters strike countries, both developed anddeveloping, causing enormous destruction and creating human suffering and pro-ducing a negative impact on national economies. Due to diverse geo-climatic con-ditions prevalent in different parts of the globe, different types of natural disastersstrike according to the vulnerability of the area. There are also less quantifiable, butsignificant effects such as environmental consequences, psycho-social effects and

L. Martino (B)La Sapienza, University of Rome, Piazza di Villa Carpegna 42/B, 00165, Rome, Italye-mail: lucamartino76@hotmail.com, lucamartino76@gmail.com

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 14, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

331

332 L. Martino et al.

social dislocations. Currently, earth observation satellite data has played a major rolein quickly assessing the damage caused by both natural and man–made disasters.

Remote sensing is used for the management of the post emergency in BandaAceh. This chapter aims to illustrate the application of remote sensing and GIS ina post Tsunami case. The active and passive data are used for the areas of BandaAceh City and the Andaman islands and then compared. The multi sensor data andthe different digital image processing methods used are effective tools in definingthe different types of land cover for monitoring and management. The results are thechange detection maps for the post emergency management. The integration withthe GIS system was able to enhance the result of the change detection algorithm.The objective of using remote sensing data for tsunami disaster monitoring could begrouped into three main categories:

– Cartographic mapping with accurate delineation of land and water with satisfac-tory accuracy.

– Assessing changes in the coastal area and in the inland area evidencing the impactof Tsunami on the island through the spatial extent calculation.

– Emphasizing how high frequency of the suitable sensor for land cover changesand its large extent acquisition are very useful, particularly for base and damagemapping and for emergency relief logistics, to estimate settlement and structurevulnerability and to point out affected areas.

Section II: Background

Section III, provides a brief panorama of disasters; the main causes, the economicimpact on society, mainly pointing out the importance of the historical memory ofcatastrophes to be used as a means of prevention and awareness.

Section IV, a description of the study area and the physics of tsunami. Afterthe event in the Indian Ocean, knowledge of tsunamis has been reviewed on thebasis of their frequency. The tsunami generational mechanism, theories and newtechnologies are discussed. The works of B. Lautrup of V.V. Titov and F.I. Gonzalez,A. Papadopulos and F. Imamura have been taken into account.

Section V, provides an overview of the Remote Sensing principles and aims toillustrate how the sheer scale of the catastrophe means that Earth Observation isvital both for damage assessment and for co-ordinating emergency activities. TheGlobal Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), an initiative of ESAand the European Union, aims to combine Earth and space-based data sourcesand to develop an integrated form of environmental monitoring to benefit Euro-pean and world citizens. A department of GMES Services, known as Respond, wasfounded in 2003 and immediately following the disaster, the International Charteron Space and Major Disasters was activated, prioritising the acquisition of satellitedata over the affected region. Three Charter activations were triggered off on the26th of December 2004 (United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 333

for Indonesia and Thailand, French Civil Protection for Sri Lanka and the IndianSpace Research Organisation (ISRO) for India, the Maldives, Andaman and NicobarIslands).

Section VI provides the role and the general impact and benefits of remote sens-ing on disasters such as Tsunamis.

Section VII provides a detailed explanation of the materials and methods of bothSAR and Optical data, and is particularly focused on the algorithms used for changedetection.

Section VIII introduces GIS potentialities and shows how this technology, fromthe beginning of the post Tsunami emergency, has played a pivotal role in guid-ing emergency responders to affected areas and, once there, mapping the enormousimpact of the event to coordinate the relief effort. Many organizations have benefitedfrom response activities thanks to GIS technologies.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(UNOCHA) provided on-the-ground support, guidance for relief workers as wellas disseminating information of the event for the international community. The twoHumanitarian Information Center (HIC) offices of UNOCHA made extensive useof GIS.

Other entities that have used GIS extensively in tsunami response activities,are the United Nations Joint Logistics Center (UNJLC), the Food and AgricultureOrganization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Children’s Fund(UNICEF), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Na-tions World Food Programme, the World Health Organization (WHO). The NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was one of the first to publishdetailed animations of the tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean. The U.S.Agency for International Development (USAID) used GIS to estimate the inundatedareas of the tsunami.

The Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) immediately embarked on several GIS-relatedactivities, including the deployment of a WebGIS. PDC also launched the IndianOcean Tsunami Response Geospatial Information Service.

Section IX shows the study of another case: The Andaman and Nicobar Islands.Section X shows future trends including coastal structures; city planning and

prevention systems were briefly discussed and refuted.

Section III: Disasters

In the last thousand years, man’s behaviour has significantly modified many naturalprocesses, undermining their secular equilibrium and as a consequence increasingtheir power. The frequency, strength, and location of hazards such as storms, floods,droughts, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires and tsunamis etc. are closelyconnected to longer periods of global change, whether due to natural variationsor human-induced changes. The impact caused by natural hazards are increas-ing as a result of social changes like urbanization and technological interdepen-dence. A disaster represents a “situation or event, which overwhelms local capacity,

334 L. Martino et al.

necessitating a request at national or international level for external assistance;an unforeseen and often sudden event that causes great damage, destruction andhuman suffering” (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters- CRED).Data on disaster occurrence, its effect on people and its cost to countries, are primaryinputs to analyse the temporal and geographical trends in disaster impact. Disasterlosses, systematically registered in historical databases, provide the basis for identi-fying where, and to what extent, the potentially negative outcomes embedded in theconcept of risk take place. They help to understand where, and to whom, the risk ofdisaster is most likely providing the basis for risk assessment processes, a departurepoint for the application of disaster reduction measures (The Swiss Re Sigma 2006,Alexander 1999, Hoyois et al. 2007).

Natural and Man Made Disasters

Disasters can be classified in several ways. A possible sub-division of disasters is:

(1) natural disasters: when a potential natural hazard becomes a physical event (e.g.volcanic eruption, earthquake, landslide, tsunami) interacting with human activ-ities (Fig. 1).

(2) human made/induced disasters: disasters having an element of human intent,negligence, error or those involving the failure of a system.

Natural disasters could be split into 3 specific groups (Fig. 1):

� hydro-meteorological disasters: including floods and wave surges, storms,droughts and related disasters (extreme temperatures and forest/scrub fires) andlandslides;

� geophysical disasters: divided into earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions;� biological disasters: covering epidemics and insect infestations.

Fig. 1 Regional distribution of natural disasters by origin (CRED)

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 335

The Economic Impact of Disasters

Natural disasters have a negative impact on society, so they must be measuredand understood in human-related terms. In 2005, more than 97,000 people losttheir lives due to natural catastrophes or man-made disasters. Still recovering fromthe tsunami of December 2004, Asia was again hit by a severe natural catas-trophe: on 8 October 2005, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the moment magni-tude scale shook the mountain region of Kashmir. More than 73,300 people losttheir lives, 72,000 of them in Pakistan and 1,300 on the Indian side. Natural andman-made catastrophes in 2005 caused USD 230 billion of damage to buildings,infrastructure, vehicles, or losses to directly affected businesses (the Swiss ReSigma, 2006). Hurricane Katrina entailed the highest total damage by far, at USD135 billion.

Learning from the Past

Learning from the past to avoid future recurrence of catastrophic events seemsalmost impossible. A volcanic event, for example, should be a predictable eventthat, in any case, provides interpretable warning signals. Nevertheless, the desireto build countries or whole cities on volcanic areas is more powerful than anyform of caution. A living example is represented by the uncontrolled urbaniza-tion of the slopes of Vesuvius (Naples, It). Over two million people live in theVesuvius region today, which includes the city of Naples, approximately 15 kmfrom the volcano. Over 700,000 people live within 10 km of the volcano, withpopulated areas extending up the flanks of Somma-Vesuvius. With detailed histor-ical accounts of explosive volcanic activity over the last two thousand years, andsuch a high population density close to the volcano, the area has been extensivelystudied and monitored, and is regarded as a high risk. Vesuvius is an active vol-cano, able to produce a real catastrophe as demonstrated by the numerouseruptions, the most famous of which destroyed Pompeii and Ercolano in79 A.C.

Another Mediterranean example of lack of memory is Stromboli. This volcano,located north of Sicily, presents a permanent activity which has been reported forthousands of years. Many lethal accidents can be remembered from thepast.

Tourists are taken to visit the crater to watch the lava flows, and boat tours ofvolcano activity are still organized. Stromboli island was overcome by two tsunamisin 30/12/2002, which were activated by landslides that took place in the northernpart of the Sciara del Fuoco on the northwest flank of the volcano. The waves,several meters high, flooded the villages of Stromboli and Ginostra causing dam-age to buildings and boats, and injuring several people. Large waves have beenreported in Milazzo, on the northern coast of Sicily, at a distance of 60 km south ofStromboli.

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Section IV: Physics of Tsunami

Unlike volcanic eruptions identifiable as localized phenomena in a dynamic-chaoticsystem, the tsunami is described as a great mass of oceanic water, the unpre-dictability of which governs the event. So the famous “butterfly effect” suggestedby Edward Lorentz, could be used as a model to illustrate the effect that anytsunamigenic earthquake or submarine landslide could trigger off a waterberg,focusing its catastrophic force thousands of kilometers away from the place it wasgenerated.

Profile of the Study Area

The Indian subcontinent is prone to all types of natural disaster whether they beflood, drought, cyclone earthquake or forest fire etc. (Fig. 2). The available statis-tics evidence that 60% of the total area of the Indian subcontinent is vulnerable toseismic activity of varying intensity and 16% of the country’s total area is drought

Fig. 2 Seismicity of Southern Asia, above magnitude 3.0 (British geological Survey)

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 337

prone. Coastal areas of India are exposed to tropical cyclones, while river floods arefrequent and often devastating.

Banda Aceh

Banda Aceh is the provincial capital and largest city of Aceh, Indonesia, located onthe island of Sumatra. Banda Aceh, a sea level land, lies on a river delta created bythe Aceh River reaching the Andaman Sea. Two large forks of the river split the city,with the main fork running through the center of town and the other lying 15 km tothe east. The central area of Banda Aceh was separated from the open sea by nearly2 km of low-lying wetland, probably used for aquaculture. Only on the sand spit ofUleele were significant structures built along the shoreline.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands

The Andaman and the Nicobar Islands, a sub-national administrative division ofIndia, constitute a group of 572 islands, located in the Bay of Bengal. The NicobarIslands are located to the south of the Andamans, 121 km from the Little AndamanIsland. The Andamans and Nicobars are separated by the Ten Degree Channel,150 km wide. The total area of the Andaman Islands is 6408 km2; that of the NicobarIslands approximately 1841 km2. Of the total 572 islands formed by a submarinemountain range, which separates the Bay of Bengal from the Andaman Sea, only 36islands are inhabited. The Islands are located between the latitudes 6◦ to 14◦ Northand longitudes 92◦ to 94◦ East. The islands are at sea level, with the exception ofsome hills or mountains such as Saddle Peak (730 m).

26/12/2004 Tsunami

On 26 Dec 2004, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake is known to have occurred off the westcoast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The epicentre was located on the sea bed at3.32 N 95.85 E, at a depth of 30 km depth set by location program and at a distanceof 255 km SSE from Banda Aceh (United State Geological Survey, USGS) (Fig. 3).This devastating megathrust tsunamigenic earthquake occurred on the interface ofthe India and Burma plates, and was caused by the release of stresses that developas the India plate subducts beneath the overriding Burma plate (Lautrup 2005, Halifand Sabki 2005).

Seismographic and acoustic data indicate that the first phase involved theformation of a rupture about 400 km long and 100 km wide, located 30 km (19 mi)beneath the sea bed—the longest rupture ever known to have been caused byan earthquake. The rupture proceeded at a speed of about 2.8 km/s (1.7 mi/s) or

338 L. Martino et al.

Fig. 3 Earthquackes in theSumatra area (USGS)

10,000 km/h (6,300 mph), beginning off the coast of Aceh and proceeding north-westerly over a period of about 100 s.

According to the Gutenberg-Richter empirical relation, between an earthquake’smagnitude (M) and the energy (EE R) radiated all over the globe in the form ofseismic vibrations we have:

log10 EE R ≈ 4.8 + 1.5 M

This was the fourth largest earthquake in the world since 1900 with an estimatedtotal energy released of 3.35 × 1018 J.

Tsunami: An Introduction

Tsunamis, incorrectly called “tidal waves”, are shallow-water gravity waves, withan extremely limited amplitude and extremely large wavelength, generated in a bodyof water by an impulsive disturbance that vertically displaces the water column(Dudley and Lee 2005). Tsunamis could be caused by:

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 339

Fig. 4 Underwater earthquake mechanism (USGS)

(1) an underwater earthquake: especially in the region of trenches (Fig. 4);(2) a volcanic eruption: especially of the phreatic kind (es: Krakatoa or Tambora);(3) a sub-marine rockslide;(4) an asteroid or meteoroid crashing into the water from space.

Most tsunamis are caused by underwater earthquakes, but not all underwaterearthquakes cause tsunamis. To cause a tsunami, an earthquake has to be over amagnitude of about 6.75 on the Richter scale and shallow focus (at a depth of<30 km in the earth). Obviously great earthquakes occur less often than small ones.The number of earthquakes larger than a given magnitude M also obey an empiricalGutenberg-Richter relation:

log10 N = 8 − M

According to this formula, an earthquake with M ≥ 9 occurs on average onlyonce every ten years. About 90 percent of all tsunamis occur in the Pacific Oceanwhere dense oceanic plates slide under the lighter continental plates. When theseplates fracture they provide a vertical movement of the seafloor that allows a quickand efficient transfer of energy from the solid earth to the ocean. When a tsunamiis much larger than expected in relation to the earthquake’s magnitude, we have a“tsunami earthquake”.

340 L. Martino et al.

Tsunami in History

The occurrence of the disaster is relegated to historic memory until it occurs again,either in the same area, or in some other part of a country. Tsunami, as we know, arenot only a modern phenomenon. We have experience of numerous tsunamis in theworld and in Europe, and even in the narrow Mediterranean sea some of the most

Table 1 The most famous and damaging tsunami

Year LocationsTotal ofdeath Run-up (m) Magnitude of source

1605 Nankaido 50001703 Tokaido and

Kashima, Japan5233

1703 Awa, Japan 1000001707 Tokaido and

Nankaido, Japan30000

1755 Lisbon, Portugal andMorroco

100000 Earthquake-9 (Richter Scale)

1771 Ryukyu Trench(between Taiwanand Japan)

13486

1782 South China Sea 400001868 Chile 25674 Earthquake-7.5 (Richter Scale)1883 Krakatoa volcano

explosion, Indianocean

36000 40 Volcano- 6 VEI (volcanicexplosivity index)

1896 Sanriku, Japan 220701908 Messina, Italy 70000 30 Earthquake-7.2 (Richter Scale)1946 Aleutian Island

earthquake(Alaska andHawaii USA)

165 Earthquake-7.8 (Richter Scale)

1958 Lituya Bay, Alaska 5 524 Earthquake-7.8 (Richter Scale)generated the landslide into thebay

1960 Great Chileanearthquake (Chile,Hawaii, Alaska,Philippines andJapan)

2000 3-25 Earthquake-9.5 (Richter Scale)

1964 Good Fridayearthquake(Alaska andHawaii USA)

122 6 Earthquake-9.5 (Richter Scale)

1976 Cotabato City,Philippines

5000 Earthquake-7.9 (Richter Scale)

1979 Tumaco (pacificcoast of Colombiaand Ecuador)

354 5 Earthquake-8.2 (Richter Scale)

1998 Papua New Guinea 2200 12 Earthquake-7.0 (Richter Scale)2004 Indian Ocean

earthquake>300,000 3–35 Earthquake-9.2 (Richter Scale)

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 341

Fig. 5 Tsunami wave parameters (Environment Waikato)

serious ones are still remembered in history (Table 1). The decline of the Minoancivilization was provoked by a powerful tsunami (after the explosion of the volcanoSantorini) that struck the area in 1480 B.C. and destroyed its coastal settlements(Dudley and Lee 2005).

Analytical Tsunami Wave Propagation

A tsunami obeys linear shallow water gravity wave dynamics (Fig. 5) according tothe inequalities (Mofjeld et al. 2000):

A << H << λ.

The tsunami phase velocity is c = √gH and the group velocity is: cg = ω

k≈ c

For the 26/12/2004 tsunami taking λ ≈ 150 km, H ≈ 4 km (according to thedepth of the Indian Ocean) and A = 1.5 m, we have c = 200 m/s = 720 km/h,which is comparable to the speed of a passenger jet (Table 2).

But phase speed does not depend on wavelength so the initial energy will not bedispersed. An ideal shallow-water wave is for this reason said to be non-dispersive.

So the flux energy should be:

= ET c = cost [W]

Table 2 Ocean depth vs average speed of tsunami

Ocean Average depth (m) Deepest depth (m) Speed c (km/h)

Pacific 4637 Marianna Trench = 11033 766.8 < c < 1184.4Atlantic 3926 Puerto Rico Trench = 8605 705.6 < c < 1044.0Indian 3963 Java Trench = 7725 709.2 < c < 990.0Southern 4000 to 5000 Southern Sandwich Trench = 7235 712.8 < c < 957.6Arctic 1200 Eurasia Basin = 5450 388.8 < c < 831.6

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Fig. 6 Tsunami Waterbergvolume

Where ET is the energy of a single tsunami wave. Nevertheless, using the Lautrupassumption’s (Lautrup 2005), we can imagine that, after an earthquake on theseafloor, the volume of the water above the active area, vertically shifted with theseafloor, is theoretically assumed to be a box-shaped “waterberg” (Fig. 6). So, thewaterberg energy being EW , it follows that:

EW = 1

2ρseagλLd2 = 2 × 1016 J

where:

� d = vertical shift of height� L = box-shaped length after displacement phenomena

The tsunami energy ET may be calculated using the Amplitude of wave:

ET = 1

2ρseagλL A2

So according to the previous assumptions, E ≈ 2×1015 J is about 10% of the totalenergy deposited in the sea by the earthquake. Per meter of the wave’s transverselength L, the energy becomes ET /L ≈ 2 × 109 J/m. With such available energy,one would be able to lift 1.000 tons of material 200 m vertically for each meter ofcoastline.

We can note that from the radiation earthquake energy, the amount of energy isdecreased according to: ET < EW < EE R where EE R is the energy of the Sumatraearthquake.

Tsunami Magnitude-Intensity

To determine the tsunami magnitude (Mt) we can use the following formula(Mofjeld et al. 2000):

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 343

Mt = log H + log D + 5.55

Where:

(1) H: Maximum crest-to-trough amplitude on tide gage record in m.(2) D: Distance [km] from epicentre to station along the shortest oceanic path.

A good estimate of the tsunami magnitude depends on the number of the stationdata available.

The data from the nine operative station (Table 3) in the Indian Ocean for26/12/2004, and taking into account that the average is 9.09, we easily computeMt = 9.1. So by giving the Mt value, an estimate of run-up heights at near-sourcedistances is made by using the relation:

Mt = 2 log Hm + 6.6

Where: Hm is the maximum value of the local-mean run-up height in m.Taking the logarithmic mean of heights over a distance of about 40 km along the

coast and giving Mt = 9.1, we have a rough estimate validated against the in-situmeasurements made at Banda Aceh by Tsuji’s International Tsunami Survey Team:

Hm = 18 m and Hmax = 36 m

Another case of scale measuring tsunami size is that proposed as follows:

i = log2 h (Shuto 1993)

where i is the intensity (still a magnitude scale) and h is local tsunami height(m).

Table 3 26/12/2004 Indian Ocean available stations

H(m) D(km) Mt

Vishakapatnam, India 2.4 2070 9.3Tuticorin, India 2.1 2100 9.2Kochi, India 1.3 2400 9.0Cocos Is., Australia 0.5 1820 8.5Hillarys, Australia 0.9 4600 9.2Hanimaadhoo, Maldive 2.2 2500 9.3Male, Maldive 2.1 2500 9.3Gan, Maldive 1.4 2500 9.1Diego Garcia, Chagos A 0.8 2700 8.9

Tsunami Intensity Scale

Here we present, with reference to Papadopoulos-Imamura (2001), a 12-point scaleof tsunami intensity (Papadopulos and Fumihiko 2001). It is meant to correspond to

344 L. Martino et al.

current earthquake intensity scales (Table 4) like Mercalli scale. The tsunami scaleis arranged according to a tsunami’s effects on:

� Humans� Objects including boats� Damage to buildings

Table 4 Tsunami intensity scale

Papadopoulos-Imamura tsunami intensity scale

I. Not felt.II. Scarcely felt. a. Felt by few people onboard small vessels. Not observed on the coast.

b. No effect.c. No damage.

III. Weak. a. Felt by most people onboard small vessels. Observed by a few peopleon the coast.

b. No effect.c. No. damage.

IV. Largelyobserved.

a. Felt by all onboard small vessels and by few people onboard largevessels. Observed by most people on the coast.

b. Few small vessels move slightly onshore.c. No damage.

V. Strong. (1 m) a. Felt by all onboard large vessels and observed by all on the coast. Fewpeople are frightened and run to higher ground.

b. Many small vessels move strongly onshore, few of them crash into eachother or overturn. Traces of sand layer are left behind on ground withfavorable circumstances. Limited flooding of cultivated land.

c. Limited flooding of outdoor facilities (such as gardens) of near-shorestructures.

VI. Slightlydamaging. (2 m)

a. Many people are frightened and run to higher ground.b. Most small vessels move violently onshare, crash strongly into each

other, or overturn.c. Damage and flooding in a few wooden structures. Most masonry

buildings withstand.

VII. Damaging.(4 m)

a. Many people are frightened and try to run to higher ground.b. Many small vessels damaged. Few large vessels oscillate violently.

Objects of variable size and stability overturn and drift. Sand layer andaccumulations of pebbles are left behind. Few aquaculture rafts washedaway.

c. Many wooden structures damaged, few are demolished or washedaway. Damage of grade 1 and flooding in a few masonry buildings.

VIII. Heavilydamaging. (4 m)

a. All people escape to higher ground, a few are washed away.b. Most of the small vessels are damaged, many are washed away. Few

large vessels are moved ashore or crash into each other. Big objects aredrifted away. Erosion and littering of the beach. Extensive flooding.Slight damage in tsunami-control forests and stop drifts. Manyaquaculture rafts washed away, few partially damaged.

c. Most wooden structures are washed away or demolished. Damage ofgrade 2 in a few masonry buildings. Most reinforced-concrete buildingssustain damage, in a few damage of grade 1 and flooding is observed.

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 345

Table 4 (continued)

Papadopoulos-Imamura tsunami intensity scale

IX. Destructive.(8 m)

a. Many people are washed away.b. Most small vessels are destroyed or washed away. Many large vessels

are moved violently ashore, few are destroyed. Extensive erosion andlittering of the beach. Local ground subsidence. Partial destruction intsunami-control forests and stop drifts. Most aquaculture rafts washedaway, many partially damaged.

c. Damage of grade 3 in many masonry buildings few reinforced-concretebuildings suffer from damage grade 2.

X. Very destructive.(8 m)

a. General partic. Most people are washed away.b. Most large vessels are moved violently ashore, many are destroyed or

collide with buildings. Small boulders from the sea bottom are movedinland. Cars overturned and drifted. Oil spills, fires start. Extensiveground subsidence.

c. Damage of grade 4 in many masonary buildings, fewreinforced-concrete buildings suffer from damage grade 3. Artificialembankments collapse, port breakwaters damaged.

XI. Devastating.(16 m)

b. Lifelines interrupted. Extensive fires. Water backwash drifts cars andother objects into the sea. Big boulders from sea bottom are movedinland.

c. Damage of grade 5 in many masonry buildings. Fewreinforced-concrete buildings suffer from damage grade 4, many sufferfrom damage grade.

XII. Completelydevastating.(32 m)

c. Practically all masonary buildings demolished. Mostreinforced-concrete buildings suffer from at least damage grade 3.

A correlation between the Tsunami intensity scale (Table 5) and the quantities Hand i introduced previously is provided by the following table:

Table 5 Papadopoulos-Imamura intensity scale

I H(m) i

I–V <1 0VI 2 1VII–VIII 4 2IX–X 8 3XI 16 4XII 32 5

When a Tsunami hits the coast: the runup phenomenon

Usually according to eyewitness the first signal of an approaching tsunami is awithdrawal of the sea from the coastal regions. This phenomenon is followed byone or more destructive waves with different time slices (Halif and Sabki 2005).

346 L. Martino et al.

Thus assuming that:

� The depth H of the sea slowly diminishes towards land, depending on bathymetry;� The reflection from the sloping bottom can be ignored;

Its phase velocity will decrease as c ≈ √H . Then because there is no place that

tsunami wave crests can accumulate, the period � between the wave crests will bethe same all the way in according to the dispersion relation (Fig. 10). This meansthat the wavelength becomes shorter in the same way as the phase velocity λ ≈ √

H .It follows that the energy E ≈ λA2 of a wavelength (or the rate of energy trans-

port E/�) must be constant all the way in.So we have the run-up relation: H = 1

A4 also called Green’s law.Closer to land, the wave rises still more (A is magnified many times) and moves

even more slowly. Runup heights (Fig. 7) are measured by looking at the distanceand extent of salt-killed vegetation, and the debris left once the wave has receded.This distance refers to a datum level, usually being the mean sea level or mean lowerlow water level. If a Tsunami is “docking” in a harbour it could cause a seiche.Seiche waves are dangerous resonant oscillations, that may continue several daysafter a tsunami.

Fig. 7 Runup phenomenon

Section V: The Role of Remote Sensing and GeographicInformation System – GIS

Introduction to Remote Sensing

Remote sensing refers to obtaining information about objects or areas without beingin direct contact with it. Remote sensing techniques allow taking images of the earthsurface in various wavelength region of the Electro Magnetic Spectrum (EMS). One

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 347

Fig. 8 The electromagnetic spectrum and atmospheric windows (UNESCO)

of the major characteristics of a remotely sensed image is the wavelength region itrepresents in the spectrum (Fig. 8). Some of the images represent optical radiationas the reflected solar radiation in the visible mean and mid infrared (0.35–3 μm) orthe energy emitted by the earth surface itself (the thermal or far infrared wavelengthregion, 3–1000 μm).

The energy measured in the microwave region, also called passive microwaveregion (0.1–0.3 cm), is still due to: 1) the radiation emitted by the earth and 2)the backscattered wave from the earth’s surface, coming from the energy generatedon board the vehicle itself and down transmitted. This is known as active remotesensing and the used wavelengths are represented by the letters k,x,c,s,l,p (Fig. 8)(Campbell 1985).

Passive Sensors

When solar radiation falls upon a surface, some of the energy is absorbed, someis transmitted through the surface (water bodies) and some is reflected. Since theintensity of the reflected radiation is selective with the wavelength, depending onthe characteristics of the observed coverage, each surface possesses its own spectralsignature (Fig. 9). Part of the absorbed energy is reemitted at longer wavelengths inthe form of earth (thermal infrared radiation).

Fig. 9 Comparison betweentypical vegetation, soil andwater reflectancecharacteristics

348 L. Martino et al.

Passive sensors collect both reflected (0.4–2.6 μm) and emitted (3–5000 μm)Electro Magnetic Radiation (EMR). Therefore passive sensors operate from thevisible to microwave region. The collection of the reflected EMR is obviously lim-ited to daylight hours with clear skies. Moreover if the desired information (as inmost of observations) comes from the Earth’s surface, measures are restricted inthe spectral regions where the atmosphere is as transparent as possible (atmosphericwindows – Fig. 8), in order to reduce the combined atmospheric effects of absorp-tion and scattering which introduce uncertainty in the measurements.

Two multispectral SPOT5 and Proba/Chris data were used for the change detec-tion analysis using different image processing such supervised classification usingmaximum likelihood algorithm and image ratioing.

NDVI: subtle variations in the spectral responses of various surface covers arehighlighted. Vegetation reflects strongly in the near-infrared portion of the spectrumwhile absorbing strongly in the visible red. Other surface types, such as soil andwater, show near equal reflectances in both the near-infrared and red portions.

Near-Infrared band (0.72 to 1.1 μm) divided by Red Band (0.6 to 0.7 μm) wouldresult in ratios much greater than 1.0 for vegetation, and ratios around 1.0 for soiland water. Thus the discrimination of vegetation from other surface cover types issignificantly enhanced (Ulivieri 2006).

Active Sensors

RADAR is the commonly used acronym for Radio Detection and Ranging. Imag-ing radar systems are versatile sources of remotely sensed images, providing daynight, all-weather imaging capability. An imaging radar system uses an antenna totransmit microwave energy downward and toward the side of the flight path. As theradar beam strikes ground features, energy is scattered in various directions, andthe radar antenna receives and measures the strength of the energy that is scatteredback toward the sensor platform. A surface that is smooth and flat (such as a lakeor road) will reflect nearly all of the incident energy away from the sensor. So flatsurfaces appear dark in a radar image. A surface that is rough, with “bumps” com-parable in height to the wavelength of the microwaves, will scatter more energyback to the sensor, and so will appear bright. Slopes that face the sensor will alsoappear brighter than surfaces that slope away from it, and steep backslopes may becompletely shadowed. Terrain shape and surface roughness are thus the dominantcontrols on radar brightness variations.

Radar Image

Imaging radar systems broadcast very short pulses of microwave energy and, in thepauses between them, receive the fluctuating return signal of backscattered energy.The Radar equation is as follows (Fig. 10):

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 349

Pr = Ptλ2G2σ 0

(4π )3 R4A

where assuming the same antenna is used to transmit and receive:

� Pr is the power that has been reradiated to the receiving radar antenna.� Pt is the power transmitted by the radar system.� G is the gain of the antenna.� R is the range from antenna to target.� λ is the wavelength of the radar system.� σ 0 is the backscatter coefficient.� A is the area of the resolution cell.

GIS

GIS is a computer system for capturing, storing, checking, integrating, manipulat-ing, analysing and displaying data related to positions on the Earth’s surface. Typ-ically, a Geographical Information System is used for handling maps of differentkinds in several different layers where each layer holds data about a particular kindof feature. Each feature is linked to a position on the graphical image on a map anda record in an attribute table.

The General Impact and Benefits of Remote Sensingon Natural Disasters

Introduction

Satellite images give a synoptic overview and provide a very useful environmentalinformation, for a wide range of scales, from entire continents to details of a fewmeters. Disasters related to remote sensing applications could be briefly summarizedas follows:

� Weather Prediction: a key input to numerical weather prediction models globallyused for weather forecasting.

� Global Warming: concentrations and distributions of atmospheric gases, sea andland ice thickness and change, and ozone measurements are key components tostudy and predict global warming.

� Severe Weather Events: prediction of severe weather events requires accuratemeasurements of rain rates in storms over the oceans, which is only possiblewith remote sensing satellites.

� Forest Fires: detection and damage evaluation of fires.� Management of Natural Resources: measurements of biomass, deforestation, and

water resources through systematic environmental monitoring.

350 L. Martino et al.

� Volcanoes: detection of volcanic activity even before eruptions, tracking and pre-dicting the volcanic fallout effects.

� Shipping: tracking sea ice and ice floes drift, and ocean storms detection.� Long Range Climate Forecasts: study of global atmospheric and oceanic events

and parameters such as El Nino i.e.: sea surface temperature, ocean winds, oceanwave height.

Remote sensing also allows monitoring the event during the time of occurrencewhile the forces are in full swing. The vantage position of satellite makes it idealfor us to think of, plan for and operationally monitor the event. The information isused to help emergency officials make crucial short-term decisions related to evac-uations, rescue and recovery in response to current or impending natural disasters.The possibility for long-term monitoring and forecasting, prediction, and real-timecrisis monitoring make this technology a vital instrument in conducting risk assess-ments and studies useful to develop strategies to mitigate future hazards (Doescheraet al. 2005).

Remote Sensing in the Early Detection

Many types of disasters, such as floods, droughts, cyclones, volcanic eruptions,etc. will have specific precursors that satellite can detect, in particular Tsunami.Tsunamis are surface gravity waves that spread for great distances in the oceans.In the open ocean, their long wavelengths (typically 200 km), long periods (20 min)and small amplitudes (50 cm for the event of 26/12/2004) make their detection verychallenging, even with the deployment of GPS buoy systems.

Unlike other techniques – such as wavebuoys and altimetry – satellite payload,like SAR, has the possibility to image ocean waves providing a more complete in-formation on the wave field and the spectrum.

A promising remote sensing technique for early detection of tsunamis is con-cerning the “tsunami shadow” (Godin Oleg 05/2004). When a tsunami is triggered,it produces extended darker strips due to changes in surface roughness (air-sea in-teraction). This way, airborne and satellite-based microwave radars and radiometerscould be able to observe these phenomena, imaging ocean waves, in azimuth direc-tion, taking advantage of the Doppler shift in the received signal; it is caused by therelative velocity between the ocean surface and the SAR.

Satellite altimetry, on the other hand, has proved to be capable of measuring thesea surface variation in case of large tsunamis, as shown for the 26/12/2004 event.Radar altimetry provides an important contribution for a better understanding andan improvement of the modelling of tsunami propagation and dissipation but thistechnique is not sufficient for the early detection.

Since tsunamis readily manifest themselves as Sea Level Anomalies (SLA) it’snecessary that one satellite overflies the wave almost immediately after it originates.This represents a drawback when we only have the measures from one satellite. Inaddition, tsunami signals in the open ocean are quite weak.

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 351

The presence in orbit of several satellites (constellation), instead, allows to im-prove the frequency of observation and accordingly to have a better possibilityin surveing the phenomenon as soon as it occurs. It is worthwhile to rememberthe accomplishment of COSMO-SkyMed (Constellation of Small Satellites forMediterranean basin Observation) satellite constellation, the first global constel-lation for Earth Observation. This programme, a low-orbit dual-use Earth obser-vation satellite system, will exploit the most advanced remote sensing technologywith the four SAR satellites and a complex and geographically distributed GroundSegment.

To implement the space-based, direct observations of tsunamis with altimetrymissions there are ground systems based on GPS and ionospheric sounding. Infact ionospheric perturbations could be induced by seismic waves. This way it isexpected that atmospheric gravity waves can be generated in the wake of a tsunami.Advances in the monitoring of smallscale perturbations of the ionosphere couldallow tsunami-induced gravity waves to be detected with both GPS and ionosphericsounding systems (Artru et al. 2005).

Recently a space-borne system, potentially able to provide ocean global moni-toring and in particular tsunami detection has been proposed. This system, cover-ing an observation area ranging between ± 60◦ in latitude, with a baseline of 10spacecrafts, should be able to monitor a tsunami with the requirements of 50 kmspatial resolution and 10 cm precision in the measurement. 80% of the tsunamis aredetected within an hour with a constellation of 800 km prograde orbits but the bestperformance could be obtained with higher (1300 km) retrograde orbits, allowing a84% rate of detection after an hour.

This technique, due to the tsunami’s time detection, is suitable for an ocean likethe Pacific, but it is not reliable for the Indian Ocean, where tsunamigenic areas aretoo close to the coastlines and a waterberg could suddenly strike.

Remote Sensing and Prevention

Remote Sensing can help to avoid the damage and casualties caused by naturaldisasters and in particular Tsunami

For this purpose it is possible to plan, to reduce the effects in high-risk areasaccording to:

� Buildings, whether residential, commercial or industrial – building use andoccupancy;

� If a building is day-time or night-time occupied;� Ports and Airports and other critical infrastructure;� Other critical facilities (power plants, water tanks, etc.);

Topography could be an other important factor to calculate structural amplification(subject to wave penetration flooding).

Therefore, only when high-risk areas have been identified (usually the areasat greatest risk are less than 25 feet above sea level and within one mile of the

352 L. Martino et al.

shoreline), construction planning should be restricted to ensure that residential de-velopment and major constructions, like power stations, are restricted to higherground.

Remote Sensing in the Post Emergency

The impact of a Tsunami causes an area of immense devastation. The tsunamidisasters required the use of remotely sensed data also during disaster responseoperations; The event of 26/12/2004 was so vast that different resolution of opticalsatellite images became necessary as source of remotely sensed imagery.

The potential of both high and low resolution satellite data, offers excellentopportunities for an input in planning logistics for response scenarios and riskassessing.

Remote sensing data, useful for a post-Tsunami damage evaluation, can assistin damage assessment monitoring, providing a quantitative base for relief operationand can also be used in mapping the new situation and updating the database forthe area reconstruction. In terms of benefits to emergency responders, urban dam-age functions generated from remote sensing coverage allow an accelerated rateof response, while guiding the scale of response efforts and resource allocation.They provide further critical information to international aid agencies, supportinglogistical planning and deployment of equipment.

A change in detection techniques based on high-resolution remote sensing dataprovides an overview of the post disaster scene; these can be considered as a methodof rapid damage assessment, and critical information for directing rescue andrecovery efforts. The Table 6 below shows the potential and limitation of activeand passive remote sensing satellite data.

Future efforts should concentrate on more extensive monitoring, advanced tech-nology, and better and faster synthesis of information to detect hazardous events and

Table 6 Potential and limitation of remotely sensed data

Sensor Advantages Limitations

Optical� Easy to be understood and interpreted� Some imagery is comparable to

human vision

� Obscured by cloud and smoke� Limited to daylight hours (except

ThermalIR)

Radar� All day-night-weather imaging

capability

� Image interpretation complexity

� SAR records backscatter� Considerable noise

� Layover issues due to Sidewayslooking

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 353

convey the information to decision makers and public organizations. The satelliteconstellations would provide more timely and comprehensive data and the abil-ity to support disaster management and information on the evolution of disasterareas.

Method

The active and passive remote sensing data integration of the Tsunami affected areaof Banda Aceh, were efficient instruments for evaluating and quantifying damage. AGIS multi relational database was built and integrated with geophysical, topographicand hazard map.

The work steps can be summarized as follows:

(1.) Optical and SAR image processing and change detection;(2.) Remotely sensed data and GIS was elaborated with different vector and raster

information;(3.) GIS geo-statistical damage analysis;

Change Detection Analysis

Change Detection Analysis encompasses a broad range of methods used to identify,describe and quantify differences between a pair of images that represent an InitialState and Final State of the same scene at different times or under different condi-tions. The ESA remote sensing satellites played an active role in Tsunami disastermanagement activities. Table 7 shows how the data was used. The region coveredalso includes the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Multi change detection approaches were used as follows:

� Banda Aceh:

(1.) subtraction of the SAR magnitude data;(2.) NDVI difference;(3.) post classification method;(4.) comparison Optical-Radar data;

� Andaman and Nicobar:

(1.) subtraction of the SAR magnitude data;(2.) comparison Optical-Radar data;

These techniques revealed the surface changes, as well as the type (from-to) usingthe post change detection statistic (matrix of change).

354 L. Martino et al.

Tabl

e7

Wor

kdi

agra

man

dT

suna

mid

atas

etco

nten

t

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 355

ERS2 ENVISAT

Fig. 10 Co-registered pre and post event SAR images

SAR-ASAR Processing

The objective of SAR processing is to reconstruct the imaged scene from the manypulses reflected by each single target, received by the antenna and memorised. Preanalyses were done to obtain an SAR-ASAR backscattering image (Fig. 10)

Backscatter (�0) Extraction

Backscatter is the portion of the outgoing radar signal that the target redirectsstraight back to the radar antenna. It is a measure of the reflective strength of a radartarget. The radar backscattering coefficient �0 is related to the radar brightness 0

as follows (ESA 2002, Leica 2003):

�0 = 0. sin �

where � is the local incidence angle.To derive measurements of the radar backscattering coefficient �0, detailed

knowledge of the local terrain slope (i.e. the local incidence angle �) is needed.As the local incidence angle is usually not known, or only partially known, ifa flat terrain is assumed, ESA decided to present the Precision Image (PRI) asan image of the radar brightness 0 of the scene. Consequently, pixel intensityvalues in ERS SAR PRI products are directly proportional to the radar bright-ness 0 of the illuminated scene. The digital number giving the value of a pixelin PRI products, say DN, is directly related to 0 and to �0 by the followingrelations:

[DN ]2 = Const · β0 = Const · σ 0

sin α= Const(α) · σ 0

Constant (�) is a function depending on the local incidence angle and can bedecomposed as follows:

356 L. Martino et al.

Const(α) = Ksin αre f

sin α

where K is the calibration constant and �ref the reference incidence angle, 23degrees, K is specific to the type of data product and to the processing centre. Thebackscattering coefficient �0 is usually expressed in decibels:

σ 0(d B) = 10 log10 σ 0

The following calculations on the local incidence angle � were made:

(1) Banda Aceh is considered a flat terrain, i.e. there is no slope. The incidenceangle � depends only on the ellipsoid and varies from about 19.5◦ at near rangeto about 26.5◦ at long range.

(2) Any change in the incidence angle across a distributed target is ignored, i.e. adistributed target corresponds to one average value of the incidenceangle.

The calibration constants:

� ERS2 K1 = 944061.0000000� ASAR: K2 = 277332.000000

Bearing the previously made calculations in mind, and without taking intoaccount the various sources of radiometric inaccuracy and stability errors, thebackscattering coefficient �o of a distributed target is given by the following sim-plified equation:

σ 0 =⎛⎝ 1

N

i, j=N∑i, j=1

DN 2i j

⎞⎠ 1

K

sin α

sin αre f

where:

� N= number of pixels within the Area Of Interest (AOI) i.e. the group of pixelscorresponding to the distributed target in the image;

� i and j are the range and azimuth locations of the pixels within the distributedtarget containing N pixels;

� DNij = digital number corresponding to the pixel at location (i,j);� � = average incidence angle within the distributed target;� �ref = reference incidence angle, i.e. 23.0 degrees.

Here �0 also depends on other important parameters as follows:σ 0 = σ 0(b f , �b f , σz, SMC, s, p) where: bf = fruit biomass, �b f = arboreous

and leaf growth, σz =soil roughness, SMC= soil moisture, s= ground slope,p= typology of plant.

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 357

Fig. 11 RGB colourcomposite

RGB Colour Composite

In order to visualize the surface effects of the Tsunamigenic earthquake, RGB colourcomposite images have been generated (Fig. 11). After the exact co-registrationof the SAR-ASAR data (ESA and Nuova Telespazio 2004, Duca 2004), the pre-event acquisition (22/11/2002) was assigned to the red component, while the post-tsunami acquisition (25/01/2005) was assigned to the blue and green. According tothe colour additive theory, the changes on the resulting image have been identifiedas follows:

� Red: loss of backscatter (coastlines +inland);� White: unchanged scattering (the urbanized inland: 2–4 km from the coast);� Cyan: increase of backscatter corresponding to a change not necessarily due

to tsunami destruction. Yet, near the coastline, we can note dotted areas thatprobably show areas that were still flooded in the days following the disaster.

Preliminary Results

The acquisitions include very large variations in the shape of the coastline and thesurface of Aceh, as evident along the whole northern coast of Sumatra.

A preliminary analysis of backscatter variations between several different datapairs seems to indicate a lost extension of the land surface in several locations,irrespective of tidal conditions (Table 8). In particular, some ROI (Regions of Inter-est) were defined in the pre-tsunami and post-tsunami images and the backscatterlevels were measured to quantify the backscatter variation. A loss of backscatterwas found close to the coastline in the post-tsunami image (−1.30 dB). This phe-nomenon may be due to the elastic release of stress related to the contemporaryBurma plate subduction and the tectonic uplift of the Andaman group linked tothe seismic event of 26/12/2004. Two densely inhabited areas were then studied:the first, close to the shoreline, in which a remarkable �◦ loss (−3 dB) was found,

358 L. Martino et al.

pointing to total devastation, and the second in the urbanized inland, 3 km along thecoast, where an unchanged scattering (−0.5 dB) can be noted: probably due to thescattering properties of the buildings canopies, all similar at the pre-event period,even if this area was one of the most struck (GMES-Respond ground truth damagemaps). Instead the backscatter values close to the canal areas, in the south of Aceh,are all similar, therefore the nature of the targets is probably the same and not dueto tsunami wave damage (Fig. 12).

Optical Change Detection Method

Remote Sensing (RS) can provide information on habitat types, vegetation struc-tures, landscape geometry and habitat fragmentation. It also provides digital models,net primary production areas, actual evaporation, and the amount of biomass andleaf area indices %. Vegetation cover can be estimated by NDVI and the Trans-formed Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (TSAVI). The basic assumptions in RSchange detection are: (a) changes in land cover result in changes in radiance values;(b) changes in radiance due to land cover changes are large with respect to radi-ance changes caused by other factors such as a difference in atmospheric condition,difference in soil moisture and difference in sun angles (Jahjah 2003).

Applied Method

In this work we used and compared two change detection algorithms for BandaAceh using SPOT images. The change detection algorithms were post classificationcomparison and image differencing from the available images of SPOT5 for twodifferent dates (Table 5), these techniques were analyzed independently, using theconcept of well known procedures like supervised classification algorithm with amaximum likelihood of additional post classification comparison, image differenc-ing between two NDVI for two dates (Fig. 13).

Algebra Change Detection

The NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) had been used to transformmultispectral data into a single image band representing vegetation distribution. TheNDVI values indicate the amount of green vegetation present in the pixel (ie: higherNDVI values indicate more green vegetation). NDVI standard algorithm, the differ-ence between the near-infrared and visible bands divided by the sum of these twobands, was used as follows (Puredorj et al. 1998):

N DV I = ρnir − ρr

ρnir + ρr= band3 − band2

band3 + band2

Where ρ is the reflectance and the valid result falls between −1 and +1.

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 359

Tabl

e8

Ana

lysi

sof

pre

–po

stev

entb

acks

catte

rva

riat

ions

PRE

POST

RO

IM

inM

axM

ean

Stde

vM

inM

axM

ean

Stde

v

Shor

elin

e−2

7.28

7.27

320

.875

.027

−8.0

70.7

924.

153.

135

−20.

115.

150

2.14

2.01

3−9

.305

.922

2.80

4.59

6In

land

Col

ture

s−2

7.12

2.56

20.

5398

20−8

.789

.287

3.54

6.88

3−1

7.71

2.30

72.

060.

342

−8.1

37.3

462.

583.

565

Nor

thw

este

rnfla

nk−2

3.65

0.48

224

.611

.082

−5.3

12.9

215.

890.

753

−22.

578.

503

0.11

5255

−8.3

59.1

552.

839.

961

City

cent

re−2

1.24

4.74

312

.172

.563

−6.1

80.9

264.

137.

679

−18.

437.

208

4.31

7.69

6−6

.644

.247

2.81

3.58

0

360 L. Martino et al.

Fig

.12

Sigm

ava

lues

for

diff

eren

tare

as

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 361

Fig. 13 SPOT 5: pre-postevent

The next step was the creation of a NDVI look-up-Table (LUT). This LUTstretched each input DN to an output value visualized in Yellow, Green, Blue andRed. We can note yellow areas (NDVI≈ 0,19∼0,15) concentrated above all alongthe coastline to show total waste, while the red ones (NDVI≈0,10∼0,04) showaverage changes of rural areas. Finally Green (NDVI≈ 0, 02 ∼ −0, 002) and Blue(NDVI≈ −0, 1 ∼ −0, 23) show respectively partial and no change areas (Fig. 14).

Fig. 14 NDVI Look-up table

362 L. Martino et al.

Classification and Post Classification Changes

The classification process is meant to categorize all pixels in a digital image intoone of the several land cover classes, or “themes”. The SPOT5 multispectral datawas used to perform the classification. The objective of image classification is toidentify and portray, as a unique grey level (or colour), those features occurring inan image in terms of land cover.

Some training sets (16 regions of interest) were chosen in order to identify ex-amples of the Information classes, and the relative statistical characterization of thereflectance for each information class was then undertaken, (spectral separabilitybetween classes, the maximum likelihood supervised classification algorithm wasused taking advantage of the GMES-Respond ground truth damage map) (Dudaet al. 2001). The classification accuracy (confusion matrix, Kappa coefficient), forboth images proved to be acceptable (over 90%); a Median filter 3 × 3 was doneto eliminate the isolated pixels, and then the difference between the two results wascalculated. The differences map, depending on threshold values (−1 to +1), wasoutlined in three main colours: red (big change>0,8), green (medium change), cyan(no change) as in Fig. 15.

Post Classification Results

The most important statistical data, based on the reflectance for each informationclass, could be summarized as follows: the inundation area was about 113 Km2,

Fig. 15 Post classification images and change map

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 363

while a 6 Km inland Tsunami wave penetration was estimated taking into accountthat the Aceh area is at sea level; 20 km2 of dense habitation area, 8 km2 of paddyfields-aqua cultures and 1.5 km2 of mangrove forest area were transformed intodebris, mud and water sea areas; 2.8 km2 of dense habitation were submerged. Theseresults were supported by damage maps based on ground truth.

GIS and Geo-Statistical Analysis

Two workspaces have been created for scientific management and orientated infor-mation (Johnston et al. 2001):

� A National Level G.I.S.� A Banda Aceh Local Level G.I.S.

The National Level GIS

The national level GIS with a 1:250.000 digital map scale, has been made for theentire country of Sumatra used both to facilitate measurement, mapping, monitoringand modelling of a variety of data types related to Risk Assessment and for pro-viding useful information, and creating disaster awareness (Fig. 16). The specificapplication in this field concerns hazard mapping to show earthquake, landslides,floods, volcanic activities (lake Toba, mount Talang, Leuser mountain) according tothe historical memory of Sumatra disasters.

Using the seismic layer as an example we have pointed out the Peak GroundAccelerations (PGA) for a 10 % probability of exceedence in 50 years of thelocations of an initial earthquake and all aftershocks measuring more than 4.0from December 26, 2004 to January 10, 2005, and its main faults etc. After-wards flood inundation maps were created by overlaying land use features and

Fig. 16 The layers of the national level G.I.S: I Orography and bathymetry; II Distribution of thevegetation; III Landslide and inundation Risk map; IV Seismic; V Ethnic and religions

364 L. Martino et al.

infrastructures to delineate flooded areas. GIS was used for an analysis to esrtablishhazard zones on the maps, which serve as risk zone identifiers for the general pop-ulation. More generic mapping was digitized to point out territorial characteristicslike orography, bathymetry but also district maps with ethnolinguistics and juridicaldifferences.

The Local Level G.I.S.

In reality with the second workspace two informative main layers have been defined:

� the first of a general nature showing all the flooded areas in the province of Aceh;� the second regarding exclusively the Banda Aceh area.

The base layer has been created by georeferencing, using the GCP method andthen digitizing a Post-Tsunami-Situation map of the US Geological Survey. Themap deriving from the collaboration of USGS, Disaster Monitoring Constellation(DMC) International Imaging and United Nation Operation Satellite (UNOSAT) asin Table 9 was drawn up.

� Pre-post event Landsat5 TM – landsat7 ETM+ (15 m) maps;� DEM with three seconds of spatial resolution (90 m around);� Topographical map 1:250.000.

Numerous flooded villages have been identified in these layers as well as heav-ily damaged infrastructures such as bridges (wood or steel), airports, fish breedingand industrial complexes (Red area Fig. 17). The zones where the seaquake wavepenetrated have been digitized, allowing us to visualize two areas with maximum(red zone: between the coastline and the city) and minimum damage (yellow zone:inland area). The depth of the wave penetration was calculated, oscillating between3.2 and 4.4 km, in the red zone where the highest number of deaths was registered.Therefore, according to multi data satellite change detection results, the tsunamiaffected area was digitized and indicated that the red zone covered almost the samearea previously computed (Red zone = 113 km2).

Nevertheless, this layer served as a comparison to the following one based on thestatistical analysis of the damage and based on maps with a smaller scale.

The National Level G.I.S.

The second workspace could be defined as a Banda Aceh local level G.I.S.. It ismade up of topological overlayers with a typical mapping scale of 1:30,000 (GMES-Respond QUICKBIRD elaborations and remotely sensed data integration). Theresults were: the damage map for existing settlements and villages of the district;the disaster planning map for preparation and relief activities.

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 365

Table 9 Source information for the Tsunami remote sensing and GIS

The Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami, 26 December 2004

Source Web pages from Description

CRISP, National Universityof Singapore

www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/tsunami/ Satellite imagery

Dartmouth FloodObservatory

www.dartmouth.edu/∼floods/ Observatory for extremeflood events worldwide

DLR Center for SatelliteBased Crisis Information

www.zki.caf.dlr.de/intro en.html Satellite imagery

DM Solutions Group www.dmsolutions.ca/ Interactive Web-mapping ofaffected areas before andafter tsunami

DRI, Japan www.dri.ne.jp/koshimuras/sumatra/ Numerical model oftsunami in Sumatrawaters

Earth Observatory http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ Tectonic map of the regionand location of epicenter

European Space AgencyESA

www.esa.int/esaEO/index.html Earth Observation essentialfor geohazard mitigation

Envirtech www.envirtech.org Indian Tsunami WarningSystem

Geospatial One-Stop www.geodata.gov Indian OceanTsunami/EarthquakeRelief Works Map

Global Monitoring forEnvironment andSecurity (GMES)

www.esa.int/esaLP/ It provides autonomous andindependent access toinformation forpolicy-markers,particularly in relation toenvironment and security

International Institute forGeo-Information Scienceand Earth Observation(ITC)

www.itc.nl/ Links to satellite imagesand backgroundinformation

IndoTsunami web site http://ioc3.unesco.org/indotsunami/ It is intended to keep usinformed about theprogress in developing aRegional TsunamiWarning and MitigationSystem for the IndianOcean.

National Oceangraphic andSpace Administration(NOAA)

www.noaa.gov/ Information bulletin onearthquake before arrivalof tsunami

National Remote SensingAgency, India

www.nrsa.gov.in/ End-to-end solutions forutilization of data fornatural resourcemanagement, geospatialapplications andinformation services

366 L. Martino et al.

Table 9 (continued)

The Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami, 26 December 2004

Source Web pages from Description

Pacific Disater Center(PDC)

www.pdc.org/iweb/pdchome.html; Geospatial information andmaps

SERTIT, StrasbourgUniversity

http://sertit.u-strasbg.fr/documents/asie/asia en.html

Maps based on SPOTimagery and videoflythru.

Space and Major Disasters www.disasterscharter.org/ Satellite maps and imagery

Spot Image www.spotimage.fr/ Spot satellite images beforeand after tsunami

UN Atlas of the Oceans www.oceansatlas.com/index.jsp Animations; strategy forearly warning system

UNOCHA www.reliefweb.int UNOCHA promote thedissemination ofinformation on globalhumanitarian events

UNOSAT http://unosat.web.cern.ch/unosat/asp/ Satellite imagery

U.S. Geological Survey(USGS)

www.usgs.gov/ The U.S. Geological Surveydisseminated a widearray of GIS productsrelated to the tsunami viaThe National Map’sHazard’s DataDistribution System

Fig. 17 Comparison of USGS damage maps and the GIS change map

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 367

Damage Analysis: The Ordinary Kriging Technique

Damage analysis is a complex task, as many factors can play an important role inpost emergency operations. Therefore, the analysis requires a large number of inputparameters, and the analysis techniques can be very costly and time consuming. Soin order to create a continuous damage map of the Banda Aceh district, the OrdinaryKriging technique from ArcGIS SW was used and the Geo-statistical analysis toolof this simple prediction method was made.

The first step was to create seven equidistant strips of 1.5 km from the shoreline.Then, 61 spread out points along the district were chosen from the SPOT5 classifi-cation results and GMES-respond map, and a value was assigned to each of them forboth exposure factor “E” (crop, dense habitation, school buildings or vegetation) andvulnerability V (based on distance). The product of these two terms is the damageanalysis map with a value of between 0 and 1:

D = E × V

The data points were interpolated as continuous surface and the root mean squarestandardized error was close to one (good estimation).

The final results were visualized on two damage surface maps: the predictionstandard error Map and the prediction map with probability of change (POC) values.Both maps, based on change detection analysis, show ten different coloured damagezones with standard errors ranging from 15% to 24% (Fig. 18).

So the maximum damage area (0.86–1) was estimated as being 42 km2, whilethe other disaster-stricken areas next to the shoreline were 27 km2 (0.73–0.86) and24 km2 (0.6–0.73).

Fig. 18 1: Quickbird damage map (GMES); 2: Damage mask (km2): maximum damage area withyellow dotted line

368 L. Martino et al.

Results and Comparison

Result 1: Comparison Optical vs SAR Data

From a comparison between an ASAR-SAR change detection product, the relatedimage (visible channels) and GIS damage analysis, the level of destruction wasobserved to be more extreme on the north western flank of the city in the areasimmediately inland from the aquaculture pond (Mas 1999).

A lot of numerical results for this area were registered indicating the totaldestruction:

� RGB SAR/ASAR Composites: great loss of backscatter with �◦ = −3 dB(pre/post)

� damage analysis map: D=1 Maximum damage;� difference map: RED>0,8 big change;� tsunami runup (12 m) with flow depths (5–9 m);� post classification results (II): from dense to sparse habitation;� Quickbird post Tsunami (I).

The area towards the sea was wiped clean of nearly every structure, while closerto the river, heavily built up areas in the commercial district showed the effects ofsevere flooding (Fig. 19).

Fig. 19 Effects of flooding

Result 2: Spot5 NIR of Banda Aceh

Finally, Spot5 images were enhanced to make Near Infra Red colour compositesRGB, by loading images on a layers stack (RED: pre-event GREEN, BLUE: post-event). Generally, the best wavelength region for separating water from land is the

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 369

Fig. 20 Spot5 in the NIRchannels Yellow dotted line:shore line prior to thetsunami. Yellow line: extentof inundation by the tsunami.Yellow numbers:representative measurementsof tsunami flow depth in m(1 m=3.28 feet). Whitearrows: direction of tsunamiflow; R:Tsunami runup

near-infra-red region at a wavelength between 0.75 �m −2.35 �m. The near infra-red is strongly reflected by such vegetation as mangrooves, but strongly absorbed bywater. This means that floods can be monitored by using the NIR images. With suchimages, changes from vegetated to open water surfaces become apparent. Thus,according to GIS and change detection results, a red flooded area was digitizedand defined (Fig. 20). The previously detected extension of flooded area and theTsunami wave penetration confirmed the estimated area based on the SPOT5 opticalimages (Yalciner et al. 2005, Martino et al. 2006).

The Andaman Islands

The changes that can be detected between post and pre-event acquisitions includevery large variations in the shape of the coastlines and the surface of some islands,as evident on the western coast of the Andaman Islands.

Below we can see the variations of backscatter (red) from the combination ofASAR IS2 VV 11309 of 29/04/2004 with ASAR IS2 VV 16319 of 14/04/2005(Fig. 21).

These variations should be interpreted and modelled taking into account a varietyof complementary data and measurements, including tides, depth of coral reefs andslopes on the coastline. Nevertheless, a preliminary analysis of backscatter varia-tions between several different data pairs seems to indicate on several locations anincreased extension of the land surface, irrespective of tidal conditions.

Colour composites between ASAR IS2 VV acquisitions, taken before and afterthe date of 26/12/2004, show in red an increase in backscatter (coastlines aroundSentinel Island, North Reef Island, Landfall Island, West coast of the AndamanIsland). The same kind of effect is visible on all possible combinations of availablepre- and post-event ASAR Narrow Swath acquisitions (Figs. 22 and 23).

370 L. Martino et al.

Fig. 21 Images of the detected changes between radar backscatter on the Northern (1) andSouthern (2) Andaman islands, before and after 26/12/2004. (Uniroma2 TorVergata-ESA/ESRIN)

Fig. 22 a, North Reef Island; b, Sentinel Island; c, Landfall Island. (Uniroma2 TorVergata-ESA/ESRIN)

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 371

Fig. 23 Sentinel island: Backscatter variations.(Uniroma2 -TorVergata-ESA/ESRIN)

We have defined some ROI (Regions of Interest) in the pre-tsunami and post-tsunami images and the backscatter levels have been measured to quantify thebackscatter variation.

Preliminary Results

� Increase of backscatter has been found close to the coast in post-tsunami images,which may be due to a land elevation from the sea.

� The backscatter values in these areas are all similar (−6.8/−6.4), therefore thenature of the targets is probably the same.

� The backscatter values in these areas are similar to those measured in the island(−7.3/−6.5) (yellow ROI).

Making a comparison between an ASAR change detection product and therelated Image (visible channels), the presence of land surfaces can be noted onseveral locations previously covered by the sea. These new land surfaces proba-bly correspond to formerly submerged coral reefs and sandbanks, now permanentlyexposed to the surface (Fig. 24).

Change detection (multi-temporal composite) between ERS1, VV, 7578 27/12/1992 and ERS2, VV, 50874 12/01/2005. Despite a 13-year time interval, the areasinterested by the massive changes are those of the western coast (Fig. 25).

372 L. Martino et al.

Fig. 24 Sentinel island: ASAR-CHRIS comparison.(Uniroma2 – TorVergata-ESA/ESRIN)

Fig. 25 Nicobar Island: RGB. (Uiroma2 TorVergat-ESA/ESRIN)

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 373

Future Trend

Tsunami Warning and Prevention Technologies: The Prosand the Cons

Since the destructive 1946 tsunami at Hilo, Hawaii, researchers have been promptedto think about the problem of tsunami prediction, but it has only been since the1970’s that tsunami science and technology have developed and improved thanksto the progress of seismology and computers. Nevertheless, the main objectivesof tsunami research aimed at saving lives, minimizing damage and economic dis-locations, remain the same. The objective of creating effective countermeasurescan only be achieved through a better understanding of the nature and extent ofexposure to the phenomenon, and the implementation of reliable warning systems.The future trend of a tsunami warning system will depend on an attempt to createa real-time seafloor observatory, using pressure recorders simultaneously in theocean’s depths and tide gauges to monitor the sea-level along the coast. Previ-ously, seismic gauges detected tsunamigenic earthquakes, but since only a smallproportion of strong earthquakes produce a tsunami, these old warning systems,based solely on seismic data, were prone to produce false alarms. The recentdeployment of deep water pressure sensors with communication buoys, such asthe Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) system in the UShave improved the detection of false alarms, but is a very expensive solution fora global monitoring. The creation of an Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning Systemwas prompted by the 26/12/2004 tsunami and became active in 2006. It consists of25 seismographic stations relaying information to 26 national tsunami informationcenters, as well as three deep-ocean sensors. The underwater modules, produced bythe Italian company Envirtech S.p.A. and built for the Indian National Institute ofOcean Technology, are: the Poseidon Class and the Vulcan Class Tsunameters. Thisequipment, successfully deployed on a seafloor at a depth of 3100 m in the Bay ofBengal and in the Andaman sea, represent the ultimate goal of tsunami forecast-ing. But a sensor network capable of detecting a tsunamigenic earthquake will beuseless unless backed by improved communication infrastructures in the countriesin greatest peril. Furthermore, coordination between governments and methods ofrelaying information from the centers to the civilians at risk are required to makethe system effective. Then unlike the Pacific, the Indian Ocean tsunamigenic areasare too close to the urbanized coast (30 min distance). If a large undersea earthquakeoccurs near a coast, a local tsunami may follow and the first waves may reach shorevery rapidly(15–20 min). This may not allow enough time for an official warningto be issued. A possible future step could be passive defence such as a sea wallconstruction, to deflect some of the energy of a tsunami. However, the constructionof coastal seawalls or massive offshore breakwaters, as on Japan’s Okushiri Island,metres, have often been considered ugly, ruining the natural beauty of the landscape.In addition, this may not be a realistic approach in many countries, given the historicinfrequency of serious tsunamis.

374 L. Martino et al.

The best way to continue in the future is to improve planning. But only a multi-disciplinary, multi-technique study such as the merging of GIS. and Remote sensing,can combine all the forces at work to avoid tsunami casualties (Satake 2005).

This would also involve using seismological, geological and historical data topredict where tsunamigenic events are most likely to occur. For example, informa-tion on bathymetry must be used to model the effects of eventual tsunami strikingadjacent coasts. So GIS. analysis would be useful in order to comprehend the impactof an eventual tsunami disaster and the vulnerability of coastal communities, byestimating the potential number of the exposed population, i.e. the potential tsunamiexposure (PTE) as experimented and validated (S. Koshimura and M.Takashima)during the event of 26/12/2004. But these policies have never been adopted in anattempt to solve the problems that, over the last decades, have magnified the threatof tsunamis, especially in Aceh, and that are briefly summarized as follows:

� Indiscriminate urbanization due to the technological and economic developmentof the coastal areas in most of the developing or developed world nations;

� Removal of coastal mangrove trees and of coastal sand dunes;� Destruction of the coral reefs;� Absence of awareness and preparation in the population due to wrong govern-

mental policies.

Conclusion

This work aims to show how the potential of high and low resolution satellite data,integrated with a geographic information system, offers excellent opportunities tobe used as a basis and as input in planning logistics for response scenarios, planningevacuation routes and a public education programme that could be adopted forpre-post emergency operations, creating a long term database on risk assessmentand relief management.

Acknowledgments The author is grateful for the scientific contribution and the assistance in fa-cilitating the publication of this paper, and to the experts of the Earth Observation ApplicationsDepartment –ESA/ESRIN (Frascati) and of CRSPM (University of Rome “La Sapienza”).

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 375

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380 L. Martino et al.

PROBA

Table 16 PROBA: Technical data (ESA-Eduspace)

Launch date 22 October 2001Launch site Sriharikota, IndiaLauncher Antrix/ISRO PSLV-C3Orbit LEO Sun-synchronousOrbital parameters 681 × 561 kmOrbital plane inclination 97.9 degreesOrbital period 96.97 minutesMission duration One year (planned)Number of instruments EightNumber of technological

payloadsSix

Mission operations andground station

ESA/REDU dedicated 2.4 m dish, average of 4 contactsof 10 m/day, automated evening & weekend passes

Table 17 CHRIS (ESA-Eduspace)

Spectral range 415–1050 nmSpectral resolution 5–12 nmSpatial resolution 20 m at nadirSwath width 14 kmSpectral bands up to 19 simultaneously at full resolutio

Acronyms

ASAR Advanced Synthetic Aperture RadarCRED Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of DisastersCRPSM Centro Ricerca Progetto San MarcoDART Deep-ocean Assessment and ReportingDMC Disaster Monitoring ConstellationEMR Electro Magnetic RadiationEMS Electro Magnetic SpectrumENVISAT ENVIronmental SATelliteEO Earth ObservationERS European Resource SensingESA European Space AgencyESRIN European Space Research INstituteFAO Food and Agriculture OrganizationGIS Geographic Information SystemGMES Global Monitoring for Environment and SecurityHIC Humanitarian Information CenterISRO Indian Space Research OrganisationLUT Look-up-Table

Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Natural Disaster Monitoring 381

NDVI Normalized Vegetation Difference IndexNOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationPDC Pacific Disaster CenterPOC Probability of ChangePRI Precision ImagePROBA/CHRIS PRoject for On -Board Autonomy/Compact High

Resolution Imaging SpectrometreRADAR Radio Detection and RangingRS Remote SensingRGB Red Green BlueROI Regions of InterestSAR Synthetic Aperture RadarSPOT Satellite Pour l’Observation de la TerreTSAVI Transformed Soil Adjusted Vegetation IndexUNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for the RefugeesUNICEF United Nations Children’s FundUNJLC United Nations Joint Logistics CenterUNOCHA United Nations Office for the Coordination of

Humanitarian AffairsUNOOSA United Nations Office of Outer Space AffairsUNOSAT UNOSAT is the United Nations Operational SatelliteUNWFP United Nations World Food ProgrammeUSAID U.S. Agency for International DevelopmentUSGS United State Geological SurveyVV Vertical Vertical PolarizationWHO World Health Organization

References

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EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction

Sanjay K. Srivastava, S. Bandyopadhyay, D. Gowrisankar, N.K. Shrivastava,V.S. Hegde and V. Jayaraman

Abstract Drought risk reduction strategies, with enhanced focus on preparedness,mitigation and warning, are truly knowledge intensive. Their implementationdemands scientific inputs on all the aspects related to drought vulnerability, whichare quite dynamic, difficult to capture and also complex. While Earth Observation(EO) information products and services do have enabling roles in addressing someof these demands, the issue is their integration as a part of the national strategytowards drought risk reduction. In efforts to promote principles of risk manage-ment by encouraging development of early warning systems; preparedness plansat all government levels; mitigation policies and programmes that reduce droughtimpacts; a coordinated emergency response programme that ensures timely and tar-geted relief during drought emergencies, use of EO enabled products and serviceshas been found making impacts, whenever they have been used strategically. Al-though, drought risk reduction strategies are more specific and vary between coun-tries, reflecting their unique physical, environmental, socioeconomic, and politicalcharacteristics, the generic EO information products and services have been contex-tualized accordingly through appropriate value addition and with the participationof the end users.

Further, disseminating EO products and services through web have brought innewer challenges. The products and services of coarse resolution EO payloadshave reached to the end users in many parts of the world, including India. How-ever, technically these services cannot be extended beyond the early warning andbroad level qualitative drought assessment and monitoring, while the real strengthof EO lies in its applications towards mitigation and preparedness. The operationallydemonstrated products and services, closer to community action and their enhancedcoping mechanisms, need to be promoted. Access to high-resolution multi-spectral(to the extent of 20 m spatial resolution) EO products is an important informationempowerment towards drought mitigation. Institutional infrastructure, especiallybasic national systems and services, is to be positioned strategically to absorb and

S.K. Srivastava (B)Earth Observation System (EOS), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Headquarters,Bangalore, Indiae-mail: sanjay@isro.gov.in

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 15, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

383

384 S.K. Srivastava et al.

recast, as per the local requirements, the products and services increasingly becom-ing available from the global/regional EO missions.

Funding of drought risk is yet another emerging area wherein financial insti-tutions especially insurance and banking sectors have interests, while high reso-lution multi-spectral imaging has a role to bring out in-season crop and weatherstatistics. A public private partnership could be built on such issues of commoninterest. Community based drought management, synergizing the indigenous cop-ing mechanisms, local wisdom and technological means, is the ultimate to achieve.The paper spells out all these perspectives, while advocating the overall interestof developing countries in using EO products as a strategy towards drought riskreduction.

Keywords Earth observation · Products and services · Indian remote sensingsatellites · Agricultural drought · Drought risk reduction · Assessment · Mitigation ·Preparedness · NADAMS and community based drought management

Introduction

Drought: Vulnerability and Threat

Drought is an insidious natural hazard affecting virtually all regions. While manydefinitions of drought exist, the importance of drought lies in its overall social, eco-nomic and environmental impacts. With the nonstructural nature and greater spatialextent, drought hits the largest number of the people. The agrarian economies of thedeveloping nations are therefore more vulnerable. In fact, drought has been one ofthe primary reasons for widespread poverty and environmental degradation. Further,the climate model predictions indicate that the global change is likely to increasethe vulnerability of tropical countries to drought, more in South Asia, where Indiais likely to get hard hit (IPPC 1996 and 2001).

Rightfully, drought management has attracted attention worldwide. Awarenesshas been built upon at various levels on combating drought. The emphasis isbeing placed on risk reduction through mitigation, preparedness, and predictionand early warning. The efforts in this direction however require a right mix ofpolicy, use of technological inputs in compatible institutional framework and com-munity support on the ground. Earth Observation (EO) information products andservices have proved as enabling means, if they are strategically used. Basically,they are the knowledge products with operationally demonstrated capabilities. Theproduct cycle, involving data processing, value addition and knowledge extrac-tion, goes through several steps including acceptability by the end users and theirintegration into the decision-making processes. Rapid advances are taking place inEO, their products and services. Further, coupled with their enhanced access throughweb and other electronic delivery mechanisms, EO products and services towardsdrought management deserve advocacy particularly in the drought-prone regions.

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 385

The efforts, in such endeavors, will go a long way to enhance the operational meansto drought management especially in the high risk and low capacity developingcountries.

Drought in India: Impact, Characterization and Levels of Severity

India is amongst the most vulnerable drought-prone countries of the world; adrought is reported at least once in every three years in the last five decades.What is of concern is its increasing frequency. Since the mid-nineties, prolongedand widespread droughts have occurred in consecutive years while the frequencyof droughts has also increased in the recent times (FAO, 2002; World Bank,2003).

The impact of droughts is more severe on the food and agricultural sector.The loss of crops and livelihood and its effect on the agrarian economy havesevere consequences to the overall well being of the rural poor. Continued declineof productivity leads to diminished assets and reduced investments. The impactof drought especially in Asia and the Pacific region has been severe as nearlytwo-third’s area of the region is rainfed with large portion of arid and semi-aridpockets.

Drought, a creeping phenomenon, seldom results in structural damage, in contrastto floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. For this reason, the quantification of impactsand the provision of relief are far more difficult tasks than that of other naturalhazards. The non-structural characteristic of drought impacts has hindered thedevelopment of accurate, reliable, and timely estimates of severity and, ultimately,the formulation of drought contingency plans by most of the governments.

Drought has been grouped as meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, andsocioeconomic phenomena as shown in Fig. 1 (Wilhite, 1992; Wilhite and Glantz,1985; Wilhite et al. 1986). The aggregate of all these finally leads to rural povertyand food insecurity. This concept of drought supports the strong symbiosis thatexists between drought and livelihood processes especially in the agrarian economyof the developing countries.

Drought has thus both natural and social components. The risk associated withdrought for any region is a product of both the region’s exposure to the event (i.e.,probability of occurrence at various severity levels) and the vulnerability of societyto the event. Exposure to drought varies spatially and there is little, if anything,that we can do to alter drought occurrence. Vulnerability is determined by socialfactors such as population, demographic characteristics, technology, policy, andsocial behaviour. These factors change over time, and thus vulnerability is likely toincrease or decrease in response to these changes. Subsequent droughts in the sameregion will have different effects, even if they are identical in intensity, duration,and spatial characteristics, because societal characteristics would have changed.However, much can be done to lessen societal vulnerability to drought.

Hazard events have been ranked by Bryant (1991) on the basis of their charac-teristics and impacts. Key hazard characteristics used for this evaluation include an

386 S.K. Srivastava et al.

Climate Variability

• Deficit Precipitation• Increased Evapotranspiration

• Soil water deficiency• Stressed crop & reduced yield

• Drying of water bodies• Reduced stream flow

MeteorologicalDrought

AgriculturalDrought

HydrologicalDrought

Social Impacts Ecological ImpactsEconomic Impacts

Poverty, Food insecurity, Joblessness, Urban Migration, Hunger/Famine

Sp

atia

l/ T

ime

Do

mai

n

Fig. 1 Natural and social dimensions of drought

expression of the degree of severity, length of event, total areal extent, total loss oflife, total economic loss, social effects, long-term impact, suddenness, and occur-rence of associated hazards for thirty-one hazards. Because of the intensity, dura-tion, and spatial extent of drought events and the magnitude of associated impacts,drought ranks very high. The total loss of life associated with drought may havebeen overestimated because it has included deaths associated with famine. Droughtdoes disrupt food production systems but is only one of several potential naturaltriggers for famine; other social triggers, such as inequity and frustrations furtherlead to civil strife and war, have been more important factors in recent years.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC2007) has highlighted that the climate change is likely to be more rapid than whatwas expected five years ago. Average temperature will continue increasing and thusresulting in drier conditions, especially in the interior of major continents. Totalrainfall amounts may increase in some regions, but variability is likely to increase.As a result, drought will become more frequent and intense, while rainfall will beconcentrated in shorter and more severe storms. Asian summer monsoon precip-itation is expected to be more erratic. In arid, dry semi-arid and moist semi-aridregions, delayed and reduced precipitation owing to El Nino and South Oscillation(ENSO), climate change and other local conditions exacerbate the growing watershortage faced by nearly 1.3 billion of the Asia-Pacific region’s poorest inhabitants.

The vulnerability of developing countries is likely to be much more, due totheir lower level of adaptive capacity. Where people have financial resources,access to technology and knowledge, they can more adequately cope up with

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 387

exogenous changes, shocks and impacts. While these attributes of adaptive capac-ity are low, vulnerability is correspondingly greater (Mendelsohn and Dinar, 1999;Reilly et al. 1996). The capital-intensive agricultural systems are less sensitive toclimate, perhaps because they can control so many more inputs. It will be quitechallenging in the context of Indian agriculture, predominantly contributed by smalland marginal farmers, to reduce the drought risks in the altered climate regime.

Drought Management Practices

The present policies on drought management in India have evolved over a period oftime. The relief policy was broadly speaking of ad hoc measures during the initialperiod of drought management. Famine conditions provided for taking measureswhen danger of large-scale human mortality was apprehended and aimed at pre-venting deaths on account of calamities. Later on, famine-relief codes were replacedwith scarcity-relief measures with emphasis on reducing human distress and misery.The public distribution system was evolved as a response to the droughts of mid-sixties for building up a reliable food supply system. Later came employment gener-ation programmes, which led to creation of durable and productive assets. Droughtmanagement policy seeks to provide for social and economic goals for the welfarestate and the egalitarian objective of the State. The objective is not only to preventstarvation deaths but also to halt physical deterioration and destitution of people andlivestock. Existing drought management package consists of several programmes,which aim at mitigating the severity of drought. However, notwithstanding theirwelfare goals, these programmes in general suffer from poor infrastructure, techni-cal content and low credit flow in the chronically drought-prone areas.

Basically, the practices of drought management in India could be summarized interms of the following strategies and trends:

� Management of natural resources holds the key. Focus has been placed on com-munity centric, ecosystem based approach of planning, implementation of plansand proactive mitigation measures, risk management, resources stewardship,environmental considerations, and public education.

� Stronger linkages between scientific research laboratory, agricultural meteoro-logical networks and drought management functionaries on the ground are ofgreat significance. This is essentially to aim at enhancing the effectiveness ofobservation networks, monitoring, prediction, information delivery and appliedresearch and to foster public understanding of and preparedness for drought.

� Encouraging the integration of comprehensive insurance and financial strategiesinto drought preparedness plans.

� Institutionalising a safety net of emergency relief that emphasizes soundstewardship of natural resources and self-help.

� The rank of priorities should follow as the preference of preparedness overinsurance, insurance over relief, and incentives over regulation.

388 S.K. Srivastava et al.

To be more specific, the following approaches have gained importance in therecent times:

� Multi-sectoral Linkages: The focus is on integration of disaster managementprogrammes with other sectoral issues such as poverty alleviation, naturalresources development etc. Especially, poverty reduction and drought manage-ment are moving towards having stronger linkages with other sectoral issues.

� Regulatory Framework: Efforts have been made to enact a comprehensive Dis-aster Management Act; develop policy guidelines at the national, state, sector andsub-sector levels.

� Risk Financing and Insurance: There is focus now to promote risk sharingand transfer mechanisms (insurance schemes) for natural disaster mitigation,enhanced financial support to the vulnerability reduction funds. Some of theconcepts in this regard include risk pool and risk management strategies for poorhouseholds, credit markets, support-led interventions for vulnerability reductionand mitigation, financial resources for mitigation and investment, natural disasterinsurance – especially agricultural/crop insurance for drought and group basedinsurance programme (Suvit, 2001).

� Community Based Drought Management: This strategy encourages involve-ment of vulnerable people themselves in planning and implementation ofmitigation measures. This bottom up approach has received wide acceptance be-cause communities are considered as the best judges for their own vulnerabilityand can make best decisions regarding their well-being. The aim is to reducevulnerability and strengthen people’s capacity to cope with drought.

Towards placing policies into the strategic action, there are two aspects – cri-sis and risk management. While crisis management involves impact assessment,response, recovery and reconstruction, risk management focuses more on prepared-ness, mitigation, prediction and early warning. In the past, government placed moreemphasis on crisis management, while little attention was given to risk managementcomponents. Implementing the newer policies of drought management calls forgreater priority on risk management. Reducing the risks requires greater emphasisto be placed on preparedness and mitigation. Preparedness leads to greater institu-tional capacity to cope with drought events through the creation of an organizationalstructure that improves information flow and coordination between and within lev-els of government. It is also about increasing the coping capacity of individuals,communities, and governments to handle drought events. Drought preparedness,coupled with appropriate mitigation actions and programmes, can reduce and, insome cases, eliminate many of the impacts associated with drought.

Drought risk reduction is a cyclical, dynamic process that requires continuousadjustments, decision-making and interaction at different yet interrelated levelsand among a variety of institutions and role-players, including individuals, house-holds, communities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), market institutions,and echelons of government. Constructing a need matrix for implementation of thedrought risk reduction strategies is complex but quite useful in terms of identifyingholistically the information needs as well as the gaps existing in the system.

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 389

Interpreting the need matrix in terms of a set of requirements highlights a rangeof priorities. Risk assessment (a critical requirement for targeting the community atrisk), early warning, emergency communication and damage assessment follow thepriority sequence. Risk assessment has to be followed by mitigation strategies, suchas management of land and water resources in tune with climatic factors, integratedrainwater and nutrient management for drought-prone farming systems, farmingsystem enterprises for ameliorating drought in rainfed regions, drought managementstrategies – agro-forestry and livestock issues and financial interventions in supportof drought alleviation programme. The spatial characteristics of drought have tobe taken into account to understand all the linkages among the natural resources,agro-ecological zones, levels of end users within a particular administrative unit etc.A detailed spatial database comprising climate, hydrological units, land use/landcover, crops, soils, slope and administrative boundaries is important for puttingdrought risk reduction into the operational context.

EO Information Products and Services for DroughtManagement

In India, EO information products and services have been an integral part of theoperational strategy for drought management. Coarse resolution weather and high-resolution multi-spectral EO satellites, both being the complementary and supple-mentary to each other, have demonstrated their operational potential to addressissues pertaining to drought risk as well as crisis management. These products andservices have been able to demonstrate their potential in terms of addressing someof the key requirements of end users as listed out in Table 1.

Space information products and services, in the present context, are nothing butsome of the deliverables extracted from EO satellites, which provide decision sup-port in the context of drought management. Their developments go through a cycleinvolving, at the various stages, a process of product development in order to meetthe operational requirements of end users. The process starts with capturing droughtindicators in terms of EO amenable parameters; quantifying end user’s require-ments; integrating them into supporting data; analyzing them to ensure appropriatecontent, adhering to quality and standards; value addition through GIS modelingand finally arriving at the final products. The final products are essentially aimedto lead to actionable solutions. In the simplest term, it is transition of EO data toinformation and service cycle. The products are generated from EO satellites ofdifferent platforms, feed to the overall drought management cycle.

The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on NOAA polar-orbiting satellites is well recognized and its products are extensively used in India.The unique part of NOAA AVHRR has been the cost effectiveness, free access onweb, and a repetitive view of nearly all of the earth’s surfaces.

NOAA Global Vegetation Index (GVI) product is produced routinely since1985. The GVI is produced by sampling the AVHRR-based 4-km (global area

390 S.K. Srivastava et al.

Table 1 Operational EO enabled services for drought management

Indicators EO products EO based services

Vegetationstress/land coverchange

� Status of land cover andchange over the time

� Delineation ofstressed/unstressed areas

� Change detection maps

� Planning towards interventions/mid-course corrections

� Early warning� Land resource information system

Agro-ecologicalfeatures

� Monitoring and impactassessment

� Hazard zonation map� Risk assessment map

� Drought management informationsupport

� Drought warning and vigilance system

WaterResources

� Ground water prospects� Surface water body

mapping� Irrigation water

management� Runoff modeling� Reservoir sedimentation� Water quality monitoring

� Drinking water supply� Soil and water conservation� Checking water pollution� De-silting of ponds� Planning of drought proofing measures

Crops/fodder � Crop types inventory� Identifying crop stress� Accurate measurement

(high resolution data) offield boundaries and cropidentification

� Cropping system analysis

� Crop acreage and yield forecasting� Monitoring agricultural subsidy claims� Monitoring long-term changes in crop-

ping patterns.

Geology � Hydro-geomorphologicalfeatures

� Ground water prospecting� Rainwater harvesting

coverage format, GAC) daily radiances in the visible (VIS) and Near Infra-red(NIR) channels. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) using VIS andNIR channels of AVHRR of 1 km resolution is another widely used NOAA prod-uct. Unlike the two spectral channel approaches of GVI and NDVI to vegetationmonitoring, the improved NOAA AVHRR products use a three spectral channelcombination: visible (VIS, ch1), near infrared (NIR, ch2), and thermal infrared (IR,ch4). Improved NOAA AVHRR products are basically three indices characterizingmoisture (Vegetation Condition Index, VCI), thermal (Temperature Condition In-dex, TCI), and vegetation health (Vegetation Health Index, VHI) and thus addressingdrought indicators more comprehensively. Compared to ground-based and NDVIdrought detection system, these new products provide earlier drought warning; helpin estimating areas under drought of different severity and to diagnose the potential

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 391

Table 2 NOAA AVHRR based products and services being used in India for drought monitoringassessment

NOAA AVHRR operational products Drought related services

GVI (Global products) Vegetation stress at regional level, Inputs to earlywarning, drought impact assessment andperspective planning

NDVI (Regional/sub-regionalproducts)

Vegetation stress at regional/sub-regional and evenlocal level, Inputs to early warning, monitoringand impact assessment, crop condition andproduction estimation, crop loss and damageassessment, land use/land cover changeassessment, soil moisture, evapo-transpiration,crop water stress index, Palmer Drought SeverityIndex (PDSI) etc

VCI (Regional/sub-regionalproducts)

..plus Sensitive to subtle changes in moisture status,improved early warning and vegetation conditions

TCI (Regional/sub-regionalproducts)

..plus Sensitive to subtle changes in temperatureregime, improved early warning andenvironmental characterization

VHI (Regional/sub-regionalproducts)

..plus Sensitive to subtle changes in vegetationconditions and vegetation characterization

Current Vegetation HealthImage Maps, Changes inVegetation Health fromPrevious Week, Changes inVegetation Health fromPrevious Year, ArchivedVegetation Health ImageMaps, Moisture and ThermalConditions Global Map

Relative drought scenario with respect to time,regions with enhanced severity levels (pointers tothe overall drought conditions)

of drought development prior to actual start of drought conditions (Kogan, 1997;Kogan, 2001; Kogan et al. 2003). List of NOAA AVHRR based products and ser-vices with regard to drought are summarized in Table 2.

The NOAA AVHRR products and services have demonstrated their potential inalmost all the drought-prone regions of the globe. The new AVHRR based products(VCI, TCI, VHI) have helped in detecting drought 4 to 6 weeks earlier than thatwas previously possible. These provide added warning lead-time, which is criticallyimportant for pinpointing the problem, making decision and implementing measuresto mitigate consequences (Singh et al. 2003).

Demonstrated Operational EO Applications

The EO capabilities, in India, have been harnessed in the context of (i) monitoringand early warning of drought, and (ii) drought mitigation efforts.

392 S.K. Srivastava et al.

Early Warning and Monitoring System

Products and services of EO hold the key for early warning systems towardsdetecting and forecasting impending drought and for issuing alerts. India is usingEO inputs towards early warning and monitoring the agricultural drought. Synergyof agro-meteorological and EO based systems is of considerable significance. Theintegration of EO enabled NDVI with aridity indices based on radiation and waterbalance parameters hold the key for monitoring agricultural drought in the region.Use of NOAA data in addressing vegetation, and temperature based soil moisturevariations has demonstrated such possibility at the coarser scale. On the types ofvegetation indices sensitive to capture the finer aspects of drought, a recent studyin the hard-rock hilly Aravalli terrain of Rajasthan province of India which oftensuffers with frequent drought due to poor and delayed monsoon, abnormally highsummer-temperature and insufficient water resources has brought out an interestingresult. The VCI, TCI and VHI derived by integrating thermal channel of NOAAAVHRR and NDVI values obtained from GVI were found have better sensitivityto the agricultural drought. The result was validated taking into account collat-eral indicators such as the Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI) which is usedto quantify the precipitation deficit, and Standardised Water-Level Index (SWI)which is developed to assess ground-water recharge-deficit (Kogan et al. 2003;Bhuiyan et al. 2006).

Operationally, National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring Sys-tem (NADAMS) has been put in place, which provides near real-time information onprevalence, severity level and persistence of agricultural drought at state/district/sub-district level during kharif season (June-November). Currently, the project covers 14states, which are predominantly agriculture based and prone to drought situation.The agricultural area of each district is monitored using time series NDVI with thesupport of ground data. The assessment of agricultural drought situation takes in toconsideration, the satellite derived information on (a) seasonal NDVI progression –i.e., transformation of NDVI from the beginning of the season, (b) comparison ofNDVI profile with previous normal years and (c) Vegetation Condition Index, inte-grated with ground information on cropping pattern, irrigation support, crop sownareas, soils, rainfall etc. Over the years, NADAMS is moving towards strengtheningEarly Warning Systems (EWS) for drought in the country. The real gap of using EOlies in its generic character because of the coarser scale. The local features relevantto agriculture drought such as crop, soil and weather are generally not reflected.Because of this reason, it is difficult to initiate field action though the information isvaluable for policy and broad level relief mobilization. The use of high radiometricand better resolution Advanced WiFS in conjunction with SWIR band from Indialatest EO satellite, RESOURCESAT-1, has helped to improve NADAMS capabil-ity further mainly to capture local level variations (Jayaraman, 2004). In case ofdrought, by using IRS AWiFS derived NDVI profiles at sub-district level in someof the perennially drought-prone regions such as the States like Andhra Pradesh,Haryana, Karnataka and Maharashtra, NADAMS has demonstrated the operationalviability of drought EWS (NRSA, 2007).

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 393

Fig. 2 (a) NADAMS Products – Nationwide agricultural drought monitoring based on NOAAAVHRR data and (b) Drought Monitoring at State, District and Sub-district levels usingRESOURCESAT-1 AWiFS data (Source: NRSA Annual Report 2007)

The highlights of AWiFS based drought EWS, which was put to use to monitoragricultural drought (Fig. 2) could be summarized as:

– Multi-levels: Drought monitoring at National, state and district (based on NOAAAVHRR) and taluk/block (sub-district) levels (based on multi-date AWiFSdata);

– Types of Warning: NDVI based indicators identify a taluk in terms of ‘Watch’(to be monitored for forthcoming drought), ‘Alert’ (calls for immediate interven-tions to save crops/cattle,) and “normal’;

– Synergy with ground based operational systems: Addressed the existing gapsin traditional systems of not having denser observational networks for precipita-tion based drought monitoring and added value in terms impacts oncrops;

– Acceptability: Used as a part of crop-weather-watch activities of drought fore-warning of Ministry of Agriculture and State Drought Relief agencies.

394 S.K. Srivastava et al.

Drought Mitigation

The real strength of EO lies in its ability to develop certain products and servicesof relevance to drought mitigation. The highlights of key applications, based onsuccessfully demonstrated in the operational practices in India, are listed out in theBox 1. Taking into account the demonstrated operational EO applications towardsdrought mitigation, the following strategies have been found successful:

� EO to enable information for drought preparedness and response through effi-cient land and water management practices

� EO to integrate as a tool for national, state and regional policies towards manage-ment and maintenance of all reserves developed as part of drought preparednessinitiatives, whether they be reserves of food, surface or groundwater, seeds orfodder.

� EO to catalyze drought preparedness through sustainable watershed develop-ment programmes and participatory community-based action-learning processesto empower stakeholders to manage natural resources (Box 2).

� At the national level, EO has to be used operationally to support preparation ofa National Drought Mitigation Plan, involving all the ministries and concernedorganizations such as NGOs.

Box 1 Demonstrated EO products towards drought mitigation

� Hazard analysis: assessing the probability of occurrence based onhistorical coarse resolution multi-spectral data from meteorologi-cal/environmental satellites.

� Vulnerability analysis: assessing the degree of loss expected to popula-tion, and their economic activities based on high-resolution multi-spectralimaging products.

� Risk assessment: assessing the numbers of people likely to be affectedby integrating EO inputs with census and survey data through GIS basedspatial modeling.

� Land use planning and legislation: development of drought resistantcropping system, land use practices and action plans for soil and waterconservation.

� Drought Preparedness: Creation of GIS databases including EO inputsfor vulnerable areas; and Development of query based Decision SupportSystem (DSS).

� Drought Relief: Rapid mapping and damage assessment of loss of agri-cultural production, fodder etc; and Food/fodder insecurity assessment toensure an undisturbed supply of aid.

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 395

Box 2 EO based interventions towards drought mitigation

The watershed of Fakot in one of the perennially drought-prone areas of Indiawas characterized by massive land degradation and marginal income from thefarming to the stakeholders. Using EO based inputs and appropriately integrat-ing with GIS, the interventions in terms of watershed development plans wereworked out and implemented. This resulted in phenomenal improvements interms of controlling soil erosion and run-off as shown below. The successof such pilot projects led to launching a major National mission (called Na-tional Watershed Development Programme for Rainfed Areas (NWDPRA)and Drought Prone Areas Programme (DPAP) covering geographical areas tothe tune of 7.46 Mha through people’s participation/employment generation.

0

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1000

1500

2000

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2500

3000

75-7

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77-7

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79-8

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81-8

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83-8

4

85-8

6

87-8

8

89-9

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91-9

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98-9

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Interventions

Interventions

Interventions

• Crop productivity increased by 1.5 times• Income per ha increased by 1.2 times

(Source: Vision 2020, Natural Resources Management Research, Division of Natural ResourcesManagement, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Govt of India, New Delhi, 2000)

Funding Drought Risk and Vulnerability: Emerging Applications

The farmers of arid and semi-arid regions, with limited and increasingly decliningmarketable surplus, have always been subjected to the manipulations of the marketas well as extremes of the weather. The governmental policy thrust till now has been

396 S.K. Srivastava et al.

on strengthening production technology and input delivery systems and regulatingthe market price of products through minimum support price structures. This hasn’tbeen enough to give farmers a shield for their vulnerability, especially in the contextof drought.

Agricultural insurance, which aims at insuring farmers against production andprice risks, is to protect the vulnerability of small and marginal farmers. The schemeenvisages seeing the government giving a premium subsidy and guaranteeing farm-ers a minimum income to reduce their vulnerability. Under this scheme, an ‘AreaApproach or Area Yield Approach’ is being used for actual yield and price mea-surement of the insured crop. The government is to give a premium subsidy in thecase of small and marginal farmers (ISDR, 2004; World Bank Report 2003).

Financial agencies including World Bank, Asian Development Bank, PrivateBanks and some of the Insurance companies have proposed weather-based indexinsurance schemes. These schemes also operate on the basis of ‘Area Approach orArea Yield Approach’. The weather or “trigger” event (rainfall deficit) during thecritical stage of crop growth can be independently verified by analyzing EO basedcrop inventory, taking into account the sensitivity of key crop growth parameters,viz., Leaf Area Index (LAI) with rainfall. EO, though limited, but have playedcatalytic role in promoting agricultural insurance. For example, NOAA weatherdata and associated EO inputs are being used in crop insurance services in UnitedStates. NOAA data is used both directly and indirectly mainly in establishing ratesand coverages, high-risk areas, planting and harvesting dates, crop hardiness areas,new crop programmes and developing crop models and current year loss estimates.Insurance services and compliance programmes use historical and current EO dataas an additional information resource in determining if losses are reasonable.

The use of EO inputs/products in crop insurance, in the developing countries, hasto be context specific and to focus more on fragmented land holdings with typicalmultiple cropping systems of dryland agriculture.

Quite a few developing countries have been using EO inputs for agriculturalstatistics. Recasting these applications in tune with the ‘Area Approach’ methodof crop insurance policy and also to expand them to cover specific dryland cropshaving greater risk per acre conceptually sound promising. The operational mecha-nisms that also include technological vis-a-vis institutional factors need priority andreorientation. A roadmap in this direction could have the following steps:

� Hazard zonation and risk assessment: In case of drought, hazard zonationand risk assessment could be climate/weather based in tune with agro-ecologicalzones and socio-economic conditions. This is essentially to focus on the riskiestpopulation, which could be targeted for social safety nets, other interventionsincluding the risk transfer mechanisms through crop insurance scheme.

� Local Area Statistics: In the selected risk zones, high precision EO base cropstatistics related applications may hold ground. Assessment of yield or crop con-ditions at the individual field is not practical. Normally, for crop insurance, ascheme based on the homogeneous area approach is called for. All that is neededis a delineation of agro-climatic regions, small enough to be homogeneous in the

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 397

sense that the annual crop experience of a majority of farmers coincides withaverage experience of the area and large enough to enable the determination ofthe crop conditions and yield with reasonably small statistical errors.

Though agricultural insurance or other weather-based index insurance cannot fixall the ills of vulnerability, the small and marginal farmers are confronted with,especially with regard to drought; they however provide an opportunity to reachthem out in terms of compensating a part of the losses they experienced. In case ofdrought, farmers deserve to be given an income guarantee based on yield, price, orarea planted.

Success of crop insurance initiatives of insurance companies/banks lies in strongand dynamic ‘Areas Specific’ crop and weather statistics, for which EO productsand services are of considerable value and thus awareness needs to be built upon.

Risk Assessment Model

In pursuit of funding the drought risk and vulnerability, risk assessment is the mostcritical input. Integration of EO enabled products to the risk model is a promisingapproach, which demonstrates its feasibility in case of drought risk assessment. Aneffort has been made to realize EO based risk assessment model. The proposedrisk model primarily aims at assessing the damage due to the drought and thus themethodology takes into account the assets vulnerable to the drought rather thanthe social factors of vulnerability like socio-economic indicators and communityprofiling. The central focus in the risk model involves a detailed assessment of losspotential in the event of drought, often based on historical patterns to determinewhich specific exposures should be examined. The generated set of stochastic eventswas then used in four steps of the risk assessment model (Fig. 3). As a proof of theconcept study, this model was used for the drought risk assessment in a drought-affected district of India.

Fig. 3 Area based riskassessment model

Probabilistic loss estimates – Stochastic events from historical data

Hazard Module: NADAMS Input

Exposure Module: CAPE Inputs,Small area estimation

Vulnerability Module: Area Damaged

Loss Analysis Module: Aggregated loss

Frequency, severity

“Assets at risk” – crops,cattle,….

Damage quantification,vulnerability function

(Monetary loss calculation, asset-wise,location-wise & aggregation)

398 S.K. Srivastava et al.

A Case Study – Validation of Risk Assessment Model

Vegetation indices provide timely information on drought severity and help inassessment and monitoring of agricultural drought. The seasonal NDVI profileextracted from NADAMS data have been used for this purpose in the risk assessmentmodel. The seasonal progression of satellite derived NDVI compared with normalNDVI profile helps to continuously monitor drought conditions on a real time basisoften helping the decision makers initiate strategies for recovery by changing crop-ping patterns and practices (NRSA, 2005 and Jeyaseelan and Chandrasekar, 2002).This strategy has been used to capture in-season drought assessment.

Karnataka, one of the southern states of India has drought hit areas to the tuneof 10 million ha covered in 88 taluks (sub-districts) in 18 districts. In the hazardmodule, which indicates the severity and frequency of drought, risk is characterizedas a function of NDVI, collateral data and social mapping viz., demographic socialand economic profile etc. The strategies for realizing the different modules of themodel are highlighted below:

Hazard Module

To develop the hazard module, two approaches have been analyzed. The first ap-proach is based on the identification of the key characteristics of drought prone areastaking into account the conventional data on low rainfall, percentage years of rainfallfailure and irrigation support. Recognizing that the satellite based vegetation indexindicates spatial vegetation activity, which depends not only with rainfall, weather,and irrigation support but also with other parameters like soil fertility, type of veg-etation and farming practices etc., the second approach envisages satellite-basedidentification of drought proneness to arrive at the hazard module. There is neitherany evaluating or monitoring mechanism to know the impact of various droughtameliorative measures taken up by the Government over the drought prone area, norany effort on updation taking into account the climate change phenomena. Consid-ering these aspects, the second approach based on NDVI sounds more realistic. InIndia, Jeyaseelan and Chandrasekar (2002) identified the drought prone areas usingrecent years satellite based vegetation index data of 1 km spatial resolution. Themethod involved identification of area of low vegetation development with largeyear-to-year variation and its occurrence over more number of years. Out of thetotal study period of 15 years from 1986 to 1999, the first 10-year period from 1986to 1995 was considered excluding the year 1991 and 1994 to derive the averagecondition and to derive vegetation activity types.

Using NDVI approach, the drought prone area has been ranked into three levelsnamely severe (rank I), moderate (rank II) and lesser (rank III). These are basedon mean NDVI, their Standard Deviation and the frequency of NDVI values. Theseverely drought prone area is identified with low to average vegetation level withhigh to low Standard deviation and frequency of more than 4 years of low NDVI.The moderate drought prone is identified with average to high vegetation level withhigh to low standard deviation and frequency of 3–4 years of low NDVI (Table 3).

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 399

Table 3 Risk ranking based NDVI based frequency of drought

Ranking basedon Drought –severity levels Mean NDVI

StandardDeviation – range

Frequency of lowNDVI

Name of thedistricts

I (Severe) Low value(0.05–0.15)

High value(0.0–0.08)

High (>4 yrs) Tumkur, Chitradurge,Bellary, Dharward,Raichur, Gulberga,Bijapur, Belgaum,Bagalkote

II (Moderate) Medium(0.15–0.30)

Medium(0.0–0.05)

Medium (3–4 yrs) Kolar, Davanagere,Koppala, Gadak,Haveri

III (Lesser ) High value(>0.3)

Low(0.0–0.025)

Low (1–2 yrs) Bidar, Banaglore,Shimoga, Udupi

The lesser drought prone area is identified with average to high vegetation levelwith high to low standard deviation and frequency of 1–2 years of low NDVI. Theresult indicated that the drought prone area identified by the satellite-based studywas found reduced mostly due to irrigation development and improved agriculture.

In the category of severe drought prone districts, five districts viz., Bagalkote,Belgaum, Bijapur, Dharward and Gulbarga have been identified for risk and dam-age assessment modeling. These districts have experienced severe drought in 1999,2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004, as shown in terms of deficient seasonal kharif (mon-soon) rainfall (Table 4). The severity has also been captured in terms of mean NDVI,their Standard Deviation and frequency of low NDVI. The NDVI image of Gulbargadistrict during 2002, which was a severe drought year and the progression of NDVIfor 2002 drought year and normal NDVI are depicted in Fig. 4. The hazard module,in terms of NDVI related parameters, thus identifies these five districts among themost severe drought category.

Table 4 Drought severity based rainfall data (deviation of 100 years mean rainfall data)

District/Year 1999 2001 2002 2003 2004

Bagalkote −22 −17 −46 −64 7Belgaum −11 −13 −28 −52 −1Bijapur −19 −18 −36 −28 −5Dharwad −25 −27 −22 −51 0Gulbarga −31 −16 −40 −20 −38

Exposure Model

The physical assets in the study areas, which get affected as a result of drought,include agriculture including horticulture, drinking water, rural employment, animalhusbandry, power and health. The exposure values of “assets at risk” at district levelfor all the five districts have been estimated from available secondary data sources.In this context, outputs of Crop Acreage and Production Estimation (CAPE) project

400 S.K. Srivastava et al.

–0.2

–0.1

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

JulyAugSepOct

ND

VI

2002 NDVI Normal NDVI

NDVI profile

Normal

Low

Moderate

Severe

–0.26 Cloud 0.1 0.25 0.600.50 >0.70

September, 2002

0.40

Fig. 4 Vegetation stress in Gulbarga District as depicted through NDVI data

project are used to derive crop types and areal extent. Statistical regression modelshave been developed and used in this project for yield forecasting at district level(Jayaraman et al. 2007). These models are mostly based on empirical crop weatherrelations and hence are location and time specific. Yield models based on indicessuch as NDVI, ratio etc., derived from remote sensing data were also developed andcombined with meteorological models.

Based on this data, the module then computes the value for all types of exposuresas a product of multiplication of the area of total assets at the risk and the averagereplacement cost per unit of these assets. Initially the asset at risk for agriculturesector has been determined. On the basis of the trends depicting the inter-sectorallinkages among the sectors related to agriculture, the damage estimation has beenextrapolated to the other sectors.

Vulnerability Module

In the agriculture sector, major crops grown in these districts have been taken forasset calculation. The normal crop production data and the minimum support pricefor each crop in the respective five districts are taken from secondary sources. TheMean Damage Ratio (MDR) has been calculated using drought-year NDVI and nor-mal NDVI as given below:

MDR = 1 − DroughtNDVI

NormalNDVI

The calculated MDR was found to be highest for Bagalkote district with 0.83followed by Gulbarga (0.71), Belgaum (0.41), Bijapur (0.41) and Dharwad (0.37).

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 401

Loss Analysis Module

To calculate losses, the damage ratio derived in the vulnerability module is trans-lated into dollar loss by multiplying the damage ratio by the value at risk. Thisis done for each asset class at each location. Losses are then aggregated at block,district, or state level as required. The probabilistic area wise risk model could thusbe used for quantifying the assets at risk and also the damage assessment due toagricultural drought.

For analysising the loss due to drought (i) area sown under agriculture with majorcrop break up from the available sources; (ii) area affected due to drought based onthe above NDVI analysis; (iii) Cost of cultivation (CC) and Minimum Support Price(MSP) for major crops as available in secondary sources (www.indiastat.com) areused. To calculate losses, major crop-wise area affected by drought is translated intoeconomic loss by multiplying with CC and MSP as given below:

� Loss in CC terms = Loss of production in tonnes (t) × [CC per ha/Yield in t/ha]� Loss in terms of MSP = Loss of production in tonnes (t) × MSP per t

Fig. 5 (i) Geospatial information showing the parcel of land with established ownership, (ii) geo-referenced cadastral land holdings, and (iii) action plans for natural resources development at fieldlevel (Source: Krishna Murthy & Joshi, 2004)

402 S.K. Srivastava et al.

Table 5 Loss analysis in Gulbarga District

CropsAreasown (ha)

Areaaffected (ha) % affected

Loss ofproduction (t)

Loss (millionUS$) CCterms

Loss (millionUS$) MSPterms

Jowar 7753 1467 19 1392.18 0.138 0.168Maize 3134 355 11 1104.05 0.115 0.133Bajra 60837 7492 12 4794.88 – 0.580Red gram 309520 33364 11 15351.56 5.125 5.700Blackgram 38007 13475 35 335.50 – 0.113Greengram 95494 36454 38 6926.26 – 2.303Groundnut 19251 2194 11 1959.24 0.685 0.750Sesame 13239 10582 80 4126.98 – 1.495Sunflower 97519 31363 32 12858.83 3.750 4.018Soyabean 2823 704 25 549.82 0.125 0.150Cotton 26456 941 4 244.66 0.088 0.108

The result indicated alarming situation of the district where in the maximumloss of about 5.7 million USD has been incurred for red gram followed by sun-flower, green gram, sesame and coarse cereals (Table 5). The loss in terms ofcost of cultivation indicate the amount that had been spent for cultivation whichis totally non recoverable. This creates severe economic stress for the indebtedfarmers.

Community Based Drought Management

Worldwide it has been accepted that a bottom-up approach is more effective strategyfor drought response, management and risk reduction. There is growing realizationthat many top-down approaches to disaster management fail to address the specificlocale needs of vulnerable communities, as they do not take into account the poten-tial of local resources and capacities.

The community being the first to confront and respond immediately in theexigency of any emergency, there is a need for building up the capacities of com-munities, enhancing the skills and traditional coping mechanisms for minimizinglosses resulting from disasters. The first and fore most for Community BasedDrought Management (CBDM) is vulnerability zonation map at community level(cluster of villages with same vulnerability). Information products and services ofEO, extracted from very high resolution imaging, provide insights on communityand ecosystems relationships, while developing the alternate livelihood strategiesthrough vulnerability reduction and sustainable development of natural resources.As the CBDM is gaining importance in the developing countries, the efforts of inter-national agencies to connect CBDM to poverty alleviation and drought managementby stakeholders themselves are quite promising (Suvit, 2001).

In India, there is a unique case of CBDM based on EO inputs. The cadastralmaps that have the parcel boundaries, define the land ownership to the individual

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 403

farmer without any geodetic coordinates. These maps thus establish the identityof a farmer to his/her limited assets in terms of small land parcels. These mapsnot being in digital format with geodetic coordinates have got the limitation ofnot being at the direct access to the landowners also. A unique approach andmethodology has been developed to geo-reference the cadastral maps with thehigh-resolution satellite data providing seamless access to the databases and resul-tant action plans from regional level to local level. This has given a breakthroughin reaching the people including the poor, understanding their requirements andrefining the action plans of land and water resource development involving thelocal wisdom. Further, it has also facilitated monitoring the impact of plan imple-mentation as well as the economic benefits accrued to individual farmers (Fig. 4).The methodology developed for geo-referencing of village maps has found manyapplications, and the states of Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, India, realized itsimportance and implemented it in their states. The overlay of geo-referenced villagemaps on the satellite data is providing invaluable information in support of CBDM.The Geo-referencing of cadastral maps with satellite images in digital domaincould thus be used for establishing the identity of stakeholder in small land parcel(Jayaraman et al. 2006).

Utilization of EO Based Map Products and Services

Most common EO products for drought mitigation have been the maps. Detailedmaps to the extent of 1:1000 scale are prepared using very high resolution data.Higher the scale of map, larger is the domain of services reaching out to the com-munity level. With increasing scale of mapping, the components of EO start com-ing down and other aspects such as census, survey, cadastral level maps and otherheritage data assume greater significance. It is however important to understandthat EO may provide the linkages between policies, early warning, hazard zonationand related aspects to down the line community action; may facilitates risk fundingmechanisms and community based drought management system.

The Key Challenges

Although better EO enabled products and services have been found potential toyield tangible benefits, the gain from better information depends not only onthe quality of information, but also on how it is used and disseminated. Forexample, improved information about the drought risk assessment will have agreater potential to mitigate future losses if information is made available in away that encourages government, private individuals and business to act on theinformation.

There are also certain limitations to value of EO products and services viz., scaleof mapping, permissive errors, etc that have to be taken into the account. While

404 S.K. Srivastava et al.

some of the operational applications could demonstrate the efficacy of EO productsand services for planning, policymaking and monitoring of drought to a limitedextent, their operational utilization-down the line has been limited. This has beenconstrained due to the number of factors such as gaps in the quality of productdelivered vis-a-vis the specific needs of the end-users, real time information dissemi-nation to the end-users and lack of institutionalization and inadequate organizationalmechanisms to integrate suitably EO products and services for decision-making byend-users.

Economics of EO Information Products and Services

Setting up the institutional infrastructures for integrating EO information productsand services involves cost, lag time, skilled manpower and governmental support.As inputs to policy, planning, monitoring and evaluation, EO products and servicescontribute more in terms of social and environmental gains than the benefits interms of money. It is also important to highlight the catalytic role that such prod-ucts and services could play. For example, in drought mitigation programme likewatershed development, reclamation of environmentally degraded lands, etc, theEO and GIS aspects cost hardly 1–2 per cent of the total project cost, but theyplayed critical role in terms of benchmarking, monitoring and evaluation – leadingto the successful execution of the drought mitigation projects in semi-arid areas(Jayaraman et al. 2006).

The demand for high-resolution multi-spectral data is obvious in case of droughtmanagement, especially for integrated land and water conservation purposes indry land areas. The lessons however learnt from success stories especially in thedeveloping countries demonstrate that the use of EO and GIS involves substantialinvestment, but they hold greater promise towards building the resilient society.These investments are also to be seen as a part of the country’s concerted long-term sustained efforts in building state-of-the-art national infrastructures towardsdisaster management. There are several instances where developing countries havepaid for the high cost of the satellite data as well as EO based services. It is ob-vious that satellite data and associated services, which are indispensable towardsdisaster management, any country can pay the cost. However, the efforts haveto be placed ensuring the cost effective access of EO products/services so thatdeveloping countries, especially, could gain adequately ‘the value of money’ theypay for.

Conclusions

From the experiences of using EO information products and services for droughtrisk reduction especially in India, following conclusions could be drawn:

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 405

Recognizing the vitality: While it is a fact that EO information products andservices are only part of the “total kit” of total drought management system, theirroles are vital. They have demonstrated facilitator role in the formulation of policy,planning, impact assessment and monitoring; enabling role in the areas of earlywarning and mitigation through improved natural resources management; catalyticrole in some of the recent initiatives such as agricultural insurance and communitybased drought management. They have also addressed, to a certain extent, the criti-cal gaps existing in the overall drought management system. It is therefore necessaryto build up awareness at various levels so that vitality of EO information productsand services could duly be recognized in drought risk reduction.

Integrating into the process of drought management: EO information prod-ucts and services could be integrated as drivers as well as entry point activities. Asdrivers to overall drought risk management system, they have demonstrated theirpotentials in terms of providing decision support to policy (macro, micro and cross-sectional) as well as inputs to the process of transparent governance through reliefand entitlements related activities. Entry Point Activities (EPAs), in the present con-text, envisage recognizing the operationally EO products and services as in-season,timely and objective knowledge product, which help in enhancing the scope ofdrought management (Fig. 6) (ESCAP, 2004).

Drought risk assessment - Concept and Strategy: The development of riskassessment is primarily hampered by lack of adequate data, followed by inade-quate institutional and technical capacity or resources, and policy support in thedeveloping countries. EO products and services have addressed the existing gapsto a certain extent. In the most simplistic term, drought risk assessment is thederivatives of other maps such as land use/cropping system (based on multi-spectralhigh resolution EO products), climate vulnerability (historical coarse resolution EOproducts in conjunction with weather data (CEOS, 2001)) and socio vulnerability

Local AdaptiveStrategies

(assets, knowledge,technology, institutions)

ExternalTechnology and

Investment(space information products

and services)

Policy (macro-microcross-section)

and Governance

DroughtRisk

Management

(Entry Point)

(Drivers)

Fig. 6 Space info products and services – as drivers and entry point activities for risk managementprocess

406 S.K. Srivastava et al.

Fig. 7 A simple approach todevelop drought riskassessment

MultispectralHigh Resolution

EO Products

Census andSurvey Data

CoarseResolution

EO Products

Land use/CroppingSystem

Services

SocialVulnerability

Services

ClimateVulnerability

Hazard

Drought Risk Assessment

(community profiling based on census and survey data). Aggregating all these en-able hazard zonation and risk assessment (Fig. 7). While climate vulnerability isa natural hazard, other two are essentially need to be serviced to establish theequilibrium. The ‘best practices’, related to hazard zonation and risk assessment,have demonstrated the operational viability of this approach. For example, muti-datesatellite data when integrated with land cover, climate and poverty (based on household census and survey data) could produce risk assessment. Based on frequency, itis possible to identify those village and vulnerable people who live with maximumrisks. They could be targeted for various interventions such insurance coverage,regulations etc.

Drought Mitigation - Need for large scale operationalization: The best ofEO products and services, especially in support of developing countries, is to drivedrought mitigation efforts through natural resources management, especially soiland water conservation. While the vitality of EO products is recognized in suchendeavours, efforts are necessary to focus on expanding their large-scale opera-tionalization. The issue in this context lies in the ability of developing countries todevelop and integrate appropriately certain EO products and services, which couldstrengthen their drought mitigation efforts.

Acknowledgments The authors are grateful to Mr Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO/Secretary,Department of Space for having given ideas to conceive this manuscript. The authors also thank-fully acknowledge contributors from ISRO family and the entire Indian EO community comprisingCentral/State Government Departments, Academia, Private Entrepreneur, Non-GovernmentalOrganizations, etc,

Acronyms

AVHRR Advanced Very High Resolution RadiometerAWiFS Advanced Wide Field Sensor

EO Products for Drought Risk Reduction 407

CBDM Community Based Drought ManagementCC Cost of cultivationCEOS Committee of Earth Observation SystemsDPAP Drought Prone Areas ProgrammeDSS Decision Support SystemENSO El Nino and South OscillationEO Earth ObservationEPA Entry Point ActivitiesESCAP Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the PacificEWS Early Warning SystemFAO Food and Agricultural OrganisationFASAL Forecasting Agricultural Output using Space-borne, Agro-

meteorological and Land ObservationsGAC Global Area CoverageGIS Geographical Information SystemGVI Global Vegetation IndexIPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeISDR Inter-agency Secretariat of International Strategy for Disas-

ter ReductionLAI Leaf Area IndexMDR Mean Damage RatioMSP Minimum Support PriceNADAMS National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring

SystemNDVI Normalised Difference Vegetation IndexNGO Non-Government OrganisationNOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationNRSA National Remote Sensing AgencyNWDPRA National Watershed Development Programme for Rainfed

AreasSPI Standardised Precipitation IndexSWI Standardised Water-Level IndexSWIR Short Wave Infra RedTCI Temperature Condition IndexVCI Vegetation Condition IndexVHI Vegetation Health Index

References

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Bryant, E. A. (1991). Natural Hazards. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CEOS (2001). The Use of Earth Observing Satellites for Hazard Support: Assessment and

Scenario, Final Report of Disaster Management Support Group. Committee on EarthObservation Satellites. NOAA publication.

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ESCAP (2004). UNESCAP Regional Workshop on Agricultural Drought Monitoring andAssessment using Space Technology, Hyderabad, India, 3–7 May, 2004. Economic and SocialCommission for Asia and the Pacific.

FAO (2002). Report of FAO-CRIDA Expert Group Consultation on Farming System and BestPractices for Drought-prone Areas of Asia and the Pacific Region. Food and AgriculturalOrganisation of United Nations. Published by Central Research Institute for DrylandAgriculture, Hyderabad, India.

IPCC (1996). The Science of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group I to the SecondAssessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

IPCC (2001). Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to theThird Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Chapter 18, Adap-tation to Climate Change in the Context of Sustainable Development and Equity. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

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ISDR (2004). Living with Risk: A Global Review of Disaster Reduction Initiatives (Vol 2). UnitedNations Inter-agency Secretariat of International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. New York andGeneva.

Jayaraman, V. (2004). Use of EO in Breaking Poverty, Drought and Environmental Degra-dation Nexus, Paper presented at the UNESCAP Regional Workshop on AgriculturalDrought Monitoring and Assessment using Space Technology, May 3–7, 2004, Hyderabad,India.

Jayaraman, V., Parihar, J.S. and Srivastava, S.K. (2007). Rejuvenation of Agriculture in India: CostBenefits in using EO Products. Acta Astronautica (In Press).

Jayaraman, V., Srivastava, S.K. and Gowrisankar, D. (2006). EO Ethics for the Poor, Paper pre-sented at the 57th International Astronautical Congress, October 2–6, 2006, Valencia, Spain.

Jeyaseelan, A.T. and Chandrasekar, K. (2002). Satellite based Identification for Updation ofDroughtprone Area in India, Paper presented at the ISPRS Commission VII Symposium,Resources and Environment Monitoring, Vol 34, Part 7, Hyderabad, India

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Kogan, F.N. (2001). Operational Space Technology for Global Vegetation Assessment. Bulletin ofthe American Meteorological Society, 82 (9), 1949–1964.

Kogan, F.N., Gitelson, A., Zakarin, E., Spivak, L. and Lebed, L. (2003). AVHRR-based SpectralVegetation Index for Quantitative Assessment of Vegetation State and Productivity: Calibrationand Validation. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 69(8), 899–906.

Krishna Murthy, Y.V.N and Joshi, A.K. (2004). Remote Sensing & GIS Application for thedevelopment planning of Chhattisgraph State. Paper presented at the ISRS National Conven-tion – 2004, November 2–5, 2004, Jaipur India.

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Part IVSpace Technologies for the Benefit

of Society

The Diffusion of Information Communicationand Space Technology Applications into society

Phillip Olla

Abstract There have been formidable advancements in space science and spacetechnology over the past five decades, yet most people instinctively associatethese advancements to deep space flights, lunar stations, and thrilling outer spaceadventures. The fact is that the majority of the human technology in space, which iscomprised of interconnected satellites, points towards earth, and most of this tech-nology, is used to provide services and fulfill the goals for people on earth. Thegrowing role of space technology is so profound; it has become prevalent in earthysociety. In recent years The Information Technology (IT)/Information Systems (IS)professionals have began to comprehend the important role that must undertaken tosustain a viable biosphere. Over the next decade there will be an increased need forinnovative earth information systems to support the initiatives of the internationalspace community. This article describes some of the most important Information,Communication and Space Technology (ICST) applications being created, alongwith the space infrastructure upgrades underway to support these applications.

Keywords ICST · Space applications · FORSIA

Introduction

Two of the most important themes of the 21st century are the technological advance-ment leap and a realization for sustainable development initiatives due to dwindlingresources, population increases and climate change. The only viable solution toresolve the prevailing issues is to apply innovative technological concepts supportedby Space Information Systems to co-ordinate the complex relationship between manand the planet. “In the coming decades, changes in our environment and the resultingupheavals from droughts to inundated coastal areas to loss of arable land are likelyto become a major driver of war and conflict” Ban Kin Moon (Nichols, 2007).

P. Olla (B)Madonna University, School of Business, 36600 Schoolcraft rd, Livonia, Michigan 48150, USAe-mail: polla@madonna.edu

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 16, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

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414 P. Olla

The converged wired and wireless delivery channels, facilitated by terrestrialand space-based systems provides an effective means for increasing the diffusionof basic information services at a affordable cost. Using appropriate space basedtechnologies will facilitate last mile connectivity in the least developed countriesand small island nations. The integration of space technology with informationand communication technology has made ICST applications more accessible andaffordable, particularly in countries with appropriate national policies; enabling ICTenvironment; and public-private partnerships support. For the benefits to be realizedcountries must implement conducive policies, enabling institutionalized arrange-ments, and encouraging viable public-private partnership (UNESCO, 2007).

This article describes some of the most important Information, Communicationand Space Technology (ICST) applications being created, along with the spaceinfrastructure upgrades underway to support these applications. Satellites are rou-tinely used to support sustainable development as well as to manage natural re-sources and emergency situations. One of the key purposes of satellites is to generatedata that can be translated into information for decision-making.

This paper will utilize a theoretical model called FORSIA: Foresight, Space In-frastructure, Implementation and Applications to discuss the diffusion andimplementation ICST applications to identify Information Systems (IS)/InformationTechnology (IT) research themes. The frameworks will assess the opportunities andchallenges for IS/IT researchers. These research opportunities deal with the design,adoption, and impacts of space technological infrastructure on resolving some ofthe environmental challenges being faced by society.

This chapter is structured as follows; the first section will provide a synopsis ofthe impact of space technology on society along with the convergence with Infor-mation and Communication Technologies (ICT). The next section will introducethe FORSIA model and describe the four components. This will be followed by theconclusion.

Background

Space business (s-business) relates to any venture performed by a group of diverseactors leading to the provision of goods or services involving financial, commercialor humanitarian activity that is facilitated by the use of a space technological in-frastructure in the earth’s orbit. International competition and technical innovationshave led to a drop in the cost of ICST systems, products and services. A report byEuroconsult states that 175 to 200 communication satellites are likely to be launchedduring the period 2001–2010 (Euroconsult, 2007). The satellite broadband industryhas also seen tremendous growth and forecasts by Northern Sky estimates that de-mand for satellite bandwidth will grow from 33.5 Gbps in 2002 to 218.8 Gbps by2007 (NSR, 2007). The biggest problem with satellite broadband services is thehigh costs; Northern Sky also estimates that the cost of satellite broadband servicesis likely to be reduced by half by 2013. There has also been a gradual decline in

The diffusion of Information Communication and Space Technology 415

ground equipment. The cost of a VSAT was about US$10,000 in 1998, by 2005 thishad dropped to around US$ 1,100. There are also economic benefit to better commu-nications is also becoming more quantified. A European Union survey estimated thatsatellite broadband benefit/cost ratio is 1.69: 1 for Europe as a whole, and 1.32: 1for presently unconnected areas (ESA, 2004). The increasing cost effectiveness ofICST systems, products and services is likely to profoundly effect approaches togovernance, education, health care and economic development in the future.

There are numerous examples of cost effective application of remote sensingand GIS despite the high costs of commercial EO satellite imagery which canrange from 1,000 and 4,000 for a scene with ground resolution between 1 and10 m. Some examples applications include water resources management, infrastruc-ture, fisheries, agriculture and reclaiming environmentally degraded land. Typicallythe initial investment for acquiring and using the satellite images and data prod-ucts represents a fraction of the total project cost. There are tangible benefits thatare obtained from improved benchmarking, monitoring and evaluation (Jayaramanand Shrivastava, 2003). There has also been phenomenal growth online geospatialinformation services since the launch of Google Earth, It has been estimated that themarket for Internet-based spatial information services is worth billions of dollars ayear (UNESCO, 2007).

In developed nations, the use of space technology has a strong place in modernapplications; the areas that rely heavily on space infrastructures include meteorologysystems, mobile communication systems, television broadcasting, natural resourcemanagement, all forms of navigation, health, environmental management anddisaster management, which consequently touches virtually every facet of humanendeavor. It is therefore no surprise that s-business is anticipated to be a signifi-cant growth industry in the 21st century, leading to technological developments inseveral fields ranging from telecommunications, tele-health, tele-education, multi-media, opto-electronics, robotics, life sciences, energy and nanotechnology (Hukillet al., 2000).

The realm of space we are discussing is within the earths orbit not outer space.The space technological artefacts are made up of different types of satellites.These include Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites circling the earth 100 to 300 milesabove the earth’s surface or Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites circling at 6,000 to12,000 miles above the earth in medium altitude orbit. It takes MEO satellites from 4to 8 h to go around the earth. A satellite in Geostationary Earth Orbit GEO circles theearth in 24 h. These satellites collectively provide the infrastructure that is referredto as the, ‘space technological infrastructure’. Although the space technologicalinfrastructure is primarily composed of the satellites in orbit, the supporting infras-tructure is a collection of interconnected technological artefact, social processes andorganizational elements that enable space data to be collected, processed, stored andbroadcast to devices or base stations on earth. Once this data is received on earth itcan be translated into meaningful information leading to knowledge which can beused to aid the decision making process.

There are a five established discernible space infrastructures: Telecommunica-tion, location and positioning, broadcasting, earth observation, and Micro Gravity

416 P. Olla

Research (ISS), each has a specialised function, but the there is an increasing themeof convergence between the infrastructures. The data retrieved from space infras-tructures has proven to be indispensable in many applications of remote sensing,communication and navigation and will definitely continue to impact the on modernsociety while advancing our knowledge about the universe and the earth. There arealso some emerging infrastructures that the will create new markets in the futuresuch as space tourism, disaster prediction and global resource management.

Over the past few years space business has seen substantial investment in theestablished space infrastructure, with technological improvements to launch equip-ment, satellites and user devices, which is creating an increase in the capabilities ofdownstream market applications and brings down the cost to use space infrastruc-ture. Over the next decade significant advancements are planned to each of the fivespace infrastructure that open up a new era for research. There advancements willbe discussed in this chapter along with the implication for research opportunities.Although Space technology has advanced rapidly in recent years, a number of coun-tries still lack the human, technical and financial resources required to conduct eventhe most basic space-related activities, such as meteorology, communications andnatural-resource management. The need to make the benefits of space technologyavailable to all countries has thus grown more urgent with each passing year (UN-Publication, 2004). One of t he key benefit of s-business is that the global infrastruc-ture and services such as tele-medicine and tele-education become a possibility.

Space Data is Overwhelming: the Needfor a Partnership Approach

Google dissects the final frontier with the ‘Space Act Agreement’ concept.NASA now possesses more data about earth and the universe than any other

organization or country has ever held in the history of humanity. Although thisinformation was collected and processed for the benefit of all mankind, the attemptsto publish this in the public domain are not as easy as it sounds. It is extremely dif-ficult for non-experts to access this information and even more difficult for decisionmakers to make sense of the information. The bulk of the formation is scatteredamong different organizations’ servers in a multitude of formats which makes itcomplicated for non-experts to access. Current efforts are not sufficient to han-dle this data and new initiatives and techniques are being investigated (NewSci-entist, 2006).

One approach that shows considerable promise is collaboration between theprivate and public sectors. Space Organizations such as NASA, ESA and ISROare establishing partnerships with the private sector to encourage innovation. Anexample of such private and public collaboration is the recent alliance of Googleand NASA to form the “Space Act Agreement” partnership. This agreement guar-antees a working relationship to collaborate on a range of complicated technicalproblems ranging from large-scale data management (distributed computing), to

The diffusion of Information Communication and Space Technology 417

human-computer interfaces. NASA and Google aim to deploy valuable portions ofNASA’s vast information available on the Internet. Examples of space data currentlyin discussion for release over the web include: data sets for Google earth; real-timeweather visualization and forecasting; high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon andMars; and real-time tracking data of the International Space Station and the spaceshuttle. This is leading to the next generation of space applications, which are freelyavailable to any user via a web browser similar to a typical Web 2.0 application.

FORSIA Framework: A Model for Innovationin ICST Applications

Over the last decade ICT applications have witnessed an increased convergence withspace technology. The growth of this new domain will create more opportunities andmarkets for the development and application of other ICT branches.

This section will utilize a theoretical model called FORSIA: Foresight, SpaceInfrastructure, Implementation and Applications to discuss the adoption andimplementation ICST applications. The FORSIA theoretical model for creatingspace applications and infrastructure can be described in four stages: foresight,creating/upgrading the space infrastructure, technical implementation, and launchof earth information applications. These are discussed below.

Policy FrameworkRegulationPlanning

Approach to encouraging innovationLegislation

Space Agencies (ESA,CSA,NASA)

Non Governmental Bodies (OECD,UN,ITU, GEO)

Private Investors (Virgin,SpaxeX)

Foresight

Actors

Global Communication networkBroadband satellite NetworkIntegrated Global Positioning

SystemsEarth Observation Systems of

SystemsSatellite Internet & Broadcasting

Launch equipment providersNetwork Operators

Device manufacturesSatellite operators

Space Infrastructure

Actors

Location ServicesTV Direct to Home (DTH)

Search and Rescue Mobile Telephony

Earth Observation SystemMapping services

Broadband Internet

ConsumersCorporate users

Aid agencies

Applications

Actors

Business processesIntegration to terrestrial systems

Identification of opportunities Data Conversion & processing

Innovative business models

IS/IT ProfessionalsPublic Private InitiativesAcademic & Research

community

Implementation

Actors

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Fig. 1 FORSAI theoretical model for innovation in ICST applications

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Creating Foresight (Stage 1)

The EU Forera program (FORERA: Foresight for the European Research Area)describes foresight as a theoretical framework for a group of people with a commonobjective to jointly think about the future in a structured and constructive way. Thegroup are typically experts in fields related to the issue being analysed. Foresightprovides a number of tools to support participants (i.e. policy makers and otherstakeholders) to develop visions of the future and pathways towards these visions.Foresight will typically involve the following activities (Forera, 2007):

� Employ critical thinking concerning long-term developments.� Debate issues and create initiatives that lead to wider participation in decisions.� Develop initiatives that are likely to shape the future, especially by influencing

public opinion, public policy and strategic decisions.

Foresight involves systematic attempts to look into longer-term future of scienceand technologies and their potential impacts on society with a view of identifyingthe areas of scientific research and technological development likely to influencechange and produce the greatest economic, environmental and social benefits forthe future (10–25 years). Corporate foresight is also becoming more professionaland widespread (Andreas et al., 2005). It is not only used in strategy development,but also increasingly in innovation development as well as Research and market-ing activities. Foresight differs from strategic planning as it encompasses a rangeof approaches that combine the three core components (Ratcliffe, 2005) futures(forecasting, forward thinking, prospective), planning (strategic analysis, prioritysetting), and networking (participatory, dialogic) tools and orientations.

Investment in space infrastructure is a continuous undertaking as replacing spacetechnology is a costly affair, and it must be phased appropriately. Foresight is oneof the most important drivers for space infrastructure upgrades and typically willbe driven by legislation, regulation, or a policy framework such as the Global EarthObservation System of Systems (GEOSS). From an Earth Observation (EO) per-spective GEOSS is the most important initiative of the decade. The GEOSS was setup to address the challenges articulated by United Nations Millennium Declarationand the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. The vision for GEOSSis to “realize a future wherein decisions and actions for the benefit of humankindare informed by coordinated, comprehensive and sustained Earth observations andinformation.” (GEO-Secretariat, 2006). The five declarations and legal principlesare governing the activities of countries in the exploration and use of outer space,adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UN, 1999):

1. The Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in theExploration and Uses of Outer Space (General Assembly resolution 1962 (XVIII)of 13 December 1963);

2. The Principles Governing the Use by States of Artificial Earth Satellites forInternational Direct Television Broadcasting (resolution 37/92 of 10 December1982);

The diffusion of Information Communication and Space Technology 419

3. The Principles Relating to Remote Sensing of the Earth from Outer Space (reso-lution 41/65 of 3 December 1986);

4. The Principles Relevant to the Use of Nuclear Power Sources in Outer Space(resolution 47/68 of 14 December 1992);

5. The Declaration on International Cooperation in the Exploration and Use ofOuter Space for the Benefit and in the Interest of All States, Taking into ParticularAccount the Needs of Developing Countries (resolution 51/122 of 13 December1996).

In addition to the policy based initiatives that have driven the advancements anddevelopment of space infrastructure for decades, there has been significant changesin funding space research and innovation. The last decade has seen a new generationof entrepreneurs entering the space arena (see Fig. 2 & 3). Another new concept isprize competitions such as the Xprize and NASA Challenge.

The X PRIZE Foundation creates and manages prizes that drive innovators tosolve some of the greatest challenges facing the world today. There are two impor-tant space based initiatives that have caught the imagination of a variety of groupsincluding scientists, entrepreneurs, researchers, media, and government bodies. Thefirst initiative was the Ansari X prize. he X PRIZE Foundation awarded $10 millionAnsari X PRIZE, to Mojave Aerospace Ventures for the flight of SpaceShipOne. Towin the prize, famed aerospace designer Burt Rutan and financier Paul Allen fromMicrosoft led the first private team to build and launch a spacecraft capable of car-rying three people to 100 km above the earth’s surface, twice within two weeks. Tentimes the amount of the prize purse was spent by the competitors trying to win theprize. The Ansari X PRIZE changed the way the public perceives spaceflight. Thenext major space challenge is the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge isdesigned to accelerate commercial technological developments supporting the birthof a new generation of Lunar Landers capable of ferrying payloads or humans backand forth between lunar orbit and the lunar surface. This competition is divided intotwo levels of complexity. The first requires a rocket to take off from a launch area,rocket up to 150 feet (50 m) altitude, then hover for 90 s while landing precisely on

Challenge Name Prize Partner Organization2008 Regolith Excavation

Challenge$750 K California Space Education & Workforce

Institute (CSEWI)2008 Personal Air Vehicle

Challenge$300 K Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency

(CAFE) FoundationMoon Regolith Oxygen

Extraction (MoonROx)Challenge

$1 M California Space Education & WorkforceInstitute (CSEWI)

2008 Beam Power Challenge $900 K The Spaceward Foundation2008 Tether Challenge $900 K The Spaceward Foundation)2008 Astronaut Glove

Challenge$400 K Volanz Aerospace Inc./Spaceflight

AmericaLunar Lander Challenge $2 M The X PRIZE Foundation

Fig. 2 Open challenges (Source NASA http://centennialchallenges.nasa.gov/)

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Challenge Prize Winner2007 Beam Power Challenge $500 K None2007 Tether Challenge $500 K NoneLunar Lander Challenge $2 M None

$100 K Vantage Prize Vance Turner$50 K Noise Prize Dave & Diane Anders$25 K Handling Qualities John Rehn

2007 Personal Air Vehicle Challenge $25 K Shortest Runway Prize Vance Turner$25 K Efficiency Prize Vance Turner$15 K Top Speed First Prize Dave & Diane Anders$10 K Top Speed Second Prize Vance Turner

2007 Regolith Excavation Challenge $250 K None2007 Astronaut Glove Challenge $200 K Peter Homer2006 Beam Power Challenge $200 K None2006 Tether Challenge $200 K None2006 Lunar Lander Challenge $2 M None2005 Beam Power Challenge $50 K None2005 Tether Challenge $50 K None

Fig. 3 Completed challenges (Source NASA http://centennialchallenges.nasa.gov/)

a landing pad 100 m away. The flight must then be repeated in reverse—and bothflights, along with all of the necessary preparation for each, must take place withina two and a half hour period. The second level will requires the rocket to hover fortwice as long before landing precisely on a simulated lunar surface, packed withcraters and boulders to mimic actual lunar terrain. The hover times are calculatedso that the Level 2 mission closely simulates the power needed to perform the reallunar mission. The prize is 30 Million, but it is not about the money, the prize is theprestige and the possible contracts that follow.

Another interesting approach is the NASA Centennial Challenges. NASA’s hasdeveloped a program of prize contests to stimulate innovation and competition insolar system exploration from non-traditional sources of innovation in academia,industry and the public. NASA Centennial challenges typically focus on ongoingNASA mission areas. The table below illustrates some of NASAs current and com-pleted Centennial Challenges.

Space Infrastructure Upgrades (Stage 2)

Innovation in the communication and broadcasting satellites market has occurred ata steady pace due to the commercial nature of these markets. Commercial commu-nications satellites are being upgraded to transmit data more efficiently. Broadcast-ing satellites are being launched with more interactive features. Earth Observation(EO) and Navigation satellites have seen relatively more sluggish progress untilnow. A variety of current initiatives are contributing to more accessible, precise andadvanced space infrastructure from a Navigation and EO perspective.

The diffusion of Information Communication and Space Technology 421

Earth Monitoring

Telecomunication

Location andNavigation

Broadband Internet

Entertainment & Media

TV Broadcasting Radio Broadcasting

Global Applications and Services

Micro Gravity Research & Space Tourism

ISS Virgin Space

SpaceTechnologicalInfrastructure

Convergence

Fig. 4 ICST Application domains

There are certain space-based technologies that have seen considerable advances.The performances of communication satellites have increased 100% due to intro-duction of powerful transponders. Earth Observation has observed considerableadvances in terms of improvements in spatial, spectral and temporal resolution,convergence with geo-informatics technologies such as satellite positioning, andsuperior methods of calibration, validation and data assimilation. The resultantproducts and services have included routine mapping of the Earth’s surface some100 times more accurate than in 1994. A similar level of improvement has alsotaken place in the ability to produce digital maps, predict El Nino and La Nina,and forecast the formation and movement of tropical cyclones or typhoons. Thereis no question that these advances have provided beneficial social impacts and asa result, space technology has transitioned from an optional emerging tool to uni-versally critical infrastructure for national development. The satellite performancewhich has advanced by two orders since 1994 is known as the 100 times syndrome(UNESCAP-Report, 2002). The following section will describe the space infrastruc-tures illustrated in Fig. 4

The Future Navigations and Positioning Infrastructure

From a Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) perspective, not only will theUS Global Positioning System GPS and the Russian Global Navigation SatelliteSystem (GLONASS) undergo some major upgrades; a new European constellation

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called Galileo will be in operation by 2008 (Olla, 2005). GPS and GLONASS arecurrently used to monitor and track fishing vessels, vehicles transporting goods orhazardous materials, and even animals in their natural habitat; Galileo is expected tointroduce new business models for GNSS applications. Uses of GNSS applicationsare growing in areas such as aviation, maritime and land transportation, mappingand surveying, precision agriculture, power and telecommunications networks, anddisaster warning and emergency response (UN, 2005). ABI Research estimated that2007 satellite navigation hardware was $33 billion, a $6 billion increase from 2006.This is due to the falling prices for all types of hardware and dramatic volumeincreases in the sales of Portable Navigation Devices (PND) and satellite navigation-equipped mobile phones in Europe and North America. ABI Research anticipatesthat satellite navigation market will grow to $54 billion worldwide by 2011.

Earth Information Systems: The Future of Earth Observation

Earth observation satellites (EOS) monitor the land surface, oceans and the atmo-sphere, and identify changes over a period of time. Earth observation satellites arenow considered to be routine and essential tools in supporting efforts to protect thebiosphere. The five key characteristics of EOS include coverage, repetition, speed,consistency, and accuracy. EOS Global coverage makes them ideal for importantstudies of large-scale phenomena such as ocean circulation, climate change, defor-estation and desertification. They are also important for cost-effective monitoring ofremote or dangerous areas.

Effectively managing earth’s human and natural ecosystem requires pertinentinformation that is timely, of known quality, long-term, and global. Currently itis the role of the governments to guarantee that such information is available tothose who need it. Despite commendable efforts to ensure the availability of infor-mation, the current situation is far from optimal in regard to coordination and datasharing among countries, organizations and disciplines. This will change with theimplementation of the GEOSS (GEO-Secretariat, 2006). At the international level,the evolving Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) an opportunityfor EO to provide increased benefits to society. GEOSS now consists of more than60 countries and 40 participating organizations. The GEOSS 10-year implementa-tion plan2 defined specific targets within nine societal benefit areas: disasters, health,energy, climate, water, weather, ecosystems, agriculture and biodiversity.

Implementation: Technical Challenges and Opportunitiesfor the IT/IS Community (Stage 3)

For the general population to benefit from space data generated from the next gen-eration of EO and Navigation systems, the data must be made available via standardweb browser and incorporated into business decision support systems. An exam-ple of an intriguing application is the iEarth interactive application. This system

The diffusion of Information Communication and Space Technology 423

aims to address NASA’s problem regarding terabytes of weather data generated byNASA’s Earth Observing infrastructure to determine how to add value to anyoneoutside NASA. The iEarth software searches the large databanks for informationand converts it into a file that can be viewed via Google Earth. Choosing a spot onthe planet’s surface will prompt iEarth to display ground-based measurements forthat location, as well as data relating to the atmosphere and space above it (NewSci-entist, 2006). Some fundamental technological challenges specified by the GEOSSneed to be addressed (GEO-Secretariat, 2006) are as follows:

� Architecture and Interoperability: It is important that EO data/informationproviders agree to a set of interoperability standards, including technical specifi-cations for collecting, processing, storing, and disseminating shared data, meta-data and products.

� Interface Standards: Interoperability should also focus on downstream inter-faces, defining procedures for communication between systems minimizing anyimpact on affected systems.

� Data Sharing: The societal benefits of Earth observations cannot be achievedwithout data sharing. Establishing data sharing principles will ensure that datawill be available to the research community. This should include full and openexchange of data, metadata, and products shared via the GEOSS mechanism,with minimum time delay and at minimum or no cost for research and education.

Fig. 5 Earth monitoring system

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� Aligning Research Agendas: Educate the research industry to increase its gen-eral awareness of the benefits of ITCS applications and services. The scientificand the IT communities need to advocate research and development in key areasto encourage the integration of space data on an ongoing basis. Some exam-ple projects that incorporate space data include life-cycle data management,data integration and information fusion, data mining, network enhancement, anddesign optimization studies.

� Semantic Web: The Semantic Web aims will allow the development of easy touse applications and transparent access to services and data, by giving machineunderstandable meaning (semantics) to services as well as contents on the Web,and to create a universal medium for information exchange. In particular, the Se-mantic Web Services (SWS) technology provides an infrastructure in which newITCS services can be added, discovered and composed continually (Berners-Leeet al., 2001) The approach of using traditional Geographical Information Systems(GIS) is not always satisfactory; users have to cope with distributed heteroge-neous data sources to find appropriate resources for particular situations. Devel-opments in the field of Semantic Web Services (SWS) show the opportunity ofadding higher semantic levels to the existing frameworks, to improve their usageand ease scalability(Vlad, 2006).

� Convergence: One of the real challenges involves understanding the opportuni-ties that come from the convergence phenomenon. Advances in the convergenceof space and ICT technologies are pointing towards a new set of applications.The main elements of this convergence have occurred due to breakthroughs indigital technologies – including improved networking, transmission capabilities,and advances in geo-informatics. An example of this convergence is the launchof a new direct-to-home (DTH) and direct-to-office services based on remotesensing and GIS.

ICST Applications (Stage 4)

There is a need for new research that investigates how to integrate the new ICSTdata into existing applicatio4ns and information super highway solutions. Emergingtechnological advances are impacting satellite design and the next generation ofcapabilities will bring space-based systems and space-enabled ICT services asso-ciated with the information superhighway much closer to the global society, bringspace technology closer to a people’s everyday lives. Developments in satellite com-munications are a good example of this. The implementation of Hybrid networkssuch as satellite with cellular or Satellite with WiMAX, are creating more flexibil-ity architectures leading to cost-effective communication solutions for a variety ofmarkets as depicted in Fig. 6.

Earth observation (EO) technologies have undergone phenomenal improvementsover the last decade. A variety of sensors and platforms have been developed byall major space agencies in to address science and environment related issues.High-resolution imaging has moved to the commercial arena. The implementation

The diffusion of Information Communication and Space Technology 425

PrecisionAgriculture

Forests &Land cover

ClimateForecasting

DigitalDivide

Disasters

OceanMonitoring

EnvironmentalMonitoring

HealthForecasting

Fig. 6 Applications for earth information systems

of constellations of smaller, faster and cheaper satellite missions have emerged asimportant tools to capture real-time data on natural disasters and also to continu-ously monitor them. Most international cartographic organizations have acknowl-edged the value of investment in Spatial Data Infrastructure, which has facilitatedthe growth of geo-informatics as a major global enterprise.

Consumer Web Mash-ups

Mashups are Web-based data integration applications. They provide an emphasis oninteractive user participation and the ability to aggregate and stitch third-party datatogether in a single interface. A mashup Web site is unique in the way it accesses dif-ferent type of content from various data sources that lay outside of its organizational

426 P. Olla

boundaries. Mashups are increasingly using data collected from space based infras-tructure and as more data becomes available there will be more opportunities toincorporate the data into decision support systems and consumer websites usingAPI’S information(Merrill, 2006). Example of Mashups include Googles popularstreet view and weather bonk: http://www.weatherbonk.com/APIs Google AdWords + Google

Maps + hostip.info +Microsoft VirtualEarth + NASA + NOAAWeather Service +WeatherBug + YahooGeocoding + YahooMaps + Yahoo Traffic

Disasters Monitoring and Mitigation Applications

Data from space infrastructure can be fed into Decision Support Systems (DSS)to facilitate more timely dissemination of information through better coordinatedsystems for monitoring, predicting, risk assessment, early warning, mitigating, andresponding to hazards at local, national, regional, and global levels. Disaster losses

Fig. 7 Example of comsumer web mash-up http:// www.weatherbonk.com/

The diffusion of Information Communication and Space Technology 427

can be reduced for hazards such as: wildland fires; volcanic eruptions; earthquakes;tsunamis; subsidence; landslides; avalanches; ice; floods; extreme weather; and pol-lution events (UN, 2005).

Until the GEOSS is up and running, a group known as The International Charterwill aim to provide a unified system of space data acquisition and delivery to thoseaffected by natural or man-made disasters (Int-Charter, 2007). The InternationalCharter was declared formally operational on November 1, 2000. This is a great ini-tiative; however, it does not go far enough because the information is only availableto a select group of users.

Health Forecasting Services

There is no denying that the urban environment can have adverse effects on ourhealth. Health forecasts help professionals and patients know when and where thereis a risk of illness. Through this understanding, preventative action can be taken.Parameters that need to be monitored with space technology include: airborne ele-ments, marine samples, and water pollution; stratospheric ozone depletion; persis-tent organic pollutants; nutrition; and weather-related disease vectors. Integratingdata retrieved from space infrastructure into terrestrial systems will improve theflow of appropriate environmental data and health statistics to the health commu-nity. An example of an innovative health forecasting project is being run jointlyby the Met Office and the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom.This operational project was initiated in 2001 to generate a computer model thatmonitored real-time activity combined with infectious disease surveillance data andsatellite data. The system generates biweekly workload predictions for the NHS(White, 2001). Flash telephone warnings are also given to ambulance services andemergency departments if snow or ice threatens to increase falls or trauma. ChronicObstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) health forecasts are used to ensure thatpatients with these long-term conditions achieve their potential for independenceand well-being. Admission Forecasts assist the NHS to predict fluctuations in work-load across a set of clinical conditions.

Climate Forecast Information Systems

Better understanding of the climate and its impacts on the Earth’s system, includingits human and economic aspects, will contribute to improved climate predictionand facilitate sustainable development while avoiding dangerous perturbation to theclimate system. Climate forecasts can have immense benefit to businesses and gov-ernments but are currently not fulfilling their potential. Researchers in the USA haveproposed a national climate service to assist in natural disaster planning and prepa-ration, resource management, and energy usage. Even though climate forecasts haveimproved over the decades, hurricane Katrina was still caused more than 1,200 fatal-ities and more than $100 billion in damage last year (Miles et al. 2006). A climateservice could monitor long-term weather trends and create routine global climate

428 P. Olla

predictions for individuals, businesses and governments. Such a service could be inplace within five years.

Marine Reserves Monitoring Systems

Space technology can be used to improve the management and protection of terres-trial, coastal and marine resources, providing continuity of observations for moni-toring wild fisheries, the carbon and nitrogen cycles, canopy properties, ocean color,and temperature. Over the decades numerous proponents have suggested that settingaside parts of the ocean can safeguard against many threats facing marine organisms(Bohnsack, 1996). More marine reserves in which fishing is banned are needed toprotect marine organisms and the fisheries that depend on them. Ocean reserves aresupported by groups such as Greenpeace. Although this approach will be controver-sial initially, the options are limited due to the dwindling fish stocks and the largenumber of ocean dead spots appearing around the globe. Once the ocean reservesbecome law, the key issue will be how we enforce them. The efficient approachwould use a combination of GNNS and GEOS solutions. Navigation technologywould be used to monitor the boundaries and human activities in the surroundingneutral zones. Earth observation technology would then be used to monitor the habi-tat of the ocean reserve.

Precision Agriculture

Precision farming techniques use information from remote sensing, integrated withnavigation satellites, to produce accurate, up-to-date maps of features such as theexact distribution of pest infestations or areas of water stress on a farm. This allowspesticides, water and fertilizers to be targeted to areas where they are most needed;this not only saves money but also may reduce the environmental impact. PrecisionAgriculture systems can monitor crop production; livestock, aquaculture and fisherystatistics; food security and drought projections; nutrient balances; farming systems;land use; and land cover change (UN, 2005).

Digital Divide

There have been considerable advances in broadcasting and navigation segmentshowever the satellite broadband field has also seen tremendous growth. Satellitebroadband has considerable advantages in places where optical-fiber is not avail-able. While Optical fiber has a role play as the backbone of the Internet and todominate transoceanic broadband capacity, satellites will play a key role in largegeographical areas where terrestrial infrastructure is not available or is not cost-efficient. Satellites play a key role in communication, as they transmit informa-tion from one point to another without the need for ground-based infrastructure.Hence, they are ideal for situations where the infrastructure has been temporarilydamaged by natural or man-made disasters. Communication satellites can reachpeople in remote villages as well as ships on the high seas. In 2004, the Indian

The diffusion of Information Communication and Space Technology 429

Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched the world’s first dedicated educa-tional satellite, EDUSAT, allowing millions of illiterate people in remote, rural Indiato have access to an education. This is a necessity in a country where 35% of thecountry’s billion-plus population is illiterate. The satellite cost $20 million and thelaunch vehicle an additional $35 million. The system is now fully operational, withsatellite links that can broadcast to 5,000 remote terminals (ISRO-Home, 2006).

Conclusion

Just as broadcasting satellites have transformed the mechanism by which developingnations receive media content, communication satellites are becoming a key compo-nent in improving education, health care and the standard of living. Understandingthe Earth’s system such as its climate, oceans, atmosphere, natural resources, andecosystems is crucial to enhancing human health, safety and welfare, alleviatinghuman suffering and achieving sustainable development. The successful integrationof Space-generated Earth observation data and products with web-based informationsystem requires a decisive role by the IT community. Advances in technical infras-tructure will ensure that we can provide a more complete view and understanding ofthe global challenges we are facing to allow the decision makers to make intelligentand informed decisions.

References

Andreas, N., and Cornelia, D. (Eds.). (2005). Corporate Foresight: The European Experience. In:Foresight, Innovation, and Strategy. Toward a Wiser Future: Bethesda p. 35.

Berners-Lee, T., Hendler, J., and Lassila, O. (2001). The Semantic Web. Scientific American,284(34–43).

Bohnsack, J. A. (1996). Marine reserves, zoning, and the future of fishery management. Fisheries,21(9), 14–16.

ESA. (2004). European Space Agency Report, Technical assistance in bridging the digital divide:a cost-benefit analysis for broadband connectivity in Europe, October 2004.

Euroconsult. (2007). World Satellite Communications & Broadcasting Markets Survey, Forecaststo 2016. http://www.euroconsult-ec.com/research reports space.php.

Forera. (2007). http://forera.jrc.es/index.html.GEO-Secretariat. (2006). Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Work Plan.

Group on Earth Observations. Retrieved, March 2007, from the World Wide Web: http://www.earthobservations.org/doc library/doc library.html.

Hukill, M., Ono, R., and Vallath, C. (2000). Electronic Communication Convergence: Policy Chal-lenges in Asia. (Eds.) London.

Int-Charter. (2007). Charter On Cooperation To Achieve The Coordinated Use Of Space FacilitiesIn The Event Of Natural Or Technological Disasters. Retrieved, March 2007, from the WorldWide Web: http://www.disasterscharter.org/main e.html.

ISRO-Home. (2006). Space Technology for Rural Development and Education. Developmentand Educational Communication Unit. Retrieved, March 2007, from the World Wide Web:http://www.isro.org/decu/projects/edusat.htm.

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Jayaraman, V., and Shrivastava, S. K. (2003). overty mapping and monitoring using informationtechnology: Learning and perspectives from India. Paper presented at the Ad Hoc Expert GroupMeeting on Poverty Mapping and Monitoring Using Information Technology, Bangkok, 18–20August, 2003.

Merrill, D. (2006). Mashups: The new Breed of Web Applications. IBM, http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-mashups.html.

Miles, E. L., A. K. Snover, L. C. Whitely Binder, E. Sarachik, P. W. Mote, and N. J. Mantua. (2006).An approach to designing a National Climate Service. Proceedings of the National Academiesof Sciences, 103(52), 19616–19623.

NewScientist. (2006, 15 December 2006). NASA overwhelmed by climate data. New Scientistmagazine, 2582, 23.

Nichols, M. (2007, 01 Mar 2007 18:07:49 GMT). Climate change as dangerous as war. Reutershttp://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N01294252.htm.

NSR. (2007). Broadband Satellite Markets 5th Edition. http://www.nsr.com/Reports/SatelliteReports/BBSM6.html.

Olla, P. (2005). Global Navigation Satellite Systems,. In M. Pagani (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Multi-media Technology and Networking: Idea Group Publishing.

Ratcliffe, J. (2005). Challenges for Corporate Foresight: Towards Strategic Prospective ThroughScenario Thinking. Paper presented at the conference Foresight Management in Corporationsand Public Organizations, Helsinki, Sweden.

UN. (1999). United Nations treaties and principles on outer space Text and status of treaties andprinciples. Paper presented at the Third United Nations Global Conference on the Explorationand Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNISPACE III). UN Vienna Astria.

UN. (2005). SPACE SOLUTIONS: for the World’s Problems How the United Nations family usesspace technology for achieving development goals: UNITED NATIONS.

UNESCAP-Report. (2002). Towards a policy framework for integrating space technology applica-tions for sustainable development on the information superhighway.Unpublished manuscript.

UNESCO. (2007). Information, Communication And Space Technology Applications For TheAchievement Of The Millennium Development Goals And The Goals Of Major World Summits:Trends, Challenges And Issues. Paper presented at the Third Ministerial Conference on SpaceApplications for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific, Kuala Lumpar.

UN-Publication. (2004). UN/USA Workshops on the Use and Applications of Global Nav-igation Satellite Systems. Office for Outer Space Affairs - http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SAP/gnss/index.html. Retrieved, 2004, from the World Wide Web:

Vlad, T. (2006). A Semantic Web GIS based Emergency Management System. Paper presentedat the The Semantic Web – ISWC 2006, 5th International Semantic Web Conference, 2006,Proceedings. ISBN 3-540-49029-9, Athens, GA, USA, November 5–9.

White, C. (2001). Weather reports to be used to forecast NHS workload. British Medical Journal,323(7301), August 4, 2001.

Humanitarian Aids Using Satellite Technology

Mattia Stasolla and Paolo Gamba

Abstract One of the main topics the remote sensing community is interested inregards the monitoring of informal settlements for humanitarian aids, as proved bya number of international projects like the European RESPOND in the framework ofGMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) or United Nations’ UN-OSAT. This chapter discusses not only the possibility of employing remote sensingimagery to this aim, but above all the capability of semi-automated procedures to an-alyze such data and to assist the work of Administrations and NGOs. Test areas arelocated in Darfur region, Sudan, which became in 2003 the scene of one of the worsthumanitarian crises of our age. Optical images of those territories were acquired bySPOT-5 and Quickbird satellites between 2003 and 2005, and high resolution radardata by the Japanese PALSAR sensor on board of the ALOS satellite in 2006, afterrefugee camps were built up for accommodating hundreds of thousands of displacedpeople. The proposed algorithms intend to provide land-cover/use maps that can beuseful to keep changes under control and/or to update existing charts.

Keywords Satellite remote sensing · Radar · Optical sensors · Data fusion · Imageprocessing

Introduction

According to the 2005 Global Report on Human Settlements provided byUn-HABITAT (UN-HABITAT, 2005a) – the United Nations’ Human SettlementProgram – the overall population living now in town and cities is over 3 billions.Indeed, rapid urbanization is often the cause of enormous pressure on rural andnatural environments. The urban population grew from 14% in 1920 to 25% in 1950,to nearly 70% in 1985. More spectacular situations are noticeable in developingcountries where a large number of cities housing millions of people are located.

M. Stasolla (B)Dept. of Electronics, University of Pavia, Italy, Via Ferrata, 1 - 27100 Pavia, Italye-mail: mattia.stasolla@unipv.it

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 17, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

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432 M. Stasolla and P. Gamba

The rate of urban population growth between 1950 and 1990 has been much fasterin developing countries, from 17% to 34%, and the rural to urban migration is stillsignificant.

As a result, migration and informal settlements are among the most important is-sues to be faced in these years. The connection between the two of them is clear, too.Continuous migration flows have largely contributed to an increase of the unstruc-tured built-up areas. One of the main effects of such a situation is the transformationof settlement structures, and no way other than by remote sensing is now availablefor an efficient monitoring of these areas.

More generally, informal settlement monitoring is an important topic for manynational and international initiatives, including the European Global Monitoring forEnvironment and Security (GMES) initiative and the humanitarian and develop-ment aid policies of the United Nations. Also, settlements’ monitoring is relatedto phenomena, like illegal immigration, that are very high positioned on the list ofpolicy makers. From this viewpoint, conceiving and developing suitable techniquesbased on remote sensing have therefore a global scope and would bring relevantimprovements.

Fig. 1 Conflict-induced internal displacements in Africa (data available from www.internal-displacement.org/)

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Informal settlements are usually defined as dense settlements comprising com-munities housed in self-constructed shelters under conditions of informal or tradi-tional land tenure (Ruther et al. 2002). They are common features of developingcountries and are typically the product of an urgent need for shelter by the urbanpoor. These areas are characterized by rapid, unstructured and unplanned develop-ment. On a global scale, informal settlements are a significant problem especiallyin third world countries, where most of the disadvantaged are housed. Thus, ob-servation of informal settlements is nowadays a primary issue in security globalmonitoring.

According to the analysis of migrants in the world as proposed in (UN-HABITAT,2005b), there are 175 million people displaced internationally, and many morenationally. A large number of them are moving because of war and famine, andcurrently most of the areas of concerns are concentrated in Africa (see Fig. 1). It istherefore of great interest to monitor the evolution of the human settlements in orderto guide aids, plan adequate shelters and forecast population movements.

Human Settlement Mapping and the Role of Remote Sensing

Identification, delineation and classification of human settlements areas have typ-ically been the realm of the technical remote sensing community. The ability toportray at the same moment a large area with a fine level of detail, and with increas-ingly shorter revisit time, is one of the most appealing advantages of remote sensingby satellite platforms. Remotely sensed data provide a physically meaningful wayto define urban areas and this may be considered as an alternative way to study theseareas than those more usually considered by social and economical analyses.

Indeed, a global view to human settlements may be useful to understand theprocesses behind population movement. It is impossible to analyze these areas andtheir growth over time without connecting it at least with the place where they arelocated and the economy of the region. In turn, this means that models reflecting howthe environments have been and will be modified by the human beings need inputscoming from historical series of data on urban expansion and change. Moreover,correlation between urban analysis and population estimate in a region or continentis guaranteed by the large majority of the people living in urban areas. However,this opens some problems, like for instance the definition of urban area and thedifferences among the most usual definitions and the one obtainable from remotelysensed data.

Coarse spatial resolution data, available from many satellite sensors now, areoften enough to comprehend and forecast trends for land use transformation thatmust be monitored and controlled to prevent the degradation of the environment.A recent example is the digital atlas by the United Nation Environment Program(UNEP). As a matter of fact, human settlements may be large and are almost alwayssparse, and the information need is similarly sparse and distributed. No field surveyis usually able to acquire data with the same geographical distribution that a remote

434 M. Stasolla and P. Gamba

sensor may provide. Depending on the application, however, finer details of shortertemporal delay might be differently important. In other words, spatial and temporalscales of the analysis are one of the key issues. Finally, and especially in urbanareas, geometrical and spectral properties of the materials used to build structuresand infrastructures are invaluable to characterize the typology of settlement (e.g.formal versus informal), of land use (e.g. residential versus industrial) and even ofland cover (e.g. asphalt versus roof tiles).

Using multi-spectral satellites at high resolution (from 10 to 2.5 m posting) wemay work on the single town scale and the urban environments. At this resolutionurban objects start to become visible and distinguishable. As a consequence, it isalmost impossible to work with these images considering the town and its surround-ings, unless a small town is considered. We may say that this resolution range isthe line discriminating between the urban environment as a part of the regionalarea environment and as a complete system, whose interaction with the outside isprimarily neglected. At the coarser resolution the urban area is taken as a black box,interacting with the surroundings, while at this level it is something with internalstructures. The relationships among the parts of the settlement begin to be visible.

Finally, with Very High Resolution (VHR) satellites the sensors are able to pro-vide images with spatial resolution of 1 m or less. So, single elements (e.g. buildings,streets, . . .) may be individuated and studied. The model of the settlement whichmay be extracted from remotely sensed data is more and more detailed, and at thislevel tends to be more similar to the complexity of the reality.

The most relevant application of urban remote sensing at the scale for urbanplanning may be urban area monitoring as a whole, considering urban land mappingusing legends available at a regional scale. Urban area change detection is implicitlyintroduced in this definition, but only as far as urban area growing or shrinking isconsidered, and no land use change is tracked at this level of detail. In this senseinformal settlement mapping, which is a way to track urban area fast growing ef-fects in most third world countries. The last topic related to urban area analysis andmonitoring at a regional level is the characterization of the urban to rural fringe area.For areas worth considering, i.e. megacities or highly expanding ones, this meansa detailed analysis of the settlements around the town. Most of them are informalsettlements, and this is especially true in third world countries, where urban remotesensing is often mandatory to achieve a proper level of information.

So, informal settlements’ monitoring will be definitely one big part of theresearch in the next 5 to 10 years. However, for spatial technology to be effectivein informal settlement environments, it has to be low cost, both in data acquisitionand processing, as automated as possible to achieve faster and more reliable results,simple to use and largely based on tested routines and algorithms.

While the first issue is addressed by very high resolution satellites, developingprocedures for processing SAR data on urban environments is still a very interestingresearch topic. In fact, the acquisition of spatial data in informal settlements hasbeen so far mainly based on conventional ground mapping techniques or con-ventional photogrammetric approaches applied to non-photogrammetric satellitedata. Maps are compiled using analogue or analytical photogrammetric methods

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(Mason and Ruther, 1997, Mason, and Fraser, 1998) or direct on site surveys (Ka-vanagh and Home, 1999). These are, to a large extent, manual operations and requirea wide expertise; moreover, they are slow and biased by the operator skills. The aimof this research is to develop semi-automatic algorithms for extraction of informalsettlement borders, analysis of settlement density and, if possible, trends and changedetection characterization.

Satellites and Sensors

Earth observation missions for civil applications by means of satellites began in1960 with Tiros-I, a US satellite for meteorological purposes. During the past fortyyears a number of space missions started – the most recent ones, for radar sensors,are leaded by Europe, with the Cosmo SkyMed and TerraSAR-X constellations –and many others have been planned. Their application fields range from meteorol-ogy to geodesy, from vegetation assessment to land mapping, from water analysisto thermal mapping. Moreover, technology sensibly improved and new capabilitiesare continuously added. Right now one might obtain images of the earth surface atmultiple wavelengths, using passive or active sensors, at any time of the day, in anyseasons and weather conditions.

In this section we briefly present the sensors used for our work, which are amongthose usually exploited for land mapping, i.e. for extracting thematic maps aboutsolid land portions of the earth surface. Detailed characteristics can be found inTables 1, 2, 3.

Table 1 SPOT 5 mission and HRG characteristics

Launch Date May 3, 2002Launch Vehicle Ariane 4Launch Location Guiana Space Centre, Kourou, French GuyanaOrbit Altitude 822 KmOrbit Inclination 98.7◦, sun-synchronousEquator Crossing Time 10:30 AM (descending node)Orbit Time 101.4 minRevisit Time 2–3 days, depending on latitudeSwath Width 60 Km × 60 Km to 80 Km at nadirDigitization 8 bitsResolution Pan: 2.5 m from 2 × 5 m scenes

Pan: 5 m (nadir)MS: 10 m (nadir)SWI: 20 m (nadir)

Image Bands Pan: 490–690 nmGreen: 500–590 nmRed: 610–680 nmNear IR: 780–890 nmShortwave IR: 1,580–1,750 nm

436 M. Stasolla and P. Gamba

Table 2 Quickbird specifications

Launch Date October 18, 2001Launch Vehicle Boeing Delta IILaunch Location Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, USAOrbit Altitude 450 KmOrbit Inclination 97.2◦, sun-synchronousEquator Crossing Time 10:30 AM (descending node)Orbit Time 93.5 minutesRevisit Time 1–3.5 days, depending on latitude (30◦ off-nadir)Swath Width 16.5 Km × 16.5 Km at nadirDigitization 11 bitsResolution Pan: 61 cm (nadir) to 72 cm (25◦ off-nadir)

MS: 2.44 m (nadir) to 2.88 m (25◦ off-nadir)Image Bands Pan: 450–900 nm

Blue: 450–520 nmGreen: 520–600 nmRed: 630–690 nmNear IR: 760–900 nm

Table 3 ALOS mission and PALSAR characteristics

Launch Date January 24, 2006Launch Vehicle H-IIALaunch Location Tanegashima Space CenterOrbit Altitude 691.65 kmOrbit Inclination 98.16◦, sun-synchronousEquator Crossing Time 10:30 AM (descending node)Orbit Time 99 minRevisit Time 46 daysPolarization Fine Mode: HH or VV

HH+HV or VV+VHScanSAR: HH or VVPolarimetric: HH+HV+VH+VV

Swath Width Fine Mode: 40 to 70 Km (HH or VV)ScanSAR: 250 to 350 KmPolarimetric: 20 to 65 Km

Center Frequency 1270 Mhz (L-band)Chirp Bandwidth Fine Mode: 28 MHz (HH or VV)

14 MHz (HH+HV or VV+VH)ScanSAR: 14 MHz, 28 MHzPolarimetric: 14 MHz

Digitization Fine Mode: 5 bitsScanSAR: 5 bitsPolarimetric: 3 or 5 bits

Range Resolution Fine Mode: 7 to 44 m (HH or VV)14 to 88 m (HH+HV or VV+VH)

ScanSAR: 100 m (multi look)Polarimetric: 24 to 89 m

- SPOT 5 is the fifth mission of the French family of satellites for earth ob-servations, launched in 2002 (SPOT stands for Satellite Pour l’Observation dela Terre). It is equipped by the HRG sensor, which allows to acquire spectralinformation over 4 bands (Green, Red, Near Infra-Red, ShortWave Infra-Red)

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and have a spatial resolution that ranges from 20 m (multi-spectral) to 2.5 m(panchromatic). This imagery provides geographical information suitable formany fields: cartography, agriculture, urban planning and telecommunications.The most evident application is medium-scale cartography (1:50.000/1:100.000),even if finest panchromatic resolution allows the identification of shapes andobjects’ measurements. The SPOT 5 satellite ensures an acquisition swath of60 Km×60 Km and, being orbit sun-synchronous at altitude of 822 Km, a revisittime (i.e. the possibility to get an image of the same area) of 3 days.

- Quickbird: it is among the finest resolution commercial optical satellite. It has 4bands (Blue, Green, Red, Near Infra-Red) and it can offer a sub-meter resolutionof 61 cm. It was launched in 2001 with a sun-synchronous orbit at 450 Km alti-tude, with a revisit time from 3 to 7 days. It is able to produce single area imagesof 16.5 × 16.5 km or 16.5 × 165 km strip maps. Imagery can be employed inmany application fields, such as map publishing with scale up to 1:5.000, landmanagement or risk assessment.

- ALOS. The Advanced Land Observing Satellite was launched by JAXA (theJapanese Space Agency) very recently, in January 2006 and it mounts 3 sen-sors: a radar instrument (PALSAR), a stereo sensor (PRISM), for digital ele-vation mapping, and a visible and near IR radiometer (AVNIR-2). The orbitis sun-synchronous at about 690 Km and it has a repeat cycle of 46 days. Inparticular, PALSAR sensor works in L-band (1270 MHz) and has three ob-servation modes: Fine Mode, that has a finest ground resolution of 7 m; aScanSAR Mode, for covering wide swath areas (from 250 to 350 Km) and aPolarimetric Mode, for transmitting/receiving any combinations of H and Vpolarizations.

A Processing Chain for Exploiting Images from OpticalSatellite Sensors

Many projects for damage assessment and crisis management started in the pastyears, but also the new ones that are going to be funded, feature remote sensingoptical data: they are basically photographs and thus easier to understand by humaninterpreters. The keypoint is that up to now only very few automatic procedurescan be adopted for rapidly managing emergency situations, and time constraints– even if computational costs have drastically reduced thanks to newer technolo-gies – still remain the bottleneck of the workflow chain. By the way, if procedurescan be specialized and are not conceived for general purposes, better results areachieved.

We are going to present a complete framework for the processing of optical andSAR imagery of Darfur, a big region of Sudan torn by civil war, environmentaldisasters and poverty. As a matter of fact, this mangled area needs to be constantlymonitored and aided so that remote sensing technology can be a very useful tool forrelief operations.

438 M. Stasolla and P. Gamba

A good strategy for analyze such phenomena might start from a low scale analy-sis and then conclude specializing to a high-resolution investigation.

The procedure is modular, but sequential: in the first place, spatial properties ofthe images are classified to detect settlements’ boundaries. For many purposes, suchinformation could be sufficient (very often no plans are even available), but it canbe enriched by further processing steps. Once regions of interest have been defined,it is possible to perform more specialized analyses over the original data. For ourgoal, an important task would be to discriminate between effective buildings andrefugees’ tents, in order to manage population transfers. Fortunately, usual housingand shacks have in general different patterns, thus it is feasible to separate them inan automatic way. Furthermore, the most recent optical sensors are able to acquiredata at submeter resolution, allowing the detection of single buildings. This featureclearly opened new perspectives, for instance the population assessment inferred bycounting the number of edifices or the land cover classification for logistic purposes.Many techniques might be adopted: we propose a supervised neural network classi-fier, followed by a morphological filter bank to detect and label buildings accordingto the land cover legend developed by the ESA GMES Service Element project GUS(GMES Urban Services).

The idea behind this first step is the importance – especially in third world coun-tries, which very often are not supplied by up-to-date maps – of realizing a firstscreening of the data, generating maps able to provide the position and the extentof built up areas. For such goal it is straightforward that highest spatial resolution isnot required, since output map scale is expected to be large. It is then preferable toexploit middle resolution sensors, which, despite the coarser spatial resolution, havea wider swath, so that they can cover more rapidly and with less computational costsbroad areas. For the same reasons it is not acceptable to analyze the images with aper-pixel approach, because one would not be able to resolve the finer details that ur-ban scenes hold and the final processing would be noisy or even incomprehensible.It is then essential to look over image pixel relationships within a certain neigh-borhood, usually characterizing their DN (Digital Number) values from a statisticalpoint of view. To determine spatial patterns many techniques can be used – such asmathematical morphology or autocorrelation indexes – but the most commonly usedfeature is the grey level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM), introduced in 1973 by Har-alick et al. This technique consists in evaluating spatial statistics within grey levelimages and indicating whether or not correlation/similarity between neighboringpixels inside a window of fixed dimensions can be observed.

A number of different textures has been proposed, but nine of them are the mostcommonly used and can be grouped into three sets, depending on their similarproperties (see Fig. 2):

1. Contrast group: local variations within the image are measured.

- Contrast: bright pixels correspond to strong local variations.- Dissimilarity: the output image associates low DN values to zones that show

high similarity.- Homogeneity: low variability in grey levels reflects on bright output pixels.

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(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e) (f)

(g) (h) (i)

Fig. 2 Texture patterns: (a) Sample from a SPOT5 image; (b) Contrast; (c) Dissimilarity; (d)Homogeneity; (e) Angular Second Moment; (f) Entropy; (g) Mean; (h) Variance; (i) Correlation

2. Orderliness group: the degree of disorder (how regular pixel values are) isevaluated.

- Angular Second Moment: if the input image shows uniform grey tones, theoutput will show high values.

- Max Probability: it associates to the central pixel of the processing windowthe most frequent value encountered.

- Entropy: it measures the uniformity of image patterns.

3. Stats group: statistics over the window pixels are computed.

- Mean: the center pixel of the window assumes the mean value of the neighbors

440 M. Stasolla and P. Gamba

- Variance: high values mean high standard deviation within the window- Correlation: it measures the linear dependency of the center pixel on the

neighborhood.

Once spatial patterns have been found, it is then possible to establish if there is arelationship between the most significant elements of the images (built up regions,vegetated areas, mountains, etc.) and the texture features. If a unique associationbetween them existed, it would be definitely easier to classify images and to im-mediately retrieve needed information. Unfortunately real scenes are so diversifiedand complex that it is not possible to see distinctive and well-defined traits for eachpart of the environment, but only a certain degree of separability between classes.Usually the problem is solved finding a set of textures that best characterizes theobjects’ properties.

In the presented case, this task is someway less difficult than in other areas, suchas European cities or other zones of Africa itself, since the arid background allowsto get rid of the typical inconvenience that affects this kind of technique: usuallycrop fields and vegetation or rock banks have urban-like spatial behaviors and it isextremely difficult to manage them in very heterogeneous scenes. As a proof, seeFig. 3(a), an original SPOT5 panchromatic scene, acquired in 2005: the city of AlFashir stands out on the background and we do not expect to encounter significantconfusion among the patterns of our interest. By the way, a scrutiny of the featurecombinations that could bring best results led to opt for only one texture, namely

(d) (e)

(a) (b) (c)

(f)

Fig. 3 Al Fashir: (a) Original SPOT5 image; (b) Homogeneity; (c) Ground truth; (d) Single thresh-old = 0.95; (e) Single threshold = 0.7; (f) Double threshold = 0.7–0.95

Humanitarian Aids Using Satellite Technology 441

Homogeneity (Stasolla and Gamba, 2007). As shown in Fig. 3(b) the urban areas(see the related ground truth image, Fig. 3(c)) are basically characterized by darkpixels, since they do not show exactly homogeneity but they have a great variabilitywithin them. As supposed, the arid environment reduces noise and we can roughlyassume that there is a one-to-one relationship between the chosen feature and urbanbehavior: the keypoint is now to threshold the image histogram in order to selectonly those pixels that do not have bright response. In Fig 3(d)–(e) two single thresh-oldings of image complement (for the sake of clarity) is shown, respectively withcut-off values of 0.95 and 0.7. It means that pixels with value lower than 95% (or70%) of the peak are forced to 0, while the others set to 1. As can be seen, theobtained binary images are not actually very precise maps, due to the fact that theareas of interest in the input image are not completely homogeneous or heteroge-neous, but they can exhibit different levels of correlation. This means that, on theone hand, a too selective cut-off (0.95) would lead to a poor classification; on theother hand, if we chose a threshold that includes a wider range of values, at thesame time we would take into account unwanted zones, like those depicted in theright side of Fig. 3(e). To fix this drawback we have to introduce the concept of dou-ble thresholding. Based on mathematical morphology (Soille, 2003), it consists inseparately filtering the same image with two different cut-off values: the final outputis the morphological reconstruction of the low level thresholded image starting onlyfrom the pixels of the high level one. Despite its simplicity, this operation sensiblyimproves results and allows achieving mapping accuracy around 98%.

The final map precision appears very impressive, above all if we consider theexisting available maps of the test area. They are presented in Fig. 4: the left onecomes from an international database provided by FAO and based on satellite dataat medium resolution (Africover, see http://ww.africover.org), while the other hasbeen acquired by a night-time sensor and suffers for poor spatial resolution.

The procedure therefore led to a preliminary map of the settlements that can beof course refined. For instance, a noticeable issue would be to discriminate betweenregular and informal buildings. From a visual inspection of such regions (Fig. 5(a)shows the variance image of the area) it results that there is a significant differencebetween them in terms of their spatial patterns. On the one hand, the city core has big

(a) (b)

Fig. 4 Al Fashir: (a) Africover land use map; (b) Night-time image of the area

442 M. Stasolla and P. Gamba

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 5 Al Fashir: (a) Variance; (b) City (dark grey)/Camp (light grey) discrimination (c) Finalclassification after majority filter

and dense buildings; on the other hand, the camp has a very regular structure of rowsof small shacks. These considerations suggest exploiting once again the GLCM toquantify the correlations: it is now useless (even worse) to process the entire image,but we can take advantage from the previous step using its output as a mask. Thisbrings to an impressive result, where the two objects have been separated with highprecision (Fig. 5(b)). Of course we have to take into account a certain mix up ofclasses in some parts of the image, especially the city boundaries, where buildingdensity begins to decline. To get out of this inconvenience a majority filter could beapplied and errors significantly reduced (Fig. 5(c)).

Once the regions of interest have been selected, it is also possible to switch tohigh resolution for more specific and challenging tasks. For example, an appealingand interesting field of research is the detection of single buildings, that has severalapplications, ranging from cadastral purposes to population density inferring. It isstraightforward that it can be possible only by means of meter or submeter resolutionimages (like those provided by the two commercial optical satellites Ikonos andQuickbird).

Several methods can be found in literature, but it must be said that a general ap-proach, as more widely applicable as possible, is still missing, due to the complexityof scenes and to the variability of city structures and characteristics. For our specifictest case, which shows a homogeneous scene from the spectral point of view – in thesense that the buildings are basically made of the same materials, they are disposedin a regular way on bare soil, and surrounded by few trees and shrubs – the goalmight be achieved by first classifying the image with a supervised neural networkand then by using morphological filter banks in order to refine results.

Classification is an important preliminary step, so it is mandatory to perform itas best as possible and that is the reason for choosing a neural network, exploitinga refined mapping algorithm (Gamba and Dell’Acqua, 2003). On the other hand,it is a supervised classifier and requires human interaction, reducing the degree ofautomation of the procedure. Anyway, being the scene spectrally well defined, onlya few samples are needed to train the network. In Fig. 6(b) the whole mappingoutput for a part of an image over a different town in Sudan, Nyala. Four classeshave been chosen: Buildings (dark grey), Soil (medium grey), Trees (light grey) and

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Fig. 6 Nyala: (a) OriginalQuickbird image; (b) NeuralNetwork classification;(c) Building class; (d) Finalbuilding extraction bydimensions: smaller (white)and bigger (dark grey)

(b)(a)

(d)(c)

Shadows (black). The interest here is in the building class: isolating it from theothers, we obtained a black and white image that on the whole fits the objects, butsuffers from the presence of sparse and spurious pixels, clearly due to spectral lackof homogeneity (Fig. 6(c)). The final step is then to process this image with somemorphological filters in order to select only those objects that fit shape, such as com-pactness or axes length ratio, and dimensions criteria. As hinted before, the outputimage can be easily converted into a land cover map or maybe used for inferringthe number of living people within the settlements (Wu et al. 2005). For instance, inFig. 6(d) buildings have been divided into classes 1.1.1.3 and 1.1.2.1 (or 1.1.2.2) ofGUS legend (See Table 4), according to their dimensions: warehouses are usuallybigger than residential fabrics, so it is likely that in dark grey buildings commercialor industrial activities take place, while white ones are just private houses. It isstraightforward the importance of such knowledge, especially in fast developingareas or in poor third world countries, where logistics assumes a predominant rolein relief operations and development planning.

Mapping Human Settlements Using Radar Satellite Sensors

The approach just described for optical imagery can be similarly applied to radar(usually called SAR, Synthetic Aperture Radar) data. Of course the properties ofsensors and images are completely different – new methodologies should be intro-duced – but the original strategy of recognizing in first place the settlement extent

444 M. Stasolla and P. Gamba

Table 4 GUS legend for artificial surfaces

1. Artificialsurfaces

1.1 Urban fabric 1.1.1 Continuous urbanfabric

1.1.1.1 Residentialcontinuous dense urbanfabric

1.1.1.2 Residentialcontinuous mediumdense urban fabric

1.1.1.3 Informal settlements1.1.2 Discontinuous urban

fabric1.1.2.1 Residential

discontinuous urbanfabric

1.1.2.2 Residentialdiscontinuous sparseurban fabric

1.1.2.3 Residential urbanblocks

1.1.2.4 Informaldiscontinuous residentialstructures

1.2 Industrial,commercial andtransport units

1.2.1 Industrial,commercial, public andprivate units

1.2.1.1 Industrial areas

1.2.1.2 Commercial areas1.2.1.3 Public and private

services not related to thetransport system

1.2.2 Road and railnetworks and associatedland

1.2.3 Port areas1.2.4 Airports

1.3 Mine, dump andconstruction sites

1.3.1 Mineral extractionsites

1.3.2 Dump sites1.3.3 Construction sites1.3.4 Abandoned land

1.4 Artificialnon-agriculturalvegetated areas

1.4.1 Green urban areas

1.4.2 Sport and leisurefacilities

and then specializing the analysis can be adopted. Actually, due to the fact thatVHR SAR sensors were launched only few months ago, this last phase is nowadaysnot very practicable, since a significant number of acquisitions has not been carriedout yet and only few data are currently available in databases. However, low andmedium scale resolution imagery has been fully operational since many years. It isimportant to stress that we are not expected to replicate the same algorithm providedfor optical data, since acquisition geometry, working frequencies and technologyare completely different. We may roughly say that optical data are basically pho-tographs, so they mainly acquire data with a certain perspective and in the visible

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spectrum (many of them also cover IR bands), while SAR imagery is based onthe measurements of the distance between targets and the sensor by transmittingmicrowave pulses. The most evident consequence, besides geometrical effects, isthat in SAR images urban areas appear very bright due to the presence of edgesand double-bounce reflectors that scatter the radiation back to the sensor, instead ofreflecting it like in presence of flat surfaces such as water bodies. For this reason,a processing scheme for SAR data starts from other assumptions and works betterwith different features. For example, the GLCM-based approach, in this case, is notsuitable for our aim, since the final classification includes a great number of falsealarms. In fact, differently from optical images, their DN values are related to thegeometry of the scene, rather than the physical properties of the objects: we can saythat there is a lower “textural” resolution, so the right strategy is no more to exploitsuch information. Indeed, a novel procedure based on Local Indicators of SpatialAssociation (L.I.S.A.) can be considered. Autocorrelation indexes give an estimateof similarity (and dissimilarity) characteristics within images (Anselin, 1995). Theyhave the properties to measure the degree of clustering of image pixels, from randomto strongly correlated patterns. It is interesting to stress that autocorrelation can beboth positive and negative: the former occurs when neighboring pixels have verysimilar values; the latter, instead, can be explained by imagining pixels arrangedlike a chessboard. Even though every value is different from each other, the patternis not random, a periodicity in the grid, then a sort of autocorrelation, occurs.

Among the number of indexes that can be found in literature, three of them arethe most suited for our goal, that are briefly described hereafter:

– Moran’s Ii index: it gives a measure of similarity between neighboring pixels ofthe target and their mean.

– Geary’s ci index: it determines the zones of high variability between a target pixeland its neighbors.

– Getis-Ord Gi index: it evaluates the concentrations of similar grey level values,allowing to identify the so called ‘hot spots’, such as very bright targets.

It must be underlined that the combined use of Ii , ci and Gi is justified becauseof the non completely overlapping information they provide. In fact, even thoughthey all estimate spatial associations, Ii and Gi are useful to evaluate the spatial

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Fig. 7 (a) Sample from a PALSAR image; (b) Moran’s Index; (c) Geary’s Index; (d) Getis-OrdIndex

446 M. Stasolla and P. Gamba

concentrations of high or low values, while ci is exploited for finding similarities ordissimilarities in the local pattern. A sample of index analysis output is presented inFig. 7.

For these reasons, if such local indexes can be extracted, they provide very mean-ingful knowledge about the scene properties, so that it is possible to characterizevery efficiently the properties of the urban areas. In fact, like very few other elementsin SAR images, they show a behavior marked by a high positive autocorrelation (allthe buildings have bright response) together with a strong negative autocorrelation(there are empty spaces – trees, streets, water bodies – among buildings).

This is the rationale behind the scheme conceived to process the PALSAR dataat our disposal, shown in Fig. 8(a). After computing the indexes, binary images aregenerated by thresholding the original ones and then combined to extract hot spots,such as very bright points within the image. As discussed before, hot spots shouldcorrespond with high probability to urban points, but false alarms might have beendetected, as can be seen in image 8(b). For this reason, it is useful to evaluate howmany bright pixels are contained in each separate object of the image: it is likelythat urban areas have a high density of them and thanks to this information it ispossible to discard mix-up regions. It is well visible again in Fig. 8(b). For the sakeof clarity, the blobs of the image have been colored from light grey to dark greyas density increases (the background is black). Unfortunately the cut-off value fordetermining the actual built up areas is strictly depending on the observed scene andcannot be generalized, unless sub-optimal solutions are acceptable. This means thatthis step still requires, albeit very limited, the contribution of the human interpreter,that should select on his a priori knowledge the right and optimal threshold. Bythe way, when this tricky point is performed, only few denoising steps based onmathematical morphology are needed to provide a very accurate final result.

A comparison with the ground truth map of the test area shows that the overallaccuracy is around 97%. Usually, despite high precision, SAR classifications are af-fected by quite high omission errors that can seem unaccountable, but this is mainlydue to the typical granular looks of urban areas in radar images. Moreover, in thiscase, it should be noticed that there is a newer area (with respect to the optical imageof the previous section) on the right side of the Abu Shok refugee camp that has beendiscarded. Actually it is very difficult to recognize it, even by visual inspection, sinceit is mixed up with the large “wadi” region that cuts across the camp and the maincity. We recall that the SPOT image was acquired in 2005: only one year earlierthan the PALSAR one. There is no need of stressing the fact that we are dealingwith extremely rapid phenomena that definitely require to be efficiently and quicklymonitored. Nevertheless, as can be seen in Fig. 8(c), the proposed method is not ableto detect this new entity: it is an intrinsic consequence of the rationale behind thealgorithm, which needs, for behaving well, the presence of strong scatterers to beused as seeds for detecting the entire areas of interest. Unfortunately the new campdoes not fulfill these requirements, since it is still in a start-up phase and so made ofsmall, sparse tents that do not backscatter sufficiently to the sensor.

For a qualitative assessment, the final result is depicted in Fig. 8(d). Except fora few false alarms (white) and the above mentioned omission errors (dark grey),

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the overall classification is very accurate, as for the evaluation of the urban extent(medium grey areas have been successfully classified).

Combining Sar and Optical Data

The unifying conclusion of the present discussion is the exploitation of both opticaland SAR data. In the past paragraphs it has been roughly described the fact that theyhave complementary properties that make their joint use definitely powerful. As amatter of fact, optical images have higher spatial and spectral resolution, but theyare limited by light and atmospheric conditions. Instead, radar intensity images pro-vide information about geometry and orientation of structures, and they suffer fromspeckle noise. Finally, due to their all-weather capabilities, they allow a continuousacquisition, without any limitation.

Many works have demonstrated the effectiveness and advantages of data fusiontechniques (Fatone et al. 2001, Pal et al. 2007): above all, the most remarkable aspectis that yielded improvements, whether significant or not, always occur and they arenot related to particular scenarios or favorable conditions.

We are then going to show that, also in our case, data fusion is a winning ap-proach and it should be more and more extensively pursued, especially when dealing

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 8 Al Fashir: (a) Original PALSAR image; (b) Hot spots’ density map; (c) Final result (d)Error visualization

448 M. Stasolla and P. Gamba

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 9 Al Fashir, K-Means classification: (a) SPOT5 image; (b) PALSAR; (c) SPOT and PALSAR

with scenarios that lack in preliminary knowledge. To stress its potentialities, it isinteresting to evaluate how even a simple methodology (let us say not sufficientlyrobust for ensuring reliable and good outcomes independently of the inputs), wouldbring very different results, if applied to individual datasets or in case of joint anal-yses. For example, we could decide to use again texture information – in particularhomogeneity – adopting two different approaches: first we will classify the sceneswith the unsupervised K-means algorithm, that clusters pixels into homogeneuosgroups depending on their attributes; then we will train the fuzzy artmap neuralnetwork with some samples about the three basic classes of the scene (urban areas,soil and rocky areas), getting as output the whole classified image. We already saidthat textures give good results over optical images, but very high commission errorswhen working with SAR images. Figures 9(a) and 10 (a) decree the clean superi-ority of the supervised method with respect to self-clustering: statistics within theimage fluctuate and it is difficult to automatically choose the grouping classes, sothat commission errors in the first case are more than 50%. Different performances– but very scanty for both methods – can be observed when analyzing radar data(Figs. 9(b) and 10(b)): errors are extremely high and confirm that texture approachis definitely not suitable for such imagery. It might be surprising the neural networkdeficient behavior, but, due to the speckle noise (also known as “salt and pepper”noise) that degrades SAR images, the training samples contain a great number ofout-of-statistics values that cut performances down.

The most interesting conclusions, however, come from the joint classification ofSPOT and PALSAR data: the noisy contribution of radar data is not felt and doesnot affect – it does not reduce – final results. One can expect to have a loss in termsof accuracy as effect of the combination of the good classification of the first datasetwith the poor one of the second. On the contrary, for the first approach, there issimply no significant improvement, while the second even sees a reduction of theomission error of 3 percentage points, confirming what we discussed above.

The last remark is a consideration about the time lag between the data that aregoing to be fused. As a general rule, they should be very close, in order not to differsignificantly, but of course it depends on the nature of the studied phenomena. For

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instance, urban development is usually a rapid event (let the newer refugee campraising in our dataset be an example), but there are many other cases – vegetationmonitoring or geological survey, etc – that can be either faster or much slower.

Conclusions and Future Researches

In this chapter we presented a complete study case for detection of built up areasand population monitoring with the explicit purpose of managing and mitigatingcrisis events by means of remote sensing technology. The overall processing frame-work exploits both optical and SAR imagery and it is based on some of the mostinteresting state-of-art techniques in image processing.

The test case was chosen in Darfur, Sudan, a region affected by a so called‘complex emergency’ – i.e. a grievous condition where civil wars and conflicts arecoupled with natural hazards – that worsens poverty conditions and forces peopledisplacements (it is estimated that almost one and a half million people moved fromtheir homes from the beginning of the crisis).

Firstly, medium scale applications, such as built up areas’ mapping and mon-itoring, are efficiently achieved by means of textural information in optical dataor local autocorrelation measurements in SAR images. Then, analysis can be spe-cialized with the help of very high resolution optical images (less or equal to 1 mspatial resolution) and focused on individual building extraction. Finally, a data fu-sion technique should be employed for generally improving results thanks to thecomplementary properties of optical and radar sensors, one compensating for thedrawbacks of the other.

Even though they could somehow seem applicable only to a specific task, set-tlements’ detection and characterization naturally lends themselves to broaden thespectrum of applications. For instance, the precise knowledge about the position andthe extent of urban areas can be exploited in any cases of natural disaster and in anyproblems strictly related to population. Floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis:

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 10 Al Fashir, neural network classification: (a) SPOT5 image; (b) PALSAR; (c) SPOT andPALSAR

450 M. Stasolla and P. Gamba

they all strike people in unpredictable ways and countermeasures must be taken asquickly and widely as possible. In such cases only space technology has the aptitudefor helping and assisting relief operations fulfilling the compelling time and costconstraints. If pre and post event images are available, change detection algorithmsover urban areas can be applied for assessing the impact of such catastrophic eventson the environment and population. Moreover, depending on sensors’ availabilityand properties, the same area can be studied from different viewpoints, so that it ispossible to provide further basic information, from geological analysis to vegetationestimation, from water-supply assessment to logistic support.

The capabilities of this technology have been widely proven and the number ofinternational funded (and going to be funded) projects is a further evidence that gov-ernments and administrations have definitely bet on remote sensing as the main assetin humanitarian operations. Since its potentiality and effectiveness (with respect toany other solutions) is not under discussion, for the future the actual challengingtask would be to develop fast and efficient (semi)-automated procedures in orderto sensibly reduce more and more human intervention in image analysis, the ef-fective bottleneck of the entire product delivering chain. New strategies will facetechnology improvements (we recall that in few months also VHR SAR imageswill be available) and should address data fusion approaches (optical, radar, GIS,hyperspectral and all useful ancillary information). They are of course expected tobe as more general as possible, but, even though specialized routines for optimiz-ing results within particular scenarios and applications, they would be inalienablevalue-added products.

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank ESA and JAXA for providing the ALOSPALSAR data within the framework of the Announcement of Opportunity for these data for theALOS European distribution node. Moreover, SPOT dataset was supplied within the O.A.S.I.S.(Optimising Access to Spot Infrastructure for Science) Programme, while Quickbird images wereprovided by the Joint Research Centre of the European Community in the framework of a jointcollaboration project with the University of Pavia.

References

Anselin, L. (1995). Local indicators of spatial association – LISA. Geographical Analysis, 27,93–115.

Fatone L., Maponi P., and Zirilli F. (2001). Fusion of SAR/Optical images to detect urban areas.IEEE/ISPRS Joint Workshop on Remote Sensing and Data Fusion over Urban Areas, IEEE,217–221.

Gamba P., and DellAcqua F. (2003). Increased accuracy multiband urban classification using aneuro-fuzzyclassifier. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 24(4), 827–834.

Kavanagh, J., and Home, R. (1999). Mapping the refugee camps of Gaza: the surveyor in a politicalenvironment, Survey Ireland.

Mason, S.O., and Fraser, C.S. (1998). Image sources for informal settlement management, Pho-togrammetric Record, 16(92), 313–330.

Mason, S., and Ruther, H. (1997). Investigation of the Kodak DCS460 digital camera for small-areamapping. Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 52, 202–214.

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Pal S.K., Majumdar T.J., and Amit K. Bhattacharya (2007). ERS-2 SAR and IRS-1C LISS III datafusion: A PCA approach to improve remote sensing based geological interpretation. ISPRSJournal of Photogrammetry and Remote SensingVolume 61, 5, 281–297.

Ruther, H., Martine, H., and Mtalo, E.G. (2002). Application of snakes and dynamic program-ming optimisation technique in modelling of buildings in informal settlement areas. Journal ofPhotogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 56, 269–282.

Haralick R.M., Shanmugam K., and Dinstein I. (1973). Textural features for image classification.IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybern., 3, 610–621.

Soille P. (2003). Morphology Image Analysis: Principle and Application, Springer-Verlag, (secondedition).

Stasolla M., and P. Gamba (2007). Exploiting spatial patterns for informal settlement detection inarid environments using spaceborne optical data. Int. Archives of the Photogrammetry, RemoteSensing and Spatial Information Sciences, vol. XXVI, part 3/W49A, 31–36.

UN-HABITAT (2005a), “Financing urban shelters. Global report on human settlements 2005”.UN-HABITAT (2005b), “International migrants and the city”, M. Balbo, Ed.Wu, S.-S., Qiu X., and Wang L. (2005). Population estimation methods in gis and remote sensing:

A review. GIScience and Remote Sensing, 42(1), 80–96.

Useful Web Sites

http://respond-int.orghttp://na.unep.net/digital atlas2/google.phphttp://www.unosat.orghttp://www.disasterscharter.org/main e.htmlhttp://www.earthobservations.orghttp://www.ieee-earth.orghttp://www.africover.orghttp://www.spotimage.frhttp://www.digitalglobe.comhttp://www.palsar.ersdac.or.jp/e/index.shtmlhttp://www.itc.nl

National Development Through Space:India as a Model

Ian A. Christensen, Jason W. Hay and Angela D. Peura

Abstract The experience of India, over the past 40 plus years, in developing andoperating a space program focused on providing direct societal benefits offers anumber of lessons as developing countries across the globe become increasinglyinvolved in space activities. For a space program to be successful in the context of adeveloping nation, that program must provide tangible benefits to that country andits people and be tied to broader development objectives. This chapter describes howIndia’s experience in space can be applied as a model to developing countries as theyseek to achieve this type of growth from a space program. The chapter describes therelationship between science and technology investment and national developmentgenerally and then provides specific detail on the example of India’s experiencein space. After the capabilities and organization of the Indian Space Program aredescribed a detailed review of the history and current operations of that program isundertaken that reveals a set of elements that have enabled the success of India’sspace efforts. These elements become the key attributes of a model that can be ap-plied in other developing countries. The paper concludes by applying the model totwo test cases, Kazakhstan and South Africa.

Keywords Development · Developing countries · Stages of development · India ·ISRO · Indian space research organization · Kazakhstan · South Africa · Model ·Space

Introduction

In the past 20 years, the number of developing countries engaging in space activitieshas risen dramatically. The motivations for doing so in each case are as unique as thecountries themselves; however, they usually share two common factors. First, spaceprograms in developing countries frequently emphasize tangible benefits to society

I.A. Christensen (B)Futron Corporation, USAe-mail: ichristensen@futron.com

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 18, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

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454 I.A. Christensen et al.

and its people. Second, these space programs often are tied to the country’s broaderdevelopment objectives, including building a national science and technology base.Through analysis of a specific example, India’s experience in space, this chapterdescribes a model that might be applied in other developing countries and tests thismodel using selected case studies.

The chapter begins by introducing the role of science and technology in the con-text of developing nations. It then provides an overview of India’s space program,focusing on competitive advantages, historical influences, and the governmental andcultural context in which the Indian space program operates. This review will helpillustrate how the space program successfully addresses development objectives andidentify the elements that enable this success. These elements provide the basis forthe model described later in the chapter.

India’s space program has contributed to the country’s economic growth, sup-ported beneficial societal applications, and helped to build broader scientific andtechnical capacities and infrastructure. India’s experience contains a number oflessons for developing nations with an interest in space activities. This chapteridentifies various elements of India’s success and incorporates them into a matrixmodel. The model separates these elements into drivers and operational methods ofIndia’s space program that provide necessary stimulus, promote the development of,or are an integral part of the institutional processes of India’s space program, andmaps them according to their accessibility by other nations.

Finally, the chapter applies this model to South Africa and Kazakhstan in individ-ual case studies. These case studies test the versatility of the model and show howIndia’s experience can be applied to developing nations. The chapter concludes bynoting how the value derived from India’s experience significantly differs betweencountries and discusses how elements of a country’s culture, government, or com-petitive advantages can help or hinder the application to development of a nationalspace program, modeled after India’s.

Science and Technology in a National Development Context

“Development” is a complex socio-economic process with many facets; however,economic growth is arguably the driving issue behind national development poli-cies. It has been written that economic development is characterized through threegeneralized national goals:1 (1) Produce more; in particular life-sustaining productsare emphasized, however any increase in productivity will be correlated with eco-nomic growth, (2) Increase standards of living; higher living standards are enabledby skilled jobs, increased education, reduced costs, easier access to goods and ser-vices, and healthier lives, and (3) Expand markets and economies; specifically toincrease the range of economic and social choices for individuals.

1 Davis, K. Trebilcock, M.J. (1999).

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However, even if the process of development can be simplified to three economicgoals there is considerable debate about how a nation achieves these objectives. Theunderlying basis for economic prosperity, and presumably the three national goalsoutlined above, could be directly related to a nation’s competitive advantage, asargued by Michael Porter. According to his argument, nations achieve economic de-velopment by “upgrading their competitive positions” with respect to other nations.2

In classical economics, improved economic competitiveness is achieved throughcapital investment to increase productivity from a nation’s factors of production—minerals, agriculture, forests, and other natural resources. This classical model leadsto development via the creation of new markets and goods from existing resources.However, neoclassical economic theory states that productivity can be increasedthrough technological change. Consequently, neoclassical theory ties national de-velopment to investment in national science and technology capacities. This shiftin economic theory paves the way for development through large national technicalendeavors, like a national space program.

Current academic work on stages of development supports neoclassical thinkingand illustrates how nations pursue development goals through investment in scienceand technology. Roughly stated, stages of development are discrete states a nationcan pass through in an effort to build a more advanced economy. This work assumescommunities progress through a single path from a nascent, hunter gather economy,to a mature economic institution. Although we assume nations follow a commonpath for development, the number of discrete stages along this path and the meth-ods used by academics to identify these stages are debatable. For instance, JefferySachs identifies stages of economic development according to distinct types of eco-nomic activity: pre-commercial, commercial, industrial, and knowledge;3 whereasWalt Rostow sees the stages as turning points on a continuous growth curve froma traditional economy to a mass consumption economy.4 For our research, we haveadopted a simplified definition from Michael Porter that identifies three phases ofgrowth:5 (1) A factor driven stage, in which classical economics and natural fac-tors of production dominate, (2) An investment driven stage, during which a nationinvests in the skills, infrastructure, technologies, and capabilities necessary for atransfer from classical “factor” production to a knowledge economy. This periodoften includes technology transfer and foreign aid, and (3) Finally, the innovationdriven stage, in which a country leverages its technical expertise to develop inno-vative new technologies that provide a competitive advantage over other nations.These phases are shown in Fig. 1, below. It is our assumption that a nation has totraverse each of these stages to achieve a modern economy; however, the time spentin each can be variable.

2 Porter, M.E. (1990).3 Sachs, J.D (2004).4 Rostow, W.W. (1960).5 Porter, M.E. (1990).

456 I.A. Christensen et al.

Fig. 1 The stages of development

The transition between a factor driven economy and an investment driven econ-omy can be difficult for a developing nation. Even if the nation has support froman economically developed country and access to advanced technology, a policy oftargeted importation of technology-intensive goods is not likely to succeed. Tech-nology transfer includes adoption of: knowledge, skills, capabilities, supporting in-stitutions, and culture, in addition to the physical transfer of technical goods.6 Inother words, this investment phase requires the development of capacity in additionto adoption of technologies. It is capacity development that makes a national spaceprogram, modeled after India’s experience, so powerful for a nation with aggressivegoals for indigenous economic growth.

A national space program represents a major investment for a factor driveneconomy; however, if applied judiciously, a space program and space assets havethe power to accelerate an economy through the investment driven phase. Spaceassets—especially remote sensing—enable the identification, management, andoversight of existing natural factors, thereby increasing a nation’s productivity andwealth. In addition, space is a technically intensive endeavor that requires skills thatcan be applied to other high technology fields. Consequently, by developing theskills and technologies necessary for a national space program, a government alsobuilds the capacity for a technically driven economy.

Changing Space Actors

In 1960, two countries could be considered space faring nations; by 2007, 46 hadachieved some level of space capability.7 Countries are increasingly pursuing activespace programs and, in the past 20 years, the number of countries with significantdevelopment challenges engaging in space activities has risen dramatically. It isunlikely this trend will be reverse; new space-faring countries will primarily comefrom the developing world.

These developing nations are increasingly considering national space programsas a valuable investment along the road to development. Space assets and activi-ties both require and provide vital infrastructure to a knowledge driven economy.

6 Akubue, A. (2002).7 Space Security Index (2007) “Directory of Space Actors.”

National Development Through Space 457

Launch vehicles, satellites, and other high technologies common in space programsrequire advanced manufacturing and educational infrastructures in electronics, cryo-genics, computer science, optics, and other innovation driven fields. Moreover,satellites provide information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastruc-ture over large geographical areas, reducing the cost of investment, compared toterrestrial infrastructure, that provides the connectivity necessary for a knowledgeeconomy.

A space program can provide direct benefits to the individual citizens of a na-tion. The pursuit of these benefits is expressed in three rationales—advancementof scientific and technical skills or capacity, inducement of economic growth, andimprovement of standards of living. In the Indian case, policymakers explicitly in-tended the space program “to play a significant role in a broader national policy ofplanned socioeconomic development.”8 These policymakers believed that throughthe development of science and technology, embodied in the space program andother national projects, India could “leap frog over the traditional stages of develop-ment.”9

In addition to the goals of development and increasing societal benefit, some ofthe drivers that started the space age continue to influence national space programs.In particular these drivers include international prestige and national security, andare associated with national power. While development represents an important ra-tionale for initiating a national space program these traditional drivers should not bediscounted.

India’s Space Capabilities

The Indian government created a dedicated institutional framework for its nationalspace program. This framework includes: the Department of Space (DOS), the ad-ministrative agency responsible for the Indian space program; the Indian SpaceResearch Organization (ISRO), the primary operational entity responsible for In-dian space activities; and the Antrix Corporation, a government-owned organizationresponsible for marketing India’s space products and services.10

From the inception of its space program in 1962, India has favored an evolution-ary technology development process.11 India’s indigenous space launch capacityprovides an excellent example of this strategy. The first generation of space launchvehicles began with the Satellite Launch Vehicle in 1979. Technologies from thisand other early launch vehicles, along with judicious use of technology transfer, sup-port the present generation of launchers, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV)

8 Mistry, D. (1998).9 Mistry, D. (1998).10 ISRO (2007) Annual Report 2006–2007.11 Mistry, D. (1998).

458 I.A. Christensen et al.

and the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). The GSLV in particularis an interesting example of India’s incremental development efforts. The first stage,a 130-ton solid booster, is proven PSLV technology; however, the fourth stage isa Russian supplied cryogenic engine.12 ISRO is relying on the Russian engine togain experience with cryogenic technology as they develop an indigenous fourthstage.13

India also possesses an indigenous capacity to build and operate world-classsatellites, with a particular focus on communications and Earth observation plat-forms. The INSAT series of satellites provides an advanced telecommunicationscapability in combination with a meteorological capability. The Indian RemoteSensing Satellite System (IRS) provides resolution and sensing capabilities thatare comparable to systems operated by the most technically advanced space actors,including government and private entities.

India’s satellite capabilities have enabled a number of successful applicationsfocused on providing societal services. The INSAT series has been used to providerural connectivity, resulting in the expansion of access to public television from26% of the population in 1983 to 90% in 2005.14 Tele-education and tele-medicineapplications have also been developed using India’s satellite communication capa-bilities.15 For example, in the pilot phase of the HealthSat program, using existingINSAT capabilities, 152 remote and rural clinics were connected to 34 specialtyhospitals in major population centers.16 India is scheduled to launch a dedicatedcommunications satellite in early 2008, to provide communications links betweenurban specialty health centers and rural clinics. A similar program for the educa-tion sector, the EDUSAT program, has connected 10,200 terminals across India tofacilitate instruction.17

The IRS satellites are used for natural disaster monitoring purposes and to pro-vide data to decision makers for agricultural and natural resource monitoring andmanagement. For example, the Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water TechnologyMission used IRS-derived data to map potential groundwater sources, a capabilitythat is especially useful when applied in rural communities. Using this data, 200,000groundwater wells were drilled in 160,000 villages in rural India, with a success rateof 92%. This is compared to a 42% success rate using conventional siting methods.18

Remote sensing applications such as this, help India manage its factors of produc-tion while supporting the populace.

12 Mistry, D. (1998).13 ISRO (2007) “Indigenous Cryogenic Stage Successfully Qualified.”14 Kasturirangan, K. (2006).15 Bagchi S. (2006).16 ISRO (2007) Annual Report 2006–2007.17 ISRO (2007) Annual Report 2006–2007.18 Thomas, V.A. and Goel, P.S. (2003).

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Elements of India’s Experience

Through a review of the history and current operations of India’s space program,we identified a set of elements that have contributed, and continue to contribute, tothe successful application of space technologies to India’s development challenges.These elements are highlighted in bold throughout the text below and a completelisting can be found in Table 1.

The decision of the Government of India (GOI) to invest in a national space pro-gram exhibited several of the traditional rationales alluded to earlier in this chapter,specifically pride, prestige, regional leadership, and national security. India’sspace community is proud of indigenous capabilities in the satellite manufacturingand space launch sectors.19 In addition, the space program was “intended to sym-bolize India’s high-technology achievements, and thereby enhance India’s prestigeinternationally, especially among the non-aligned group of nations.”20 The successof the Indian space program contributes to international recognition of India as aregional leader and a rapidly developing nation in the global community. Regionalallies and threats and the implication they have on national security are an impor-tant motivator for India’s investment in space. India’s satellite capabilities strengthennational security by providing improved situational awareness and tactical support.Additionally, as was the case for other space-faring nations, the development of In-dian space launch assets was associated with the development of nuclear weapons.21

Policies aimed at addressing the country’s development challenges informed theestablishment of India’s space program. India’s need for effective management ofnatural resources is an example of these challenges. Given the diversity of India’sterrain and its large geographic area, the synoptic coverage of remote sensing satel-lites provides a significant advantage to decision makers. The national requirementfor broad infrastructure, which is also hindered by India’s diverse terrain, providesanother challenge to national development. Space assets that partially address thischallenge were seen as an attractive investment in infrastructure developmentfor India, as a developing nation. Vital infrastructure includes, but is not limitedto: physical infrastructure (e.g. roads, buildings, communications, and transmissionlines for electricity, water, and gas); and institutional infrastructure (e.g. labor force,educational system, and research institutions). Satellites provide alternatives to ter-restrial telecommunication and are often favored for rural connectivity. Specializedapplications such as ISRO’s EDUSAT program demonstrates how space assets cancontribute to the development of human capital and educational systems.

Despite development challenges, India’s culture has traditionally placed a highvalue on education. During the British colonial period, the manifestation of thiscultural value changed. Specifically, India’s indigenous educational system was dis-banded, and a western style of education diffused throughout the country. This

19 Kasturirangan, K. (2006).20 Mistry, D. (1998).21 Mistry, D. (1998).

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diffusion has aided India’s recent rapid growth and its construction of basic in-frastructure.22 Satellite applications, such as the EDUSAT program, build upon thewestern educational institutions adopted in India and assist GOI in efforts to dis-seminate education.

Another aspect of the legacy of colonialism is an emphasis on independenceand self-sufficiency. One manifestation of this emphasis came soon after the na-tion’s independence in 1947, when India’s leaders “initiated programs to developindigenous scientific and technical expertise.”23 The Government of India has imple-mented these programs through Five Year Plans, which have four basic objectives:

1) To build a strong infrastructure for science and technology research;2) To promote education and generate human capital in science and technology;3) To establish science centers to serve the needs of the rural population; and4) To promote non-military applications of nuclear and space research.24

These objectives “establish a foundation on which to build independent capaci-ties in science and engineering.”25

In laying a foundation for its space capacity, India made effective use of foreignaid, which is comprised of technical assistance, foreign direct investment, and loansor grants. India leveraged this foreign aid to “develop locally whatever technologythey could,” building indigenous capabilities. Merely acquiring an article of tech-nology does not provide a nation with the science and technology understandingnecessary to produce it locally, nor with the capacity to use it efficiently. Insteadthe nation must develop indigenous capabilities.26 Foreign technical assistance andcollaboration was thought to be necessary to learn the skills essential for meetingISRO goals.27

India’s satellite programs developed along an evolutionary path that allowed in-creasing native involvement. This strategy has permitted the growth of indigenousspace capacity while minimizing the initial financial outlay. It should be emphasizedthat this process developed a capacity, as opposed to a mere technology. Possessionof a capacity entails the ability to indigenously produce a technology and adjust thattechnology to suit local conditions, whereas simply acquiring a technology onlysupports use and replication. Effective use of technical assistance has permittedIndia to remain independent of foreign aid as it has built its space program. Ben-eficial societal applications stemmed from effective development of these capacitiesand provided a conduit for indigenous technology and knowledge development.India has even been able to provide these technologies and associated services inthe form of foreign aid to other countries in the region, demonstrating their regionalleadership. India’s experience suggests that, “foreign technological inputs in some

22 Kumar, V. (2007).23 Jain, A and Kharbanda, V.P. (2003).24 Jain, A and Kharbanda, V.P. (2003).25 Jain, A and Kharbanda, V.P. (2003).26 Akubue, A. (2002).27 Baskaran, A. (2001).

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form are indispensable to a developing country for building capabilities in complexsystems such as space technology.”28

India’s ability to network with expatriates has also contributed to its successin space and other high-technology fields. Estimates indicate that greater than 20million people of Indian descent, including first generation expatriates, currentlylive overseas.29 Foreign organizations and individual members of the diaspora haveadvocated investment in their homeland, acted as advisors to the Indian government,provided financial support for its engineering schools, and contributed to its invest-ment capital.30 In response, GOI has created the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairsto act as a networking agent for its diaspora. This agency sponsors programs such asthe Collaborative Projects With Scientists & Technologists Of Indian Origin AbroadProgram, which encourages expatriates to work with domestic institutions.31 Thespace community in India has been able to leverage knowledge and skills learnedoverseas though this successful use of networking.

The Government of India has formalized many relationships between itself andthe science and technology community, as evidenced by the Ministry of OverseasIndian Affairs. This tendency indicates an inclination towards a technocratic gov-ernment. For example, the rather technocratic character of the government hasenabled government sheltering of programs in high-technology industries suchas space, biotechnology, energy, and information technology. The space program’ssymbolic importance helped ensure political support during its formative years.

Evidence exists that this political sheltering continues today; taking the formof a “tacit” alliance between India’s political leadership and its scientific elite.32

In others words close connections with policymakers, both formal and informal,support India’s space efforts. For example, a former President of India, A.P.J. AbdulKalam, was the project manager in the development of the Satellite Launch Vehicle,and continues to publicly support India’s space efforts today. Furthermore, a numberof former ISRO scientists or program officers are currently Members of the IndianParliament. Indian policymakers have employed a long-term planning approach inseveral areas of science and technology policy including space, which has its ownFive Year Plan.33 Employing this sort of multi-year policy and planning horizonlends further political, programmatic and, importantly, budgetary stability to India’sspace efforts.

India has made effective use of the available resource base to support its spaceprogram. India’s space budget for 2007–2008 is estimated at $884 million34 andgrew over 60 percent in real terms between 1990 and 2000.35 Despite the growth

28 Baskaran, A. (2001).29 Non Resident Indians & Persons of Indian Origin Division, Ministry of External Affairs (2004).30 Non Resident Indians & Persons of Indian Origin Division, Ministry of External Affairs (2004).31 Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (2006).32 Krishna, V.V. (2001).33 Jain, A and Kharbanda, V.P. (2003).34 Jayaraman, K.S. (2007).35 Space Security Index (2007) “Briefing Notes 2007: Civil Space Programs and Global Utilities.”

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trend, total spending on space remains relatively small, at .03% GDP36, and budgetlimitations have caused ISRO to develop cost-effective technologies and techniques.“According to top ISRO officials, costs of building satellites and launch services arelower by 20 to 30 percent in India,”37 and “in terms of output per unit expenditurethe Indian space program compares favorably with the space programs of othernations.”38

India’s space program is characterized by a strong emphasis on providing tangi-ble benefits and societal services. Specific programs, such as HealthSat, EDUSAT,and the Drinking Water Technology Mission, discussed earlier in this chapter, high-light this emphasis. These programs demonstrate ISRO’s focus on developing andleveraging space applications in order to provide societal services and address devel-opment challenges. A particularly illustrative example of this programmatic focusis ISRO’s Village Resources Center (VRC) program, through which space-basedservices are provided “directly to the rural population.”39 The VRC program, es-tablished in 2004 and operated by ISRO in conjunction with 40 other governmentagencies, trusts, institutes, and NGOs, provides satellite connectivity, services, anddata directly to community users.40 The services provided include agricultural andweather advisories, educational programs, and healthcare information.

The VRC program features a large degree of linkages with other sectors ofsociety; a characteristic that is also found in many of India’s other space applicationprograms. For example, the EDUSAT program is a collaborative project of ISROand the Ministry of Human Resource Development and features participation bythe Indira Gandhi National Open University, the All India Council for TechnicalEducation, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the National Council ofEducational Research and Training, and the University Grants Commission.41 ISROalso emphasizes the development of close ties with educational institutions. Forexample, on September 14, 2007 the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technol-ogy was inaugurated, with the aim of providing a “high quality education in spacescience and technology to meet the demands of Indian Space Programme.”42 Indiais also the location of a United Nations affiliated Regional Center for Space Scienceand Technical Education. Furthermore, ISRO facilities are often co-located withother centers of science and technology expertise. This high degree of linkages con-tributes to India’s ability to modify and apply space technology to local conditionsand challenges.

India’s space infrastructure is geographically distributed; as ISRO’s offices,research centers, and launch and manufacturing facilities are spread throughoutthe country, see Fig. 2. The distribution of space infrastructure and facilities

36 National Network of Education (2008).37 ZEENews (unknown).38 Mistry, D. (1998).39 ISRO (2007) Annual Report 2006–2007.40 ISRO (2007) Annual Report 2006–2007.41 Warrier, B.S. (2006).42 ISRO (2007) “Indian Institute of Space Since and Technology (IIST) Inaugurated.”

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Fig. 2 Map of India’s space infrastructure Source: ISRO

contributes to India’s broad-based economic and human capital development andhelps to develop a political constituency for the program throughout the country.This constituency is important in helping to ensure continued support for the pro-gram a parliamentary system of government.

The elements of India’s successful space endeavors, as described in the precedingnarrative, are listed in Table 1, below.

The Indian Model

The preceding review illustrated several important concepts and events that guidedand supported India’s development as a space-faring nation as well as the creation ofnational institutions that leverage success in space for societal development. Theseelements include policy decisions, natural factors of production, and cultural char-acteristics that are woven into India’s identity. Some of the identified elements are

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Table 1 Elements of the Indian Experience

Pride/prestige Investment in infrastructuredevelopment

Connections withpolicymakers

Regional leadership Cultural value of education Long-term planningNational security Legacy of colonialism

(emphasis on independence)Resource base to support

programAllies and threats Effective use of foreign aid Emphasis on tangible

benefits and societalservices

Need for resource management Technology and knowledgedevelopment

Linkages with other sectors

Requirement for broad infrastructure Networking with expatriates Distribution of spaceinfrastructure

Sheltering of programs

considered traditional rationales for, or products of, a national space program andhave been discussed at length by other authors; for example national security orinvestment in a communications infrastructure. Other elements are more exclusiveand not often associated with national space programs; for instance India’s legacyof colonialism, a period which cultivated a national aspiration for independence andautonomous capabilities. However, each element in its own way helped plot thecourse or fuel the engine of the Indian space program.

Separately, these identified elements provide a glimpse at important features ofthe Indian space program and India’s national policy of development through tech-nical investment. However, as individual data points these elements of the Indianexperience provide limited insight into the process of adopting a national space pro-gram similar to India’s. They provide neither map nor model for nations attemptingto leverage a space program in order to escape the factor driven stage of develop-ment. In order to transform this list into an applicable tool for policy decisions, it isnecessary to develop the listing of elements into a logical structure that provides in-terconnections and allows a nation’s leaders to isolate the most effective elements ina given scenario. We begin this process with an initial sorting that results in severalcommonalities.

Unsurprisingly, the elements of India’s experience are tied to themes within thenation’s culture, government, or economic institutions. Figure 3 below provides asimple mapping of these elements to the broad categories of Culture, Government,and Economics. Not every element can be neatly placed into one of these categories;for instance “networking with expatriates,” which requires cultural connections andgovernment advocacy. Associating the elements of the Indian experience with broadthemes emphasizes connections and helps to illustrate a natural framework for afunctional model.

When identifying these elements, a wide net was cast to capture significant fac-tors that contributed to the current state of India’s space program. However, thefactors were not equally applicable to the development of India as a space-faring na-tion. Some elements provide a direct driver or rationale for a space program to exist.These elements, referred to as “reasons,” contributed to India’s choice to invest inspace and the creation of a national program. Specific reasons include national pride

National Development Through Space 465

Fig. 3 Thematic map of the elements of the Indian experience

or a cultural value of education; both of which helped to cultivate the environmentnecessary for India’s space program to thrive.

Other elements provide a method through which the program continues to ex-ist. These “methods” include inputs used in the day-to-day operation of the spaceprogram and the resulting outputs of India’s space activity that create broader so-cioeconomic value. For instance, space operations require a significant investmentin infrastructure, an input, and can result in communications and remote sensingsatellites, which provide tangible benefits to society.

Of course, one of the ultimate goals of a tangible model for national developmentthrough investment in space is the ability to transfer successful behaviors, programs,and institutions to other nations. This requirement for mobility provides a secondmethod of differentiating between elements. Some of the elements are an intrinsicproperty of the nation and its people or institutions, while others are extrinsic. In-trinsic elements are closely tied to national identity, may have evolved organically,and may be restricted to a certain geographical region; consequently they cannot beeasily moved or adopted. Examples include India’s emphasis on independence andautonomous capabilities or natural resources like minerals or fossil fuel.

On the other hand, extrinsic elements tend to be mobile and can readily adopted,(or eliminated) by another nation. National policies, such as programs to effectivelyuse of foreign aid or an emphasis on regional leadership, are ideal examples ofextrinsic elements that can be adopted with a policy shift and behavioral changes.

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Although these elements may be easy to transfer, doing so is not costless. For ex-ample the cost of pursuing a policy of regional leadership could be very high fora developing nation (note that this cost is not solely economic and can include po-litical, social, or cultural costs). It is necessary to fully consider these costs beforerecommending the adoption of an extrinsic element. However, unlike an intrinsicelement, such as a coal field that either exists within a national border or does not,the choice to transfer extrinsic elements can be made.

This discussion highlights a potential method for designing a functional toolaround the elements of India’s experience. When the elements are mapped to a 2×2matrix—intrinsic/extrinsic coupled with reason/method—the result is an interestingand flexible tool based on concepts that can apply to multiple countries. This isshown Fig. 4, below.

The boxes in Fig. 4 provide the basis for a simple decisional tree for compar-ing successful elements in the Indian experience to the needs, requirements, andpreexisting conditions in a potential adoptee. For example, countries interested inaccelerating development through space and that already have several of the ele-ments in Quadrant 1, the intrinsic/reason box, could benefit from adopting a similarstrategy to India’s – building internal capacities and focusing on societal services.In this scenario, if a country already places a high value on education and indepen-dence, then these intrinsic drivers could nurture a proven model for a national spaceprogram: India’s. However, if these drivers are not emphasized in the interestedcountry, then an alternative role model, for instance China or South Korea, might bepreferable.

Cultural value of education Need for resource managementPride/prestigeTechnology developmentRegional leadership

Emphasis on tangiblebenefits/soceital servicesConnections with policymakersSheltering programsLong term planningLinkages with other sectorsEffective use of foreign aidInvestment in/spread ofinfrastructure

Emphasis on independenceAllies and threatsNational security concernsMilitary driver in launch vehiclesReason

Intrinsic

1 2

43

Extrinsic

Method

Networking with expatriatesResources to support programRequirement for broadinfrastructure

Fig. 4 A model for the Indian experience

National Development Through Space 467

Quadrant 3, the intrinsic/method box, is particularly interesting because it con-tains some of the important elements of India’s institutional structure that are nec-essary for ongoing success, but cannot be easily imported. If the scenario countrypossesses these elements as well as some elements in Quadrant 1, then not onlyis India’s strategy toward space a good match, but the country could also benefitfrom the organizational example of ISRO/DOS. By directly adopting some of In-dia’s institutional structure, for instance the diffuse hierarchy between ISRO, DOS,and Antrix or its distributed infrastructure, the scenario country could shortcut theestablishment of national space institutions. In general, the countries that share ele-ments in both Quadrants 1 and 3 have the most potential to benefit from the Indianexperience.

The extrinsic column identifies all the elements of India’s success in developmentvia space that could be easily imported. Quadrant 4, the extrinsic/method box, cap-tures many of the elements that enabled the continued success of ISRO’s programs.By adopting these elements, a country with a similar space institution could increasethe effectiveness and enhance the societal benefit derived from its space programs.However, if the adopting space institution significantly differs from the ISRO/DOSmodel, especially with respect to targeting societal benefits, then these elements areless likely to benefit the nation and they could hinder the current operations of thespace program.

Quadrant 2, the extrinsic/reason box, is also particularly interesting since it con-tains drivers or rationales for an Indian style space program that can be easily im-ported. By adopting these elements a county can attempt to build political will and anational desire for a space program. Consequently, after integrating these elementswith society, the scenario country can directly benefit from the Indian experienceeven if the country did not originally have sufficient drivers in Quadrant 1. Quad-rant 2 provides a potential secondary path for a government that wishes to pursuea strategy of societal development via a space program but currently cannot justifythe investment.

Through the application of this tool a developing country’s current needs andcapabilities can be compared to the elements that led to a successful national spaceprogram in India. Furthermore, the tool can help suggest a course of action, as inthe case of the country that lacks elements in Quadrant 1 but that can either adoptelements in Quadrant 2 or pursue a different strategy. The tool appears to be flexi-ble since additional elements can be included or the mapping of elements changedwithout damaging the functionality of the tool. However, case studies are necessaryto test the applicability and usefulness of the model shown in Fig. 4.

Case Studies

Developing countries vary considerably in their capabilities, motivations, and levelsof investment in space. Given the range and diversity of these countries, it is difficultto devise a standard way of classifying or grouping them. Figure 5, below, shows

468 I.A. Christensen et al.

Fig. 5 Selected developing countries with space activities

selected developing countries across the globe with some investment in space. It isa representative, not a complete, listing. Each of the countries in Fig. 1 possesses adifferent level of scientific and technological expertise and capability. Due to thesedifferences, it is difficult to analyze these countries as a group; for example, Chinesecapabilities in space cannot be discussed in the same way as Nigeria’s. A Scientificand Technological Capacity Index, developed by researchers at the RAND Corpo-ration, has been employed to facilitate the discussion of different countries.

Potential case studies were filtered via the RAND Scientific and Technologi-cal Capacity Index to identify countries with comparable science and technologycapacity to India. In addition, potential countries for the case studies had to havesignificant development challenges and be open to pursuing a space program toaddress some of these challenges. This selection methodology has biased the poolof potential countries for case studies to those that bear a number of similarities toIndia. The countries ultimately selected were South Africa and Kazakhstan.

South Africa Case Study

Approach to Space

Government interest in space in South Africa is currently undergoing a revitaliza-tion. As of December 2007, both the South African Parliament and the Cabinet haveapproved the creation of a South African Space Agency and efforts are currentlyunder way to draft a national space policy. Also, South Africa was due to launchits first national, government-owned satellite, the indigenously built SumbandilaSat,which carries both Earth observation and communications payloads, in 2007, but thelaunch is currently delayed indefinitely due to interface difficulties with the chosenRussian launch vehicle.43 In light of these developments, a South African space

43 Campbell, K. (2008). “SA Ponders Satellite Launch Options.”

National Development Through Space 469

official has noted that, “South Africa has identified space as an essential tool withwhich to tackle national priorities of meeting basic needs and improving resourcemanagement, as well as retaining and improving our scientific and technologicalexpertise.”44

South Africa is actively endeavoring to engage space as a tool in addressing thecountry’s development challenges, which include poverty, healthcare services andpoor infrastructure. The South African Government faces considerable difficultiesin providing adequate services to its urban population—representing 55% of thetotal population of the country—since infrastructure in many South African citiesis particularly underdeveloped.45 Telecommunications infrastructure is also a par-ticular challenge. Satellites are seen by some South African officials as essential toproviding telecommunications services to South Africa’s people, especially thosethat live in rural areas.46 In addition to infrastructure, South Africa is challenged byresponsible management and use of natural resources. Balancing the use of naturalresources for consumption and economic growth against the need for environmen-tal protection is an administrative difficulty. These challenges could be addressedthrough technology and infrastructure to provide information for the managementof resources.47

South Africa faces a number of challenges to developing its scientific and techni-cal capacity. The country suffers from a brain drain; there is a net outflow of skilledpersonnel from the country.48 The existent scientific workforce is also aging. Bothof these trends point to a “serious challenge to the future human capital base ofthe country.”49 South Africa also faces a very specific and unique challenge in thelegacy that apartheid has left upon the country’s science and technology system. Theapartheid regime resulted in South Africa becoming geopolitically isolated, includ-ing from the international scientific community.50 It also resulted in large degreesof inequalities within the higher educational system.51 As a result of these effects,the “levels of collaboration across scientific fields and institutional boundaries inSouth Africa” were very low during and immediately after the apartheid regime.52

Although efforts are being made to overcome these challenges, “the legacy of an iso-lationist culture is still very prevalent in the South African science system.”53 Giventhe context of these challenges, space is seen by the South African Government asa vehicle to, among other things, support and coordinate industry and educational

44 Martinez, P. (2006).45 Ramusi, M. (2006).46 Ramusi, M. (2005).47 Government of South Africa. (Unkown).48 Mouton, J. (2003).49 Mouton, J. (2003).50 Mouton, J. (2003).51 Mouton, J. (2003).52 Mouton, J. (2003).53 Mouton, J. (2003).

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sector expertise, support sustainable development and resource management, andcontribute to the development of a knowledge society.54

Existing Space Assets and Capabilities

South Africa has existing competence in the development of space systems andthe use of space-derived data. A notable degree of small-satellite manufacturingcapability exists in centers of expertise in South African industry and education.The engineering department at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University built and op-erated a small satellite—SunSat—as a research project in the late 1990s. Using theexpertise developed in this project, a number of the engineers established a smallsatellite manufacturing company, SunSpace Limited, which sells small satellitesinternationally and to the South African government. The combined expertise atStellenbosch and SunSpace provides South Africa with limited capacity to manu-facture satellites domestically. This capacity focuses on small, moderately capablesatellites for primarily Earth observation and science applications.55

South Africa also has a history of government activity in space. During the 1980s,under the apartheid regime, South Africa embarked on the development of a govern-mental space program focused on military applications, including launch vehiclesand reconnaissance satellites. South Africa also has a long history of using space-derived data and services. As result of this prior involvement in space activities,South Africa has a number of government centers focused on space applicationsand data usage. In addition, South Africa possesses a number of ground stationsfor receiving satellite data. However, South Africa’s previous government spaceprogram was terminated with the end of the apartheid regime due to a perceivedfailure of that program to align with the nation’s needs.56

The current revitalization of interest in space in South Africa is colored by thecountry’s capabilities, challenges and history. South Africa is currently working todevelop the programmatic and policy context for its space efforts. In doing so itseeks to leverage its existing and future space capabilities in order to address thesignificant development challenges present in South Africa and at the same timetake the program in a different direction than the previous abortive South Africangovernment space effort. There are a number of similarities between South Africaand India. Both countries have similar levels of science and technology capacity—asevidenced by the RAND Index—and face similar development challenges. Giventhese parallels, and South Africa’s renewed interest in space activities, India’s expe-rience in space presents a potential path forward for South Africa to meet its nationalneeds through a space program.

54 Mouton, J. (2003).55 Sunspace Ltd. (2007).56 Ramusi, M. (2005).

National Development Through Space 471

Applying the Indian Model to the South African Context

Figure 6, below, suggests which elements of the Indian experience might be relevantto South Africa as it attempts to develop an institutional and policy context forits space activities. Certain elements of India’s space endeavor are already presentin South Africa; these are highlighted in bold in Fig. 6. However, there are manyelements that might potentially be adopted by or applied to space efforts currentlyunderway in South Africa; these are shown in italicized text in Fig. 6. A discussionof some of these elements follows.

Cultural value of education Need for resource managementPride/prestigeTechnology developmentRegional leadership

Emphasis on tangiblebenefits/soceital servicesConnections with policymakersSheltering programsLong term planningLinkages with other sectorsEffective use of foreign aidInvestment in/spread ofinfrastructure

Emphasis on independenceAllies and threatsNational security concernsMilitary driver in launch vehiclesReason

Intrinsic

1 2

43

Extrinsic

Method

Networking with expatriatesResources to support programRequirement for broadinfrastructure

Fig. 6 The Indian model applied to the South African contextKEY: Bold: existing elements Italics: potential element to adopt

Pre-existing Elements

Of the elements identified as intrinsic factors, South Africa has two in common withIndia, and has the potential for a third. South Africa shares India’s legacy as a formercolonial domain of the British Empire. This, in conjunction with the isolationisteffects of apartheid, has left South Africa with an emphasis on independence similarto that found in India. This emphasis might contribute to the development of a strongindigenous space program in South Africa. However, there is less evidence of anexplicit policy focus being placed on independence in South Africa than there hasbeen in Indian history.

South Africa also shares with India a societal requirement for broad infrastructurein support of its development. The Indian experience shows how space technologycan be applied in developing a broad physical infrastructure base. Space is alsoenvisioned in South Africa as a vector for improving its institutional infrastructure.

472 I.A. Christensen et al.

In addition, South African actors are endeavoring to develop more effective net-working with ex-patriots, in response both to the brain drain problem and to thelegacy of apartheid. For example, one such actor, the South African Network ofSkills Abroad, “has created a database that matches skill shortages in South Africawith the overseas locations of concentrations of expatriates who have those skills.”57

South African policymakers might seek to leverage some of this expertise abroad asthey look to develop their capacity for space activities.

However, it is worth noting that South Africa lacks both the resource baseand the cultural value placed on education that were present in India during theformative days of its space program and continue today. The lack of these in-trinsic factors may inhibit the development of a space program based on the In-dian experience. Moreover, South Africa has discarded a previous space effort,which was based upon three of the elements identified as intrinsic, reasons inQuadrant 1 of Fig. 6 (allies and threats, national security concerns, and mili-tary drivers in launch vehicle development). This is evidence that South Africahas discounted military and national security drivers as elements of its spaceprogram.

India’s experience is highly relevant to the South African context with respect toextrinsic factors that are reasons for a space program (Quadrant 2 in Fig. 6). Bothnational pride and the need for resource management are clear motivators for theSouth African Government’s renewed interest in space. South Africa is cognizantof the space efforts of other African nations, particularly Algeria and Nigeria, anddoes not wish to be left behind.58 The government also views space as a vehicle forinternational engagement.59 In this regard, a space program potentially offers onepath to continue the process of removing the isolationist legacy that apartheid lefton South Africa’s science and technology systems.

As South Africa builds its space sector, it hopes to engage space as a vectorfor technological development that paves the way to its regional leadership. SouthAfrican policymakers have noted the power of space to enable “innovation andachievement in industrial and technological endeavors.”60 South Africa hopes totake the lead in one such space-based endeavor, the proposed African ResourcesManagement Constellation of satellites. Under this plan, a group of African nationswould develop and operate a constellation of Earth observation satellites for dis-aster and resource monitoring purposes. South Africa aims to leverage its satellitemanufacturing capacity to lead the development of this constellation. Moreover, bydeveloping its satellite manufacturing capacity, South Africa engages space as avector for technological development.61

57 Devan, J. and Tewari, P.S. (unknown).58 Campbell, K. (2005). “Last in Space.”59 Martinez, P. (2006).60 Martinez, P. (2006).61 Martinez, P. (2006).

National Development Through Space 473

Potential Elements to Adopt

A number of those elements of India’s experience that are extrinsic, those found inQuadrant 4 of Fig. 6, offer potential benefit if adapted to the South African context.Most obvious among these is India’s focus on societal benefits and applications.Many of the same space applications that India has developed to address its soci-etal challenges could be used in South Africa. One such example is in the area oftelecommunications. It has been noted that connectivity is a significant challengefaced by South Africa. Accordingly, those drafting South Africa’s space policy haverecommended that the country decide whether it needs a national communicationssatellite. It is suggested that, “lessons from countries like India, how they dealt withthat issue during the conception phase of their interest in satellite communicationswould be instructive.”62 One such lesson is India’s evolutionary use of foreign tech-nical assistance in developing their capacity. Although South Africa already hassome capacity in satellite technology, particularly in Earth observations, if policy-makers choose to develop a national telecommunications satellite(s), foreign aidwould likely be required. Given the launch difficulties currently being experiencedby SumbandilaSat, South African officials are also actively considering the questionof whether the county should develop its own launch vehicles.63 India’s experiencein launcher development might prove an illustrative example.

The question of linkages between the space program and other sectors of societyis particularly interesting in the South African context. To a certain degree, somesuch linkages already exist, especially between the education and space industrysectors, as evidenced by the relationship between SunSpace and Stellenbosch Uni-versity. However, it is likely that South African space efforts, along with generalscience and technology programs, would benefit from active polices to develop fur-ther cross-sectoral linkages. Developing the types of linkages seen in India’s spaceapplications programs, for instance EDUSAT or the VRC program, could contributesignificantly to overcoming the effects of apartheid. Such linkages would also helpsupport South Africa’s efforts to develop its institutional infrastructure; in particu-lar in overcoming isolation and inequalities within higher education. In the Indiancontext, such linkages have also been shown to be instrumental in adapting spacetechnology to local conditions and development challenges.

Kazakhstan Case Study

Approach to Space

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine inheritedthe existing space infrastructure. Russia and Ukraine contained the rocket build-ing, satellite manufacturing, cosmonaut training, and research organizations, while

62 Z-Coms Consortium (2006).63 Campbell, K. (2008).

474 I.A. Christensen et al.

Kazakhstan had the launch facility, Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Government ofKazakhstan (GOK) is now in the process of determining how best to use Baikonurto maximize its value in aiding the country’s development.

Kazakhstan has recognized that it needs to move away from dependence on nat-ural resource extraction as its economic base and diversify its economy for sustain-able development. The Government of Kazakhstan hopes to competitively engagewith the global information economy by following a scientific and technologicaldevelopment path to move from a factor driven economy to an investment driveneconomy. While Kazakhstan has a population that is very well educated, with aliteracy rate of more than 98%,64 the country suffers from brain drain. Improvingits science and technology base will allow Kazakhstan to better support both itsphysical and institutional infrastructure and make itself a competitive nation.

Possession of the Cosmodrome was the first step in developing a space programin Kazakhstan, however the country still requires government policies and organiza-tional institutions to oversee the planning and implementation of its space program.The first policy statement discussing the use of space to meet Kazakhstan’s goal wasthe Innovative Industrial Development Strategy of the Republic of Kazakhstan for2003–2015.65 This document highlighted space technology as a promising means tohelp overhaul the country’s economy due to the industry’s pre-existing infrastruc-ture.

The document Development of the Space Industry Program in Kazakhstan for2005–2007 applies the goals of the 2003–2015 industrial policy specifically to thespace program. This document outlines a program with a budget of approximately$358 million. The program emphasizes promoting Kazakhstan’s independent ac-cess to space and increasing its capacity-building in space activities.66 KazCosmos,Kazakhstan’s space management organization has been charged with implementingthe Space Industry Program.

Existing Space Assets and Capabilities

An agreement between Russia and Kazakhstan for the lease of Baikonur wasreached in 1994, which stipulated that Russia would pay Kazakhstan $115 millionper year in rent for twenty years.67 Despite the rental contract, a number of incidentshave caused tension between the two neighbors. Kazakhstan is especially concernedabout the impact on its population and environment from Russian launches. Evenduring successful launches, rocket segments fall back to Earth, causing pollution anddamage. When a launch fails, debris and poisonous rocket fuel from the spacecraftcan enter the ecosystem and affect the local population. Despite these risks, in 2004

64 Central Intelligence Agency (2007).65 Government of Kazakhstan. (2003). Innovative Industrial Development Strategy of the Republicof Kazakhstan for 2003–2015.66 Government of Kazakhstan. (2003). Innovative Industrial Development Strategy of the Republicof Kazakhstan for 2003–2015.67 “Federation Council ratified agreement on Baikonur lease extension until 2050.” (Unknown).

National Development Through Space 475

both sides agreed to extend the lease until 2050.68 This version of the lease allowedKazakhstan to more effectively utilize the Cosmodrome, providing a significant el-ement for an independent national space program.

Kazakhstan’s present space capabilities consist of its first communications satel-lite, KazSat-1, which was launched on June 18, 2006, and associated ground stationsto track and receive data. A second communications satellite, KazSat-2, has beencontracted to Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center of Russia,the same company that built KazSat-1. GOK is planning a cluster of three perma-nent communications satellites, starting with KazSat-1 and KazSat-2, which willallow continuous coverage and provide services to nearby countries on a commer-cial basis.69

In addition to the KazSat communications cluster, a series of Earth observationand research satellites is planned. Currently, two low Earth orbit optical remote sens-ing satellites with additional scientific payloads are being considered.70 These satel-lites would be Kazakhstan’s first Earth observation satellites; however, the SpaceResearch Institute, established in 1991, has been using satellite data bought fromforeign sources to study the environment, gather information about its national ter-ritory, and manage natural resources. Additionally, Kazakhstan has joined Russia’sGlobal Navigation Satellite System.71 Kazakhstan and Russia are also working to-gether in the development of future launch facilities and vehicles, preparing experi-ment modules for the International Space Station, and training a small Kazakhstanicosmonaut corps. These developments will provide technical skills that can be ap-plied to Kazakhstan’s development challenges and will enhance its internationalprestige and competitiveness.

Applying the Indian Model to the Kazakhstani Context

Although Kazakhstan ranked lower on the RAND Scientific and TechnologicalCapacity Index with respect to India, the two countries have much in common.Elements of India’s space endeavor that are already present in Kazakhstan arehighlighted in bold in Fig. 7, below. In addition, there are some elements thatmight potentially be adopted by or applied to space efforts currently underway inKazakhstan; these are shown in italicized text in Figure 7. A discussion of theseelements follows.

Pre-existing Elements

Kazakhstan shares many intrinsic elements, identified in Fig. 7, with India, indicat-ing that it would likely benefit from India’s experience. Like India, Kazakhstan was

68 “Federation Council ratified agreement on Baikonur lease extension until 2050.” (Unknown).69 “Russian space company wins tender to build 2nd Kazakh satellite.” (2006).70 KazCosmos (2007) “Projects and facilities: Creation of the national earth remote sensingsystem.”71 “Kazakhstan To Have 7 Satellites 2 Years From Now – Premier.” (2006).

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Cultural value of education Need for resource managementPride/prestigeTechnology developmentRegional leadership

Emphasis on tangiblebenefits/soceital servicesConnections with policymakersSheltering programsLong term planningLinkages with other sectorsEffective use of foreign aidInvestment in/spread ofinfrastructure

Emphasis on independenceAllies and threatsNational security concernsMilitary driver in launch vehiclesReason

Intrinsic

1 2

43

Extrinsic

Method

Networking with expatriatesResources to support programRequirement for broadinfrastructure

Fig. 7 The Indian model applied to the Kazakhstani contextKEY: Bold: existing elements Italics: potential element to adopt

for a long time ruled by outsiders. After 200 years of control by first the Russian Em-pire, then the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan has acquired an emphasis on independence.In the space realm, GOK has indicated that it would like to have its own launch andsatellite capabilities to assure independent access to space and commercially marketthese services.

In Kazakhstan’s case, national pride and international prestige are connected withthe prospects of attaining regional leadership within Central Asia. Kazakhstan hasan abundance of natural resources and a stable economy. These assets, in conjunc-tion with its geographic position between Russia, China, Europe, and India, haveallowed it to develop a robust foreign policy that includes relationships with all ofthese economic powerhouses. These relationships allow Kazakhstan to benefit fromcompetition over its national resources. Through its space program, Kazakhstanaims to improve its political and scientific-technical image, making it even more at-tractive to investors and increasing its global competitiveness. Additionally, havingindependent access to space and its own cosmonaut corps provides valuable politicalcapital that increases the nation’s standing within Central Asia and throughout theworld.

Kazakhstan is a geographically large country with a very low population den-sity.72 It therefore requires a broad infrastructure to serve its distributed population.

72 Central Intelligence Agency (2007).

National Development Through Space 477

Using geostationary communications satellites, the government aims to provide itscitizens with access to mass media, distance education, and telemedicine.73

Abundant natural resources including petroleum, natural gas, coal, metals, agri-culture, and minerals,74 provide Kazakhstan’s space program with finical supportand raw materials. KazCosmos is using space-based applications for monitoringand improving natural resource distribution networks and environmental manage-ment. Some examples of such projects are: the Locust Management and MonitoringProject;75 the Fire Space Monitoring System;76 and the Flood Monitoring Infor-mation System.77 In addition to these projects, remotely sensed data will also beused to predict earthquakes, prospect for minerals, oil, and natural gas, and studyweather and climate.78 Through programs such as these, Kazakhstan is using spaceto provide tangible benefits and societal services.

The Space Industry Program is the first of what will, based on Kazakhstan’sSoviet history of 5-year plans, be a tradition of long-term planning. A more exten-sive and detailed version, which will be effective until 2020, is expected soon. Thislong-term planning approach, in conjunction with stable funding, should provide fora sustainable national space program.

Potential Elements to Adopt

Of the elements of India’s experience that Kazakhstan could adopt, effective useof foreign aid has the greatest potential. The country’s most frequent and naturalpartner is Russia, which trains many Kazakhstani space specialists at its universi-ties and institutes, collaborates on development of the Baiterek Launch Facility andAngara Rocket, and designs satellites such as KazSats 1 and 2. Ukraine is assist-ing Kazakhstan in the development of its ground stations, remote sensing satellitecapabilities, and training of space professionals. Also, Ukraine, Russia, and com-panies from Great Britain, France, Italy, and Israel are assisting Kazakhstan in thecreation of the Special Design-Technology Bureau for Space Equipment, which willencourage innovation and experimentation in the design, engineering, and efficientapplication of space technology.79 These partners, along with other countries suchas India and Spain, are collaborating with Kazakhstan on space-based telecommu-nications technology projects, satellite positioning, fundamental and applied spaceresearch in the sphere of physics, space biotechnology and biomedicine, as well as

73 KazCosmos (2007) “Projects and facilities: Development of the national geostationary directbroadcasting and multimedia services satellite.”74 Central Intelligence Agency (2007).75 Canadian International Development Agency (2006).76 Spivak, L.F., O.P. Arkhipkin, L.V. Shagarova, M.J. Batyrbaeva. (2003).77 Spivak, L., O. Arkhipkin, V. Pankratov, I. Vitkovskaya, G. Sagatdinova. (2004).78 KazCasmos (2007) “Projects and facilities: Creation of the national monitoring system.”79 KazCasmos (2007) “Projects and facilities: Special technology-design bureau of the spaceequipment.”

478 I.A. Christensen et al.

Earth remote sensing.80 Although Kazakhstan works with many foreign entities, itdoes not emphasize the incremental capacity-building used by India and, therefore,may not reap the benefits of indigenous capacity and independence to the maximumextent possible.

Similar to effective use of foreign aid is linkages with other sectors. The SpaceIndustry Program indicates that development of biotechnology, biomedicine, andmaterial science has been fed by space-based research in the past, but, despite someforeign partnerships in these areas, establishes no mechanisms to encourage domes-tic interactions between these sectors and its space program in the future. Directinteraction between the space program and other sectors is only well defined inconjunction with education. In this area, specific programs are proposed to developnew talent through expansion of space-related university programs and creation ofnew departments and majors. The government recently announced that it wouldbuild two new international universities that will merge educational facilities withresearch centers in many domains of science and technology, including space.81

Clearly, the concept of creating linkages is there, but has not been envisioned to itsgreatest possible extent, at least not in the space sector.

This analysis shows that Kazakhstan has many elements in common with Indiaand, given the GOK’s current policies, others can be adopted. Although its currentoperational capacity is not well developed, the potential for a robust space pro-gram is there. Importation of extrinsic elements of the Indian experience wouldincrease the benefits received from Kazakhstan’s space program and enhance itssustainability.

Conclusion

This chapter focused on how India’s experience in leveraging a national investmentin space for economic development and societal benefits might be applied to otherdeveloping countries. However, India’s space program continues to evolve and theISRO described in this paper, a society-centric institution focused on the applicationof space assets to development challenges, my not be the ISRO of the future. Specif-ically, the Government of India and ISRO have begun to pursue a new dimension forIndia’s space program. As evidenced by the planned Chandrayaan-1 lunar missionand other space exploration activities, India is beginning to look outward in thecontinued evolution of the space program.

These new exploration efforts may seem divergent from the objectives of In-dia’s space program emphasized in this chapter. However, as noted by formerPresident Abdul Kalam, exploration efforts could result in long term benefits toIndia’s people—presumably building on the direct benefits currently derived fromISRO satellites—in addition to the value of participation in international exploration

80 Government of Kazakhstan (2007) “Kazakhstan: A Space Odyssey.”81 Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the United States (2007).

National Development Through Space 479

efforts.82 Additionally, the Government of India would like to foster a private satel-lite industry to satisfy the demand for some satellite applications, e.g. communi-cation and remote sensing.83 The establishment of a sustainable private industrywould represent the successful continuation of the Indian experience in employingspace activities for national development. It remains to be seen how the objectivesof future exploration endeavors and societal applications will develop and their in-teraction should be investigated further. Nonetheless, we believe the historic pathof India’s development as a space-faring nation remains applicable to other nationswith nascent space programs. The question remains of how best to apply this expe-rience to the needs and requirements of an individual country.

This chapter describes a model of the Indian experience built from key elementsof India’s space program and their classification of intrinsic vs. extrinsic and rea-sons vs. methods. Examples of how to apply this model can be seen in the casestudies. Comparing the relevance of the Indian experience to South Africa andKazakhstan reveals an interesting similarity in the intrinsic elements identified inthe Indian model. Moreover, there are enough similarities between the case studycountries and India to suggest that the Indian model could be advantageous to eitherof these countries. By adopting some or all of the extrinsic elements, South Africaand Kazakhstan could improve the benefits to society derived from their investmentin space. However, external drivers and current scientific capacity could affect thedirection of national space programs in these countries, thereby altering the appli-cability of the India model.

While the results of the case studies show some promise for the model we haveoutlined, it is not a perfect fit. In each case, there are key factors that helped guide thecurrent development of space programs in South Africa and Kazakhstan that are notaccounted for in our list of elements from the Indian experience. It is possible thatthese elements existed for India and were overlooked during the analysis, or theycould be unique to the countries studied. In the former case, it would be fairly simpleto modify the model by adding elements to make it more relevant to the adoptingcountry. In the latter case, the entire model might need to be redesigned. Nonethelessthe process of separating elements into intrinsic and extrinsic factors; rationales,and methods of operation seems to have merit and could provide a powerful toolfor assessing any potential application of the Indian experience as a model. Furthercase studies, with a more clearly defined methodology are necessary to fully test theutility of our model or the strength of our analysis methodology.

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank their professors and colleagues at the SpacePolicy Institute of the George Washington University, in particular John Logsdon, Henry Hertzfeld,and Ray Williamson. The authors also would like to note the support provided by Nicolas Vonortasof the Center for International Science and Technology Policy at the George Washington Uni-versity. The authors thank A.P.J Abdul Kalam, Virender Kumar and Jasvinder Khoral for adviceand comments received during the preparation of this paper. The authors would also like to note

82 Abdul Kalam, A.P.J. (2007).83 Nair. (2008).

480 I.A. Christensen et al.

that a previous version of this study was presented at the 58th Annual International AstronauticalCongress in Hyderabad, India in September 2007.

Acronyms

DOS Department of SpaceGOK Government of KazakhstanGOI Government of IndiaGSLV Geosynchronous Satellite Launch VehicleIRS Indian Remote Sensing Satellite SystemISRO Indian Space Research OrganizationPSLV Polar Satellite Launch VehicleSPI Space Policy Institute of George Washington UniversityVRC Village Resources Center

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Space Based Societal Applications

A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

Abstract Space technology has the vast potential for addressing a variety of socio-economic problems of the developing countries, particularly in the areas of com-munication, rural development, disaster management, education and health sectors.Both remote sensing and communication technologies can be used to achieve thisgoal.

With its primary emphasis on large scale application of space technology onan end to end basis towards national development, the Indian Space Program hasdistinguished itself as one of the most cost-effective and development oriented spaceprograms in the world.

Satcom technology offers the unique capability of simultaneously reaching outto very large numbers spread over large distances even in the most remote cornersof the country. It is a very strong tool to support development education. India wasamongst the first few countries to explore the use of satellite communication forcarrying Education and Development oriented information and services to the ruralmasses. The applications started with Satellite TV Broadcasting to schools and ru-ral communities in the mid seventies. With the growth of telephone networks, thebroadcasting networks were adopted for one way video two way audio (return audioon phone) networks for Training. The further development in VSAT technologiesled to applications like telemedicine, tele-education and Village Resources Centers(VRCs).

VRCs are envisaged as single window delivery mechanism for village commu-nity providing a variety of space based products and services, such as tele-education;tele-medicine; information on natural resources for planning and development atlocal level; interactive advisories on agriculture, fisheries, land and water resourcesmanagement, livestock management, etc; interactive vocational training towards al-ternative livelihood; e-governance; weather information; etc.

This chapter describes potential of satcom technologies for societal applicationslike tele-education, tele-medicine, disaster management, and Village Resources

A. BhaskaranarayanaISRO Headquarters, Bangalore-Indiae-mail: bhaskaranarayana@yahoo.com

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 19, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

483

484 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

Centers, and initiatives taken by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) inimplementing these applications in India.

Keywords Tele-education · Edusat · Tele-medicine · Village resources centres ·Disaster management support · Search & Rescue · Disaster warning dissemination ·Developmental education

Introduction

The applications of space technology are unique in addressing the developmentalneeds of the society, and more so in case of developing countries. Realizing the vastpotential of space technology for addressing a variety of socio-economic problemsof the nation, particularly in the areas of communication, education, disaster man-agement and weather forecasting, ISRO has focused its attention on developing avibrant societal application-oriented space program on a totally self-reliant basis.

There are over 600,000 villages in India covering about 70% of the population ofthe country. Many of these villages are deprived of basic amenities and services, es-pecially in the areas of education, healthcare, sanitation and empowerment. Povertyis a major issue in developing countries like India. To resolve the intricacies of socialbackwardness, the core issues of abject destitution must be addressed with develop-mental perspectives to achieve more equitable access to the public good services.While certain benefits of space technology applications, such as environmental pro-tection and meteorological services, have wide acceptance at community level; itcan also provide stimulus in wealth generation, including peoples’ participation. Areal challenge is the extension of these benefits to the poor and marginalized, whodo not possess the means of exploiting space technology. Besides, India still sufferswith divides in the society, rural versus urban, rich versus poor and literate versusilliterates. Hence to bridge these divides, there is a need to devise a well-knit pro-gramme and policies, where the suitable technologies can be deployed appropriatelyfor improving the quality of life for the needy sections of the society.

The revolution of Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) has beensetting the era of globalization, especially the knowledge economy. There is greatoptimism over the potential for information and communication technologies topromote economic development and alleviate poverty. Recent advances in ICTscan bring the benefits to even the poorest of the poor in the developing world. Thechallenge is to harness the potential of ICT to promote the development goals likethe eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, achievement of universal primaryeducation, promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women, reduction ofchild mortality, improvement of maternal health, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria andother diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, etc.

Space technology-due to its inherent advantage of having access to remote, ru-ral and inaccessible areas- coupled with ICTs can be an effective mean to address

Space Based Societal Applications 485

several problems encountered by developing countries today in providing basic fa-cilities like health, education, employment and so on to rural population.

This paper describes the societal applications of space, information and commu-nication technologies undertaken by ISRO in India with emphasis on resolving thecore issues of backwardness through knowledge empowerment, and also reachingthe necessary services to the people at grassroots at their doorstep.

Societal Divides: Bridging the Gap Through Technology

Over the past two decades or so, India has moved into the premier league of worldeconomic growth that has reflected in its growing Gross Domestic Product (GDP)index. However, the pick-up in growth has not translated into a commensurate de-cline in rural poverty, inequality or illiteracy. Apart from the GDP growth rate, thereare also other related equally important issues such as basic human developmentand environmental sustainability that encompass education, healthcare, freedom,human rights, environment protection, natural resources management and disasterreduction. These aspects also do drive the economic growth and prosperity of thecountry considerably.

The digital divide, which is phenomenal between the developed and developingcountries, is grimmer within India. Digital isolation of the rural areas is leading tofurther divides and backwardness in the societies therein. The socio-economic gapbetween the rural and urban India is another major problem since its independence.

Historically, education has been the core issue for development in India. Al-though the country has made remarkable progress in last one decade to improvethe education scenario, there are still 356 million illiterates (Bhaskaranarayanaet al. 2007a). The disparity in education scenario is widespread within the countrywith sharp rural-urban divides.

Notwithstanding India’s programmes since independence for improving the healthof its people, which has made certain perceptible difference; the same is dwarfedby the level of progress made in the other developing countries. In India, life ex-pectancy has gone up from 36 years in 1951 to 62 years in 1995, and to 63.1 years in2000–2005. Infant mortality rate has been reduced from 146 (per 1,000 live births)to 71 in 1997, and to 58 in 2004 (Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007a). However, whenthe comparison is drawn on rural versus urban areas, the infant mortality rate wasas high as 63 in rural areas as compared to 40 in urban areas. The availability ofbeds in Government Hospitals (CHCs and other) was around 120, 000 (for nearly72 % of total population residing in rural India), as against 197, 000 in urban ar-eas. There is imminent need to improve the healthcare system in the rural areas(Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007a).

India is also one of the largest telecommunication markets in the world and isexpected to achieve the distinction of having second largest number of mobile sub-scribers by second half of 2008. It has 290 million telephony subscribers with about96 millions getting added every year. About 3.47 million broadband connections are

486 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

providing access to internet to the tune of 70 millions. However, the divide betweenrural and urban parts of the country is evident from the abysmally low tele-densityin rural India. While the overall tele-density is over 25.3%, the rural tele-densityis just about 8.68% compared to the urban tele-density of 62.9%. In conclusion, inspite of significant growth in the area of telecommunication in the recent past, thespread of the terrestrial technologies is not uniformly distributed, but concentratedin and around the urban regions leading to digital divide between rural and urban inaddition to health, wealth and economic divides.

The above discussions and the statistics suggest that the administrative mecha-nisms, put in place at different times through the past have yielded some results; butthey are certainly not adequate to keep pace with the desired growth rate. Hence,there is a strong need for augmenting our efforts with appropriate technologicalmeans such as space technology, which together can catalyze and lead us towardsthe required outcome. Several efforts have been made in this direction. The useof community radio in rural areas, screening of socially relevant short films dur-ing the village festivals, deployment of televisions at community centers and manysuch measures have brought transformation in the villages of India in a subtle way.ISRO, through the SITE (Satellite Interactive Television Experiment) programme,was involved in providing awareness on a variety of subjects in the villages acrossthe country by deploying satellite television during 1970s. ISRO has continuedsuch efforts for further catalyzing the transformation of rural India transcending thedigital divide, and providing the ICT based facilities through the modern satellitetechnology.

Indian Space-Infrastructure

India has been among the world leaders in developing end-to-end infrastructure andcapability in areas of both communication and remote sensing satellitestechnologies. ISRO has made remarkable progress in building state-of-the-art spaceinfrastructure such as the Indian National Satellites System (INSAT) for communi-cation and the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites for earth-observation. Thesesatellites have been providing vital services, such as telecommunication, televi-sion broadcasting, meteorological observations, disaster management, environmentmonitoring, natural resources management and infrastructure development.

India, as of now, has one of the largest domestic communication satellite sys-tems with a total of 211 communication transponders on eleven satellites INSAT-2E, INSAT-3A, 3B, 3C, 3E, GSAT-2, Edusat (GSAT-3), INSAT-4A, 4B, 4C-R andKalpana providing a variety of communication and meteorological services to thecountry.

Similarly, the operational IRS series of satellites have eight satellites in sun-synchronous low-earth orbit – IRS-1D, IRS-P3, TES, Oceansat-1, Resourcesat-1,Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2 & 2A. These satellites have been the workhorse for sev-eral applications – encompassing the various sectors such as agriculture, land and

Space Based Societal Applications 487

SocietalApplications in

India

Tele-Education:Edusat Utilization

Programme

Tele-medicineDevelopmental

Education:Gyandarshan, Vyas,

Eklavya, APNET

SITE(Early initiative)

DisasterManagement

Support

Village ResourceCentres (VRCs)

Training, Development& Communication:

JDCP, Gramsat, TDCC

Search & Rescue andDisaster Warning

Dissemination System

Fig. 1 Various space-technology based societal applications in India

water resources, forestry, environment, natural disasters, wasteland mapping, min-eral prospecting and infrastructure development.

Space Based Societal Applications – ISRO’s Initiatives

The space technology, involving satellite communication (Satcom), and Earth Ob-servations (EO), is one such tool that has made tremendous impact in recent yearsin societal development. While, the Satcom provides the conduit for the informationexchange/transfer; the EO provides the content/information on terrain features thatare of relevance to development. Satcom technology also offers the unique capabil-ity of simultaneously reaching out to very large numbers spread over large distanceseven in the most remote corners of the country. India has made effective use of bothof these technologies in launching several societal-based applications programmelike, Developmental Education & Training, Tele-education, Tele-medicine, VillageResource Centers (VRC), satellite-based Search & Rescue, Disaster ManagementSupport, etc. for the welfare of the people residing in far flung rural areas (Fig. 1).All of these societal-applications are described in detail in subsequent sections.

Early Initiatives: SITE Experiment – Development TV

The theme of the development TV or Community TV is to use a television, whichis installed in a “public” place, where people can gather and watch information ori-ented TV programmes. ISRO, in very early days itself, recognized the potential ofthe nation-wide TV broadcast, the most powerful medium of mass communication,

488 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

for tackling the massive problem of illiteracy in India. It carried out the world’slargest sociological experiment called the Satellite Instructional Television Exper-iment (SITE) in 1975–76, with the help NASA’s ATS-6 satellite. In the SITE ex-periment, specially tailored developmental video programmes in respective locallanguages were broadcast for 6 hours on each day to 2400 specially selected remotevillages in six states for a period of one year, for imparting education in health,hygiene, environment, better agricultural practices and family planning. Direct Re-ceive System (DRS) community TV sets were installed, under this programme, inpublic buildings in the villages – in most cases in the schools. About 150 batteryoperated sets were also deployed in the villages which did not have electricity. Theuniqueness of SITE was that it became the first large scale experiment to directlybroadcast video programs to a village community reception TV centers. Extensiveevaluation of both hardware and software components of the year long SITE experi-ment, conducted by a number of independent teams including those from outside thecountry, clearly demonstrated that SITE experiment had a very significant impacton rural population, thus firmly establishing the capability of satellite TV mediumfor rapidly transforming the Indian rural society (Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007b,Bhaskaranarayana and Jain 2007b).

After the experience of SITE, use of Satcom for Development Communicationis a regular feature of the National Television System (Doordarshan – a governmentTV broadcaster) using the INSAT – series of satellites. Doordarshan, at the nationaland regional level, produces and transmits many programmes meant for school anduniversity students, women, children and youth giving a large chunk of time fordevelopment and educational programmes.

Satcom for Training & Development Communication – TDCC,GRAMSAT & JDCP

A need was felt to provide interactivity facility in the networks for educational anddevelopment information transfer. Initially the effort was made to use Satcom fortwo way connectivity, but at that point of time (early eighties) the costs of interac-tive terminals were very high. At the same time there was a sudden expansion oftelephone facilities in India. It therefore became much more economical to use tele-phones asking questions and clarifications. The trials with several state governmentsand educational institutes proved very successful and gave rise to the Training andDevelopment Communication Channel (TDCC). This became a very important toolto meet the training requirements of the field staff/functionaries of various depart-ments like agriculture, health, women and child welfare, forest department, etc ofthe state governments. Besides, TDCC could also be utilized for imparting trainingunder Panchayati Raj (self governance and village level).The magnitude of the taskwas so large, that tool like Satcom could only help in meeting the requirements.The TDCC networks were up-graded in mid-nineties making use of the digitaltechnology available in the market. These networks are also utilized for carrying

Space Based Societal Applications 489

out e-governance at village-Panchayat level and named as GRAMSAT. Under theGRAMSAT programme, the State capital is connected to districts and blocks usingVSATs. ISRO helped several state governments in India in setting up large networks.More than 6000 receiving centres so far have been set up across the country underTDCC programme and more than one million participants/functionaries of morethan 60 departments of various state governments have been trained in these centres(Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007b, Bhaskaranarayana and Jain 2007b).

Another programme, named as Jhabua Development Communications Project(JDCP) was started during 1996–98 timeframe. It was another important initiative inimproving the lives of rural population of the country. The JDCP network consists of150 direct reception terminals in 150 villages and 12 interactive terminals in all theblock headquarters of one tribal-district, called Jhabua, in one of the states of India(Madhya Pradesh). The areas addressed under the overall umbrella of developmen-tal communication included watershed development, agriculture, animal husbandry,forestry, women and child care, education and Panchayat Raj development.

Developmental Education

Education in all its forms is essential for sustainable development. Education is alsoan important factor in promoting social cohesion. In many respects, primary edu-cation makes a positive contribution towards combating the problems of poverty,degradation of environment and improvement of health. Education increases thecapacity of the people to transform the vision of the society into operational reali-ties. It therefore becomes the primary agent of transformation towards sustainabledevelopment.

Developing nations are faced with the enormous task of carrying developmentoriented education to the masses at the lower strata of their societies. One impor-tant feature of these populations is their large number and the spread over vast andremote areas of these nations, making the reaching out to them a difficult task.

In view of the increased rate of enrolment, inadequate infrastructure and lackof qualified and trained teachers in primary and secondary education sector in therural and far flung areas across the country, the need for educational communi-cation is as acute as that of development communication. The educational sectortherefore needs support through Satcom. Space technology has played a majorrole in the field of distance education and has generated tremendous excitement inboth the formal and informal realms of education. Apart from TDCC, GRAMSAT,several educational programmes and networks like Gyandarshan, Vyas, Eklavyaand APNET channels were made operational using INSAT series of satellites, inlast two decades to promote satellite based distance education across the coun-try. INSAT-based interactive one-way video and two-way audio networks havebeen used for distance education, training, continuing education and developmen-tal communication (Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007b, Bhaskaranarayana and Jain2007b).

490 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

Tele-Education: Edusat Utilization Programme

With the success of INSAT based educational services, a need was felt to havea satellite dedicated for educational service, resulting in the launch of Edusat inSeptember 2004. The launch of this satellite has led to a revolution in the utilizationof Satcom networks for providing curriculum based education.

Edusat Utilization Programme: Initial Planning

Before the launch of Edusat, it was felt necessary to initiate discussions and delib-erations at a national level to give direction to the Edusat Utilization Programme.A series of consultations, seminars and workshops were organized with objective todevelop a road map for ground segment, utilization and preparedness. It was decidedto involve the State governments and educational institutes in the implementation ofEdusat right from the beginning, since primary and secondary education are Statesubjects, and the administrative and infrastructure responsibilities lie with the Stategovernments. During these seminars, participated by State governments, Ministry ofHRD and other educational bodies, participants were familiarized with the Edusatconcept, the technology, the applications and proposed process of implementationand issues in terms of operations and management of the network and utilization.Presentations from each of the States were made on the existing educational statusin their respective States, the infrastructure available and the use of technology ineducation, the constraints and the problems faced. These presentations helped ingetting a picture of the regional problems and requirements. The topics of the discus-sions covered Elementary Education, Secondary and Higher Secondary Education,Higher Education, Technical and Vocational Education, Distance Education, Teach-ers Training and Women’s Education. The deliberations also included the subjectsto be taken up for teaching through satellite medium, interactivity, quality of con-tent, career counseling, increasing community participation, programmes for specialtarget groups, educational management information system and virtual classrooms.

After having assessed the overall scenario and issues involved with respect to theimplementation of Edusat Utilization Programme, appropriate project-structure tomonitor, supervise and formulating the policies and guidelines in running this pro-gramme were set up. Internal Project Team, Project Management Board and ProjectManagement Council at various levels within ISRO for setting up VSAT networksin every State and overall implementation of the project; Inter-Departmental Core-Committee for overall monitoring and coordination with different stake holders;and an apex body called Inter-Departmental Project Review Board involving rep-resentatives of ISRO, Ministry for Human Resources Development (MHRD) andseveral educational agencies like IGNOU, Universities Grants Commission (UGC),National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), etc. were con-stituted (Bhaskaranarayana and Jain 2007b).

It was decided that ISRO would provide the space segment and would take the re-sponsibility to set up appropriate VSAT networks with state-of-the-art technologies

Space Based Societal Applications 491

in various States; while the effective utilization of the satellite would be in the handsof the users – the Academic Institutes, State Governments and MHRD.

It was also obvious that content generation would play a crucial role in ensuringthe optimum and effective utilization of Edusat. In order to be effective, the contentstransmitted through Edusat were to be relevant and interesting. It was decided thatthe users would also monitor utilization of the system in terms of attendance system,performance, etc., and would take corrective measures as and when necessary. Inall these processes, ISRO would provide guidance to the users in developing theconfigurations and setting up of the networks and would extend handholding to theusers.

Implementation in Phases

After having understood the roles and responsibilities of the stake-holders, the im-plementation of the Edusat Utilization Programme is taken up in three phases, calledPilot-phase, Semi-Operational phase and Operational Phase.

Pilot-Phase

In the pilot-phase, which was aimed at gaining experience in providing curriculumbased education through satellite-based network before the launch of Edusat, severalengineering colleges of three universities in three different states of India (Maha-rashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka) were connected through three independentnetworks using existing INSAT-3B Ku band transponder. The lessons learnt duringthis phase with respect to configuration of the networks, facilities and features avail-able to teachers & students on network, method & schedules of content delivery,etc. were quite helpful in augmenting & reconfiguring the VSAT networks duringsemi-operational phase, which was initiated subsequent to the launch of Edusat.

Semi-operational Phase and Current Status

The objective of the Semi-operational phase, which is being run currently and islikely to continue till 2008–2009, is to establish the technical facilities in all thestates of India for promoting distance education through Edusat. Under this phase,at least one network connecting minimum 50 interactive terminals is being set up inmost of the states. While ISRO has the responsibility to setup hub, ground terminalsand other equipments of the networks (apart from providing the space segment andtechnical assistance and guidance to the users), the respective state governmentstakes the responsibility of handling the day-to-day operational activities of the net-works. The respective state government agencies are also responsible for identifyingand arranging the contents to be transmitted on these networks apart from identify-ing the target recipients.

Edusat provides six Extended C-Band national beams, one Ku Band nationalbeam and five Ku Band regional beams facilitating transmission of education in theregional languages. Depending on the requirement and location, the VSAT-networks

492 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

operate in Ku or Ext. C band. Under Edusat utilization programme, generally onehub is being setup in each of the state of the country for supporting several networksin the respective states. Two types of Edusat networks are being setup. The first type,the interactive networks consisting of Satellite Interactive Terminals (SITs), aresetup for imparting the teacher’s training and curriculum based teaching to studentsof the arts and science colleges, polytechnics, and management and professionalinstitutes. These networks have two-way audio-video connectivity facilitating thestudents in a remote classroom to have audio-visual interaction with the teacher atteaching end. The other type of networks, the broadcast or receive-only networks us-ing Receive-Only-Terminals (ROTs), are being used for imparting curriculum basededucation to primary and secondary schools students. Figure 2 depicts the concep-tual configuration of the Edusat networks being setup across the country under thisphase.

EDUSAT services commenced on March 7, 2005 with the inauguration ofEDUSAT based Primary education project undertaken by ISRO jointly with theKarnataka state government in Chamarajanagar district. Under this project, 885 pri-mary schools in predominantly tribal areas were connected through Receive-Only-Terminals for providing curriculum based education. The network has brought therevolution in primary education sector, which not only prompted ISRO to extend thisnetwork to another district called Gulbarga connecting about 900 additional schools,but also has motivated other states for setting up similar networks. Figure 3 depictsthe images of primary-schools classrooms connected through this ROTs-network.

Internet

BasebandEquipment

NetworkManagement

System

RF Equipment

Hub StationAntenna

Hub Station

PSTN

Studio

Content andService

Providers

MediaServers

Receive Only

Terminal

Schools

Teacher

RemoteClassroom

SIT

Two-WayTerminal

LAN

HigherSecondaryand College

RemoteClassroom

LAN

GSAT-3 (Edusat)Satellite

TV

PC

STB

Audio/videoEquipmentPeripheral

DTH

0.9 m/1.8 m

1.2 m/1.8 m

Fig. 2 Edusat networks configuration

Space Based Societal Applications 493

Fig. 3 Snapshots of edusat-classrooms (Receive-Only)

As on April 2008, 61 networks have been setup out of which 9 networks useKu-band national beam and 52 networks are operational on Ku-band regional andExtended-C band national beams. These networks connect about 33,000 classroomsacross the country including more than 3000 interactive classrooms and more than29000 receive only classrooms. Networks have already been setup in 21 states cov-ering almost entire country including all islands, remote & relatively inaccessiblefar-flung areas in North- Eastern states and Jammu & Kashmir. Implementation inremaining states is under progress.

Several special networks like a broadcast network for “blind-schools” deliveringthe live audio and data which are read by blind person through its printed impres-sion (Braille); a network connecting all Science Museums for promoting scientifictemperament among students and general public; network for online transmissionof digitized manuscripts from remote areas through mobile terminal to centralizedcentre for archival so as to preserve them; two networks for imparting education andawareness to parents and teachers of mentally challenged children schools; etc. havebeen set up under Edusat Utilization Programme.

Operational Phase

Under operational phase of the Edusat Utilization Programme, the Edusat networkswill be expanded to cover the entire country. The users are expected to fund and

494 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

set up networks with technical support from ISRO during this phase. Extension ofthe existing networks will be taken up by the users/state government. ISRO willprovide required bandwidth and the space segment will be augmented to meet thefuture bandwidth demand.

Evaluation of the Edusat Networks

Periodic evaluation of the networks is very crucial activity that helps in deciding thefuture plan of action in effective implementation and utilization as well as desiredimprovements in the features and configuration of the network. ISRO with the helpof state governments and local authorities has been evaluating the already deployedand operational networks and obtaining the feedback of the students, teachers, ad-ministrators and other stake-holders. One such evaluation carried out for the firstEdusat schools-network in Karnataka state is given below.

The Chamrajnagar network for primary school education was the first networkto have been established on Edusat. The network consists of about 2000 ROTs,which are installed in schools of predominantly tribal areas in the Chamarajanagarand Gulbarga districts. This also includes about 220 ROTs, which are operationalin various District Institute of Education and Training (DIETs) and Block ResourceCenters (BRCs) across the state. The network benefits more than 174, 000 studentsof Classes III to VIII and 9753 teachers.

Regional Institute of Education (NCERT), Mysore was entrusted the responsi-bility to carry out the evaluation of this Primary Schools network. The objective ofthe evaluation was to assess the impact of the broadcast (i) on students with respectto the gain in knowledge, (ii) on student attendance and (iii) on teachers. A total of172 video films broadcast during the academic year 2005–06, teacher’s handbookand orientation of teachers held during the period formed the basis of evaluation.The major findings are summarized below (Jain et al. 2007):

� Most of the oral questions (90%) were answered immediately after the broadcastof films (30 films) by most of the students.

� 4 to 9 % gain in the performance on achievement tests (Pre and Post).� Attendance was almost 80% during the broadcast.� Teachers feedback indicated (i) longer retention of information among students,

(ii) programmes help in learning difficult concepts, (iii) students pay more at-tention, (iv) enhances student’s ability to visualize, (v) sustained interest andattention.

� Teachers feedback included- (i) 46% found difficulty in doing Pre and Postbroadcast activity, (ii) 95% felt Edusat helped in joyful learning, (iii) 90% feltit helped in increasing attention span, (iv) 48% said it was more effective thanaudio programme, (v) 68% found difficulty in completing the syllabus.

Lessons Learnt

ISRO, while designing the configuration of the networks of the semi-operationalphase, utilized the experience gained from the pilot-networks and Chamrajnagar

Space Based Societal Applications 495

Schools- network. It also considered the feedback that was obtained time to timefrom the students, teachers and other stake-holders. Even during the process of de-ploying the Edusat networks under Semi-operational phase, several modificationsand up-gradations were made based on the experiences and difficulties encoun-tered in running previously setup networks especially in deep rural areas. Some ofthe major conclusions, which were derived during this process, and up-gradationsthat were considered while deploying the Edusat networks are given as under (Jainet al. 2007):

1. Two-way interaction for both audio & video is helpful in sustaining the interestsof the students & teacher during the session. However, in view of the higher costinvolved in providing this feature, it was decided that while networks meant forthe colleges, professional & technical institutes and teachers training should beof interactive-type, primary and secondary schools could be connected throughbroadcast network.

2. Use of MPEG-2, Direct-to-Home (DTH) type of transmission for broadcastnetwork to economize the ground terminals for large number of schools.

3. Transmission rate of teaching end video and audio to be increased to 1 Mbpswith use of state of the art MPEG-4 video codec technique for interactive net-works and to 2.2 Mbps for broadcast networks to obtain reasonably good audioand video quality.

4. Use of smaller size of antenna (0.9 m diameter in Ku-band ROT, 1.2 m in Ku-band SIT and 1.8 m in Ext C-band SIT & ROT) to reduce the cost withoutaffecting quality of reception.

5. Selection of appropriate technological systems and solutions in terms of bothhardware and software was a challenge. It was consciously decided to adoptthe consumer electronic items as peripheral equipments as the persons who usethem day-to-day must feel comfortable to operate and easy to get serviced orreplaced on failure. However, this has made them vulnerable to theft as theconsumer electronics are attractive gadgets. An insurance of all equipments,hence, was envisaged.

6. The installation of VSAT antenna requires a flat RCC roof. In several casesthe flat roofs are not found and the antennae are installed on the ground, butthis required a special protection to prevent the children and cattle disturbingit. Monkey menace has been observed in quite a number of cases disturbingthe antenna and cable connections. The problem was solved by covering theantenna with cages, which are suitably designed to minimize the losses in re-ceived signal strength.

7. Use of UPS in all nodes with minimum 4 hours of back-up with faster battery-charging rate to ensure enough charging even in cases where continuous poweris not available for more than 6 hours in a day. For the places where the qualitypower-availability is not so good (especially the schools in remote villages), itwas decided to use solar power packs with sufficient back-up.

8. Providing training to all users. Initially, raising the confidence of the operatingpeople was a major task as they were not exposed to computer operations and it

496 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

was difficult to find computer literates in rural area. Several training and hands-on programs were conducted to bring the confidence in the operating persons.

9. Improvement in generating the contents: (i) Provide a way for summariz-ing all the learning in each module effectively before the end of each ses-sion/programme (ii) End every programme with a set of questions that encour-age the learner to seek the answers. Provide answers to these questions in thenext session/programme (iii) Organize any programme into modules of realvideo/computer graphics/fantasy (puppets/characters, etc.) interspersed care-fully to break monotony, especially for young learners (iv) Ensure that thereare no factual errors in the programme.

10. Schools and institutes in far flung and tribal areas with inadequate teachingshould be given preference over schools in urban districts for Edusat connec-tivity to ensure maximum participation.

11. Regular monitoring and evaluation is important for deciding on future plan,policy and configuration of the networks.

While ISRO provides the space segment for EDUSAT system and demonstratethe efficacy of the satellite system for interactive distance education, the responsi-bility of using this technology lies with various state governments and academic in-stitutions and they are also responsible for production and transmission of the class-room lessons/programs. The quantity and quality of the content would ultimatelydecide the success of the EDUSAT system. This involves enormous efforts by theuser agencies. The experience of Edusat indicates that creation of hardware infras-tructure is a challenge that can be managed, but the issues of content generationare much more daunting. It also indicates that utilizing the system for conductingvirtual classroom and taking live lecture is much easier, but creation of databasesand building off line usage is much more difficult and will take more effort andtime.

Roadmap of Edusat Utilization Programme: Institutionalization

At present Edusat implementation is in the semi-operational phase. Today, there areabout 34000 Edusat class rooms operational in the country benefiting more thanone million students from various parts of the country including remote/rural areas.Networks are being established in remaining states. In order to effectively utilize theEdusat bandwidth, all services provided by ISRO to a state under TDCC, Gramsat,tele-medicine and Edusat are integrated and delivered from integrated hub estab-lished under Edusat programme. While selecting technologies for ground systems,efforts are being made to utilize advanced coding and compression technologies sothat bandwidth is effectively utilized.

Considering the interest shown by the states and users of the network, it is ex-pected that the utilization of the Edusat is likely to expand during next 5 years.Edusat utilization programme will enter into its operational phase of implementa-tion. The Edusat network will be expanded to cover the entire country. The userswill fund and set up networks with technical support from ISRO. ISRO will provide

Space Based Societal Applications 497

required bandwidth. Majority of the institutions have shown interest in utilizingthe network for on-line examination, on-line admissions, Intranet activities, etc. Inorder to support multiple simultaneous teaching sessions and to support additionalactivities like on-line examinations for all participating institutions, it is proposedto plan for a replacement satellite with 12 transponders in next five years period(Bhaskaranarayana and 2007a).

The technology facilitating reaching the un-reached and to spread the educationto every nook and corner of the country is being provided by ISRO. Effective use ofspace technology for education will certainly meet the societal needs by providingquality education and contribute towards the economic development of the countryand dramatically improve the quality of life of the nation in general and rural massesin particular. Learning when you want and at the speed you want has become areality with Edusat- a dream to envisage attaining universal education has cometrue!

Tele-Medicine

Most of the developing countries have inadequate infrastructure to provide propermedical care to the rural population. Use of Satcom and information technologyto connect rural clinics to urban hospitals through telemedicine systems is one ofthe solutions; and India has embarked upon an effective satellite based telemedicineprogramme.

India has a huge infrastructure of more than 23,000 Primary Health Centers,600 district hospitals, 3,000 Community Health Centers (CHCs) and several statelevel hospitals and medical colleges. But this infrastructure is inadequate to provideproper medical care to the rural population. One major bottleneck is the availabilityof specialist’s doctors in rural areas. More than 98 percent of the doctors practice inurban centers or big cities and towns. Hardly 2 percent of the doctors are availablein rural areas (Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007a).

The Indian tele-medicine programme was started as a pilot exercise in early 2001in five locations but has rapidly expanded to cover more than 280 remote hospitalsand 43 specialty hospitals and the numbers are growing steadily. This has been ableto provide connectivity to the remotest locations in the country like the Andamanand Nicobar Islands, the Lakshwadeep islands, the North Eastern Hilly regions, andthe snow covered mountainous regions of Jammu and Kashmir. Each super specialtyhospital is providing healthcare services to 5 to 6 remote hospitals. Presently, morethan 300,000 patients are being benefited annually through telemedicine system(Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007b, Bhaskaranarayana and Jain 2007b).

The telemedicine networks, setup by ISRO, consist of patient-end nodes; doctor-end nodes, servers and VSAT based communication systems. The softwarerunning in these systems play an important role in interfacing the medical diag-nostic instruments for acquiring medical images, for establishing connectivity be-tween patient-end and doctor-end computers for data exchange and facilitating the

498 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

videoconferencing to enable the doctor and patient to interact in real time. The pa-tient diagnostic information is acquired and sent to doctor-end along with his/herdemographic data. At the doctor-end a specialist can view all these and suggest thetreatment. The doctor and the patient can interact in real time through videocon-ferencing. A server is also located at the super-specialty hospital which stores allthe information of a patient including his past illness, previous visits and medicalimages. When a specialist is giving tele-consultation the patient information is ac-cessed from the server.

A patient-end terminal generally consists of a computer, videoconferencing cam-era, TV monitor, printer, one 1KVA UPS, A3 size X-ray digitizer, 12 Lead ECG andfurniture for keeping indoor equipments. The patient-end terminal is connected tothe VSAT terminal. Similarly, the terminal at doctor-end consists of a computer,videoconferencing camera, TV monitor and a 1KVA UPS.

While the telemedicine networks set up initially by ISRO use 3.8 m antenna and2 W/5 W uplink power in extended C-band working on SCPC–DAMA technologyusing INSAT 3A, the new telemedicine networks, however, are given connectivitythrough Edusat satellite in Ext C-band with the antenna size reduced to 1.8 m/2W. Mobile telemedicine vans have also been deployed by ISRO for taking thetelemedicine programme to the remote villages, where the permanent patient-endis not set up. These vans consist of one Ext C-band 1.8 m motorized antenna, whichis mounted onto the top of the van. The antenna can be folded/stowed to most stableposition while on the move and can be repositioned to look at the satellite after thevan is stationed at the place wherein the patient-end is to be set up. Stowing anddeployment (folding and unfolding) of the antenna is motorized and there is also theprovision for manual cranking.

Two types of configuration are possible for antenna positioning. The fully au-tomated configuration takes care of the antenna positioning on its own, once putin auto-position mode, by calculating the look angles of the satellite using GPS-based controller and flux gate compass. The manual configuration, however, needsan operator for moving the antenna to the required look angles using the antenna-control-unit and associated servo electronics. The angle encoder, inclinometer, mag-netic compass, etc. required for positioning of the antenna are the integral part ofthe system. The system in both the modes is quite user-friendly and easy to oper-ate. A canopy is also provided to cover the antenna to protect it while on move.Other indoor equipments mounted inside the van are same as of any patient-end oftelemedicine configuration (Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007b). Ten mobile vans haveso far been deployed to extend tele-medicine facilities in remote areas. Figure 4consists of the images of one such tele-medicine mobile van.

In addition to this, tele-medicine network is also used for providing ContinuedMedical Education (CME). Several Specialty Hospitals and Medical Colleges arecarrying out CME programmes to keep the doctors and health workers informed ofthe new practices, treatments plans, advances, unique case studies, etc.

ISRO’s telemedicine network has enabled many poor rural villagers hitherto de-nied with quality medical services to get the best of medical services available in

Space Based Societal Applications 499

Fig. 4 Telemedicine mobile van (Outside & Inside Views)

the country. The network is expanding to the various regions in the country, and hasbecome one of the most visible and talked-about societal applications in the worldtoday.

Roadmap of Tele-medicine Programme: Institutionalization

The telemedicine programme started by ISRO in the year 2001 has reached a stageof maturity from the initial proof of concept technology demonstration pilot projectsto the gradual introduction of telemedicine operational nodes in different parts of thecountry. It is planned to expand the tele-medicine programme to cover entire coun-try. Tele-medicine facilities will be established at the block level. State level net-works will be operated from the respective state capitals and focus will be given forcovering time critical services such as cardiac and trauma care. More mobile tele-medicine facilities will be deployed for rural diabetic screening, tele-ophthalmology,community medicine, etc. The CME connectivity will be extended to cover all thehospitals. It is envisaged to create the satellite communication infrastructure forproviding about 225 concurrent tele-consultation sessions and about 10 CMEs. Ef-forts will be made towards establishing self sustainable tele-medicine centers withPrivate-Public-Partnership (PPP) initiatives (Bhaskaranarayana and Jain 2007a).

500 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

Village Resource Centre (VRCs)

The programme to set up satellite based Village Resource Centres (VRCs) acrossIndia, for providing a variety of services relevant to the rural communities, is also aunique societal application of space technology.

Space based services emanating from Satcom and Earth Observation technolo-gies are a boon for the developing countries for transforming the village society.While Satcom technology provides the conduit for effective delivery of informa-tion and services across vast regions, the Earth Observation technology providescommunity-centric spatial information in terms of geo-referenced land record, nat-ural resources, sites for exploiting groundwater for potable and recharge, incidenceof wastelands having reclamation potential, watershed attributes, environment, in-frastructure related information, alternative cropping pattern, etc. Synthesizing thespatial information with other collateral and weather information, Earth Obser-vation technology also facilitates locale-specific advisory services at communitylevel. Space based systems are also effective in supporting disaster managementand mitigation at community level by providing the vulnerability and risk relatedinformation, timely warnings, forecast of unusual/extreme weather conditions, etc(Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007a).

To provide these space-based services directly to the rural areas, ISRO, in late2004, initiated a programme to set up VRCs in association with Non-GovernmentalOrganizations (NGOs) and trusts and state and central agencies concerned.

Under VRC programme, a fully interactive high bandwidth satellite-based VSATnetwork is established across India using systems with modern technological solu-tions like efficient compression techniques in the audio-video coding, modulationtechnologies and cost effective multimedia elements. Figure 5 depicts the configu-ration of the VRC-node consisting of VSAT and other auxiliary audio-video periph-eral equipments. The configuration is similar to the student-end of the remote Edusatclassroom except for the peripheral equipments related to tele-medicine facility thatis one of the portfolio-services of the VRCs.

Numbers of Village Resource Centre nodes are being established in various vil-lages which are connected, through this VSAT network, to various Experts Centrenodes located in the blocks, district headquarters and state capitals. The focus ofthis network is on full interactivity between expert centers and villagers with returnvideo (Rayappa et al. 2007). Figures 6 and 7 show the display-window of the Learn-ing Management Software (LMS), which is used in VRCs to provide synchronouslearning/interaction facility, as it appears at VRC-node to the user on computerscreen. The software provides variety of support services of interactions includingchat, e-mail, etc. The same LMS software is also used in interactive tele-education-networks under Edusat Utilization Programme.

Remote sensing data/imageries received from IRS satellites are used to provideuseful inputs about other resources required for the development of the villagesand its population. The services offered under VRC are- expert advices on agri-culture, fishery, health, hygiene, micro-finance, women empowerment, vocationaltraining on carpentry, electrical, nursing, etc.; and providing access to the natural

Space Based Societal Applications 501

Satellite Modem

UPS4hr back-up

Computer

Handicam

Wireless Mic

Audio Ampl

ECG

PC Mic

LAN

Osprey Card

Speakers

1.8m Ext C Antenna

with 2W BUC &

LNBC

Fig. 5 Village Resource Centres (VRC) configuration (A typical interactive Edusat-classroom alsohas similar configuration except for ECG)

resource information like watershed development, land use, cadastral maps, limitedGIS information, etc. VRC also offers medical consultation and primary health careservices to a limited extent through telemedicine with nearby hospitals apart fromproviding distance education on issues of socio-economic relevance.

These services are offered through video interactive sessions, group discussions,point-to-point consultation, and data access from the centrally located servers atthe hub of VRC-network, which is currently being supported by Edusat. There areabout 15 VRC groups operational and each group has one or two expert centersproviding service to a varied number of VRCs; minimum 5 and maximum 20. The

Dispaly-Window with PPT & Return Video Full-Screen Dispaly-Window withForward & Return Video

Fig. 6 Display-window of LMS for edusat classroom and VRCs

502 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

Feed back options

E-mail

Chat Video size button

Return (Student) VideoChat Window Forward (Teacher) Video/Power Point Slides

Fig. 7 Display-window of LMS with different features

VRCs have expert centers like agricultural universities, premier institutes, researchcenters, heath centers, NGOs providing expert consultancies on variety of areas likeagriculture, crop pattern, diseases, govt. schemes, health services, fisheries, micro-finance, non-formal education, etc (Rayappa et al. 2007).

Till date, ISRO has set up more than 320 VRCs in 18 states and Union Territoriesincluding the islands in association with about 40 partner agencies. These VRCshave conducted over 3,000 programmes benefiting over 200,000 people.

ISRO primarily provides satellite connectivity and bandwidth; telemedicine andtele-education facilities; and available/customized spatial information on natural re-sources, along with indigenously developed query system. The responsibilities ofhousing, managing and operating the VRCs, with all relevant contents rest with theassociating agencies.

The systems and solutions facilitating such services being offered to the villagersare unique, and the technology adopted for the delivery of the services is most mod-ern and state-of-the-art. The steps taken by ISRO through VRC Programme are

Space Based Societal Applications 503

preparing the villages of India for the modern India and towards a brighter future inrural environment.

Roadmap of VRC Programme: Institutionalization

From the modest beginning of 3 VRCs and 1 Expert Centre in association withMS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Chennai in October, 2004; todaymore than 465 VRCs have been set up across the country in association with variousagencies.

The usage of VRC networks and the impact on the rural population is veryencouraging. The plans and strategies for the next five years include setting upof around 4000 VRCs covering rural/semi-urban blocks/taluks of the country andsetting up of regional/State wise hubs/servers to cater to these VRCs (Bhaskara-narayana and Jain 2007a).

The last mile technologies like WiMax, WiFi and other terrestrial systems will beinterconnected with appropriate interfaces in order to achieve the maximum reachand greater coverage. Efforts are being made to evolve a self sustainable model sothat a VRC meets all the demands of users and also finds its growth as a moderncommunity center (Rayappa et al. 2007).

During the coming years, VRCs, acting as help-line and knowledge-centers/kiosks,are expected to facilitate e-Governance and many more services of social relevanceapart from catalyzing rural entrepreneurship; and will become single point outletsfor providing the local specific services to the villagers.

Search & Rescue System and Disaster WarningsDissemination Services

Space technology is also useful in disaster warning and management related applica-tions. Use of satellite systems and beacons for locating the distressed units on land,sea or air is well known. ISRO has been a part of the international satellite-basedsearch and rescue system COSPAS-SARSAT since the early 1990s. This systemuses 6 LEO and 4 GEO satellites of which one GEO satellite is provided by India.ISRO, therefore, has a special status, among 40 member countries, as a geostationaryspace segment provider, in this system. The Search and Rescue payload, which wascarried on the INSAT-3A satellite (Indian GEOSAR system had been using INSAT2A and 2B since 1992 and then was switched over to INSAT-3A after completion ofthe life of these satellites), supports the 406 MHz position located beacons. Theseautomatic-activating beacons are mounted on commercial fishing vessels and allpassenger ships, and are designed to transmit, to a rescue coordination center, avessel identification and an accurate location of the vessel from anywhere in theworld. Newest designs incorporate GPS receivers to transmit highly accurate po-sitions of distress in form of precise GPS latitude-longitude location. Two LocalUser Terminals (LUTs), located at Bangalore and Lucknow in India, are connected

504 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

to the international search and rescue network and support 121.5 MHz, 243 MHzand 406 MHz beacons. These LUTs are a part of the international maritime or-ganization’s Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) as also theInternational Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The current 406 MHz beaconsregistered with Indian Mission Control Centre (INMCC) at Bangalore is more than4200. A total of 1728 lives have been saved in 60 incidents during 1991–2007 byIndian search and rescue system (Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007b, Bhaskaranarayanaand Jain 2007b). Figure 8 depicts the conceptual-configuration of the satellite-basedIndian Search & Rescue System.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) also uses satellite medium to transmitcyclone warnings in the coastal areas that may get affected due to impending cy-clone. This helps local people and administration to get prepared and take suitablemeasures to counter the impending disaster. These Cyclone-Warning-Disseminationsignals are transmitted in local speaking languages (of the specific coastal areas)from Area Cyclone Warning Centres of IMD at Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkota earthstations in India.

ISRO has also developed a low-cost satellite-based Disaster Warnings Dissem-ination System (DWDS) utilizing the commercially available DTH set top boxeswith certain modifications. These receivers are now being proposed for deployingin the coastal regions and other part of the country. These receivers can be used

Fig. 8 Indian satellite aided search and rescue system

Space Based Societal Applications 505

for viewing entertainment programs being broadcast by DTH operators in the coun-try in normal mode as well as for receiving disaster warnings broadcast originat-ing from centralized Warning Dissemination Centre operated by the governmentagency during any emergency such as cyclone, earthquake, landslide, flood andmilitary/civil disturbances. Warning Dissemination Center has the control for se-lecting particular geographical area or groups of receivers, deployed in different partof the country, to broadcast emergency messages. All the receivers selected fromWarning Dissemination Center automatically switch over to warning-dissemination-channel even though the receiver is originally tuned to watch some other enter-tainment channels. In case of the TV monitor being in switched OFF mode, thewarning-messages are played through a built-in speaker in the receivers. A facilityfor sending acknowledgement to Warning Dissemination Center through satellite-based system has been added at certain locations in the cyclone-prone coastal areasto ensure the guaranteed delivery of warning messages and directly monitoring thehealth of the receivers deployed in these remote areas (Bhaskaranarayana and Jain2007b).

Disaster Management Support (DMS) Programme

In the area of disaster management, the future challenges are in providing more ac-curate early warning services. Operational forest fire warning, vulnerability assess-ment for tsunami and storm surge, more accurate detection and tracking of stormsare few of the areas, which can be handled with help of improved spatial & temporalresolution of the future earth observation sensors. Early warning and predictions ofearth quake is yet another area of research, which is expected to get more focus inthe coming years with the availability of advanced earth observation sensors andtechniques such as SAR interferometry, ionospheric current measurements, EM ra-diations, thermal anomalies, dense GPS networks, etc. Early warning of agriculturaldrought is another expectation, which calls for integrating various parameters frommeteorological, hydrological and specific cropping systems. Integration of EO prod-ucts for multi-hazard Early Warning System is a challenging area, which deservesfocus and more concerted efforts globally.

ISRO has been running a programme called, Disaster Management Support(DMS) Programme to provide disaster management related services across thecountry. Under this programme, several activities are being carried out. These in-clude the creation of digital data base for facilitating hazard zonation, damage as-sessment, etc., monitoring of major natural disasters using satellite and aerial dataand development of appropriate techniques and tools. A Decision Support Centre,as a ‘single-window’ for all aerospace based products & services, working on 24×7basis, has been made operational. This facility has been put into use for monitoringflood, agricultural drought and other natural disasters encountered by the country.

Also, in order to provide emergency communication for disaster managementactivities, a satellite based Virtual Private Network (VPN) has been set up linking the

506 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

national Control Room with Decision Support Centre, important national agencies,key Government Offices and Disaster Control Rooms in various States.

Apart from these, a major national level coordinated project has been taken up tocreate ‘National Database for Emergency Management’.

IRS imageries and INSAT based Communications and Telemedicine services arebeing used effectively in the post-disaster relief operations within India. India alsomakes available the IRS imageries and derived information to the neighboring coun-tries for their post-disaster relief activities.

Earth Observation (EO) Applications

The primary focus of the EO applications in India is to survey the natural resourcestowards their judicious management. The major objectives are to provide sustainabledevelopment, improving physical and social infrastructure, ensuring food security,providing disaster management support, etc. Satellite Remote sensing data in con-junction with field data and other collateral information, have been extensively usedto survey and to assess various natural resources like agriculture, forestry, minerals,water, marine resources, etc. In resources survey and management, remote sensingdata is operationally used to prepare thematic maps/information on various naturalresources like groundwater, wastelands, land use/cover, forests, coastal wetlands,potential fishery zone mapping, environment impact assessment, etc.

Under the aegis of the National Natural Resources Management System(NNRMS) and involving many user departments/agencies, several operational ap-plication projects have been carried out. Some of the national efforts include: bi-ennial forest cover mapping by the Forest Survey of India (FSI); Potential FisheryZone mapping by the Department of Ocean Development (DOD); Crop AcreageProduction Estimation (CAPE) by the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation(DAC); Wasteland mapping by the Ministry of Rural Development (MRD); Bio-diversity characterization and Information System by Department of Bio-Technology(DBT); Hydrogeomorphological mapping for providing drinking water in needy ru-ral habitations by Ministry of Rural Development (MRD); Coastal zone mappingand Snow & glacier mapping by Ministry of Environment & Forest (MoEF); Ge-omorphologcial mapping by Geological Survey of India (GSI); Sedimentation andwater logging mapping of major reservoirs by Central Water Commission (CWC);and the recent initiative of National Urban Information System (NUIS) by the Min-istry of Urban Development (MUD); to cite only a few examples. There are alsomany other initiatives at Centre/State Government levels. Besides the above, therehave been enhanced activities in meteorology related activities, cartographic appli-cations, particularly after the formation of high-powered Standing Committees inthese areas recently (Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007a).

Remote sensing & GIS based products form an important component of disasterresponse and management. In India, GIS databases of the themes related to vul-nerability (geographical location, administrative boundaries, status of infrastructure- rail, road, hospitals etc., land use/cover) are integrated with dynamic layers rep-

Space Based Societal Applications 507

resenting disasters (floods, drought, earthquake etc) extracted from remote sensingsatellite data to develop useable products and disseminated to the end-users eitherthrough SatCom based Virtual Private Network (VPN) or by electronic mail on nearreal time basis. These databases are also used for hazard zonation and risk assess-ment (Bhaskaranarayana et al. 2007a).

Conclusion

India was among the first few countries to realize the importance of space technol-ogy to solve the real problems of man and society and took initiatives to developthe space technology for the benefit of the nation. Today, India’s core competencein space is its ability to conceive, design, build and operate complex space systemsand use them in various frontiers of national development.

In view of these multiple dimensions and capabilities, India is recognized as aleader in space applications that have a wide impact on society. The end-to-endcapability in space for vital application in communications, broadcasting, meteo-rology and natural resource information, which are of direct relevance for nationaldevelopment, has secured India a unique place in the international community.

The new ongoing societal-application programmes such as tele-education, teleme-dicine, disaster warning, search and rescue, village resource centres etc. are indeedfulfilling the objectives of ISRO which is to bring the benefits of space technologyto man and society. Building a cost-effective space infrastructure for the countryin a self-reliant manner, bringing economic and social benefits to the country willcontinue to be the guiding principles for the Indian space programme in future also.

The overall goals of the Indian Space Programme thus encompass a strong en-abler role for social transformation, a catalyst for economic development, a toolfor enhancing quality of human resources, and a booster to strengthen the nationalstrategic needs.

The overall thrust of the space programme during next decade or so will be tosustain and strengthen the already established space based services towards socio-economic development of the country. The programme profile will be based onthe emerging requirements in the priority areas of national development and se-curity requirements and will take cognizance of the policy framework and globaltrends.

References

Bhaskaranarayana, A., C. Varadarajan and V. S. Hegde (2007a) “Space Based Societal Applica-tions – Relevance In Developing Countries”, International Astronautical Congress-2007, (Pro-ceedings under publication)

Bhaskaranarayana, A. et al. (2007b) “Applications of Space Communication”, Current Science(93) 12, pp. 1737–1746

Bhaskaranarayana, A., P. K. Jain (2007a) “Roadmap of Satellite Based Services in India”, Inter-national Astronautical Congress-2007, (Proceedings under publication)

508 A. Bhaskaranarayana and P.K. Jain

Bhaskaranarayana, A., P. K. Jain (2007b) “Satellite Based Societal Applications in India”, IAAAfrican Regional Conference-2007, (Proceedings under publication)

Jain, P. K., Jagdish Murthy, H. Rayappa (2007) “Edusat for Enhancing Primary Education in Kar-nataka State”, International Astronautical Congress-2007, (Proceedings under publication)

Rayappa, H. et al. (2007) “Satellite Based Solution to Connect Rural India: The Village ResourceCentres”, International Astronautical Congress-2007, (Proceedings under publication)

Space for Energy: The Role of Space-BasedCapabilities for Managing Energy Resourceson Earth

Ozgur Gurtuna

Abstract In our search for a peaceful and feasible resolution to the energy prob-lem, space-based capabilities can play an important role. This chapter discusses thenature of the energy problem as it stands today and examines some of the possibleways that space-based capabilities can be used to address the challenges and createnew opportunities. The main focus of this chapter is on the role of space based capa-bilities for the management of terrestrial energy sources. The chapter also includesthree case studies which focus on the use of EO data within the energy sector.

Keywords Energy and environment · Space-based capabilities · Earth observation ·Solar energy · Wind energy · Fossil fuels · Emissions trading · GEOSS

Introduction

Throughout history, economic development has gone hand-in-hand with access toenergy. Starting with solids such as wood and coal, moving to liquids such as plantoils and petroleum and then to gases such as natural gas, our species has mas-tered transforming the heritage of fossil fuels into increased living standards for themasses. Today, with the notable exceptions of nuclear energy and first-generationrenewables such as biomass, our unquenchable thirst for energy is mostly met withseemingly abundant fossil fuels.

Energy statistics show that, as of 2005, fossil fuels constitute around 80% of thetotal primary energy supply1 in the world (IEA, 2007). Even though new generationrenewable energy systems, such as wind and solar energy, barely make a dent intoday’s global energy mix with under 1% of the total supply, their installed capacityhas been increasing at a very steep rate during the last three decades. Between 1971

O. Gurtuna (B)Turquoise Technology Solutions Inc., 438 Av. Claremont, Westmount, QC, Canadae-mail: gurtuna@turquoisetech.com

1 Total primary energy supply includes the energy used for all purposes, including transportationand electricity generation.

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 20, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

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510 O. Gurtuna

Fig. 1 The global energymix: total primary energysupply in the world for 2005(Source: IEA, 2007)

Coal25%

Oil35%

Gas21%

Otherrenewables

1%

Biomass/waste11%

Hydro2%

Nuclear6%

and 2004, the annual rates of increase for installed wind and solar energy capacitywere 48% and 28%, respectively (IEA, 2007).

Various projections regarding future energy scenarios provide a consistent out-look: fossil fuels will continue to dominate the energy mix for the next few decades.However, there is increasing evidence that this trend is not sustainable. Leaving allthe debate of peak oil aside, the issue is not actually whether or not we will run outof fossil fuels soon. The current energy mix is not sustainable due to its huge strainon the environment. Furthermore, the distribution of fossil fuels around the worldis a major source of political and military conflict. Access to clean, sustainable anduninterrupted sources of energy is increasingly becoming a challenge.

This trend forces us to develop innovative ways to use our fossil fuel resourcesmore efficiently while reducing their impact on the environment. At the same time,a worldwide effort is underway to increase the efficiency and installed capacity ofrenewable energy systems. The ambitious “20 by 2020” objective (generating 20%of all energy consumed in Europe from renewable energy sources by 2020) of theEuropean Union of is one of the leading examples of this trend.

Energy Policy Drivers

The three main policy drivers shaping tomorrow’s energy investments are energy se-curity, environmental sustainability and industrial competitiveness.2 A brief discus-sion of these policy drivers is necessary to illustrate the importance of space-basedcapabilities for the energy sector, and their impact along these three main axes.

Energy security simply means ensuring an uninterrupted, steady supply of energy.Given that most economies are not self sufficient and rely on energy imports, energysecurity is an important dimension of bilateral and international relations. However,it also relates to the management of domestic energy networks, maximizing nationalgeneration capacity and managing the transmission system in a safe and efficientmanner.

2 One of the prominent sources which outline these three priorities is the European Commission’sGreen Paper entitled “A European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy”, avail-able at: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/green-paper-energy/index en.htm

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The second policy driver, environmental sustainability, is causing us to revisitsome of our assumptions regarding the true cost of energy. As the IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change report indicates (IPCC, 2007), our environment, includingthe climate, is under a rapid period of transformation. It is becoming increasinglyclear that our current energy regime, relying mostly on fossil fuels with uncon-trolled greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is not sustainable and exacts a heavy tollon the environment. Furthermore, IPCC asserts that “Most of the observed increasein global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to theobserved increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” In other words, althoughthere could be other factors contributing to Climate Change, human behavior is atthe core of the problem.

Therefore there is an urgent need to develop technologies which can help usmonitor and forecast the trajectory of these emissions, as well as technologies whichcan generate emission-free, low impact forms of energy.

Although our reliance on fossil fuel reserves is not likely to ease significantlyin the near future, tomorrow’s energy rich nations may not necessarily be the oneswho have been the lucky winners of the energy deposit lottery so far. Those whomaster next generation energy technologies will be in a position to address the firsttwo policy drivers and, at the same time, achieve significant economic benefits byexporting these solutions to other parts of the world. The tremendous success ofGermany in transforming nascent renewable energy industries into global exportleaders is a case in point.

This competitive edge partially rests on developing technologies within a special-ized area (such as more efficient solar cells), but it also requires system-based solu-tions and capabilities which will enable tomorrow’s energy networks to be designedand operated as efficiently as possible. This is precisely where space-based capabil-ities can add significant value and help develop such solutions and capabilities.

Energy from Space

During the first 50 years of the space age, amazingly creative, yet largely infeasibleideas (at least in the short-term) were proposed to generate energy from space. Solarpower satellites and Helium-3 extraction from the lunar surface are just two of theseproposed concepts.

One of the most consistent and plentiful sources of energy is solar radiation.In fact, as it will be discussed later, most renewable energy sources on Earth area result of solar radiation. Proponents of solar power satellites argue that by con-structing large collectors around Earth’s orbit and transmitting the generated energyin microwave form from Earth’s orbit to ground-based collectors, we can unlockan immense energy potential (see for example O’Neill, 1977). After many yearsof hiatus, there seems to be a renewed interest in this concept (see for exampleMacauley and Shih, 2007; NSSO, 2007; and Summerer et al., 2006).

Another space resource of interest is Helium-3, a light isotope of helium withtwo protons and one neutron, which can be used as fuel for future nuclear fusion

512 O. Gurtuna

reactors. Helium-3 is rare on Earth, but it can be found in significant quantities onother planetary bodies, including the Moon, where the pulverized surface material(the regolith) retains helium streaming from the Sun carried by solar wind (Schmittand Kulcinski, 1993). In the future, it is conceivable that the upper layer of the lunarregolith can be mined to extract Helium-3, and then transported to Earth to fuelfuture nuclear power generation systems using fusion technology. It is importantto note that, the other piece of the puzzle, nuclear fusion technology, is still indevelopment and optimistic estimates point to mid-century for their commercialexploitation (New Scientist, 2006).

One of the main limiting factors of these space-based energy generation conceptsis the cost of access to space. After decades of operations, only a modest decrease inlaunch costs was achieved. Today, launch costs to geostationary transfer orbit rangefrom $10,000 to $50,000 PER kg (Futron, 2002). This cost structure is a severelimitation for placing large masses on orbit, which are required for building solarpower satellites or kick-starting large scale mining operations on the lunar surface.Therefore, commercial operations of solar power satellites and Helium-3 powerednuclear fusion require significant advances in these technology domains as well asstrides in launch vehicle development and operations.

No doubt that, if there is continued interest in these concepts, human ingenuitywill find a way to surmount these challenges and unlock the potential of these space-based resources in the long-run. In the meantime, however, there is a case to be madefor concentrating on the use of our existing space-based capabilities for the serviceof the energy sector. There are plenty of ways in which space-based capabilities canhelp us manage our energy resources here on Earth.

Energy on Earth – Supported by Space

This line of analysis brings us to the premise of this chapter: in the coming decades,the benefit of space for the energy sector is very likely to aggregate over manydifferent technologies and applications centered on Earth Observation (EO) andnew generation exploration technologies instead of a single groundbreaking spacetechnology. No doubt that satellite telecommunications and satellite navigation willalso play an important supporting role in the energy sector, especially for day-to-dayoperations.

Many space agencies around the world are acting on the link between EO andthe energy sector, and there are some international initiatives as well, most notablythe Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

GEOSS

GEOSS is a worldwide effort which can pave the way for increased use of EOdata and applications for various sectors of economic activity, including the energy

Space for Energy 513

industry. In February 2005, ministers from nearly 60 countries endorsed the 10-yearimplementation plan for this initiative. GEOSS is based on the concept of integratingdata obtained from many different instruments including satellites, airborne and in-situ instruments. It is expected that EO will play a key role in this mix, and themajority of data will be provided by satellites (Lautenbacher, 2006).

Three of the nine societal benefit areas identified for GEOSS are directly relatedto the energy sector:

� Improving management of energy resources� Understanding, assessing, predicting, mitigating, and adapting to climate vari-

ability and change� Improving weather information, forecasting and warning

Within the GEOSS framework, in order to facilitate the use of EO for energyapplications, an “Energy Community of Practice” (ECP) was formed. Areas cov-ered under ECP are linked to many of the strategic and operational aspects withinthe energy sector. These areas include: siting of power plants and facilities takinginto account environmental and sociological issues; optimized design of power sys-tems and facilities; yield estimation and resource monitoring based on historic infor-mation; yield forecasts based on near real-time weather forecasting; operation andmanagement of power plants, including automatic failure detection; and trading andmonitoring of emissions credits.3 Although an exhaustive discussion of these areaswill not be provided within this chapter, some of them will be illustrated throughthe case studies.

Earth Observation Market Development Programme

The European Space Agency (ESA), started the “Earth Observation Market Devel-opment Programme” in 2000 for supporting the operational use of EO in differenteconomic sectors. One of the main thrusts of this initiative is applications in theenergy sector. Specifically, the EOMD programme supports demonstration projectswhich enable the partnership of smaller companies specialized in Earth Observa-tion with larger downstream companies. A number of demonstration projects havetargeted the needs of the energy sector with a particular focus on solar, wind andhydroelectricity (Mathieu, 2005.

Space and Renewable Energy

Space-based capabilities, especially EO, can help address some of the issues relatedto energy scarcity by helping us better manage the supply and demand of energy. Onthe supply side, EO helps us to conduct resource assessment and forecasting studies

3 For more information, see the GEOSS ECP website at http://www.geoss-ecp.org/

514 O. Gurtuna

for developing new generation capacity, using both renewable and fossil-fuel basedenergy systems. On the demand side, EO can help with energy conservation effortsby helping us better understand the impact of various environmental parameters,such as temperature and humidity, on the use of energy (Gurtuna, 2006).

One of the possible ways of ensuring energy security is to use existing domesticenergy resources more efficiently, and adopting new prospecting practices. Fossilfuel exploration efforts, by and large, aim to discover existing deposits. Renewableenergy generation, on the other hand, is more about mapping the behavior of natu-ral processes over time, and developing new technologies which can “harvest” theenergy from these processes.

One of the major advantages of renewable energy sources is their global distri-bution: all countries around the globe have access to multiple sources of renewableenergy. Therefore the issue is not having access to a particular energy source, butmastering the corresponding energy conversion process.

The Sun is the source of almost all renewable energy on Earth, with the excep-tions of geothermal and tidal energy. Solar energy systems are based on convertingsolar irradiation into electricity or heat using photovoltaic and solar thermal princi-ples. The uneven heating of Earth’s surface by the Sun creates a pressure gradientin the atmosphere which in turn creates the wind. The air above the equatoris heated up by the Sun while the air around the poles is much cooler due tothe angle of solar radiation reaching these regions. Since the density of air de-creases with increasing temperature, the lighter air from the equator rises, caus-ing a pressure drop around this region. This pressure drop attracts cooler air fromthe poles towards the equators, thus creating winds and eventually fueling windpower (Mathew, 2006). Solar heating and winds are two of the primary forcesacting on the oceans and generating ocean currents and waves, major sources ofmarine renewable energy. Finally, hydroelectricity generation is dependent on theglobal water cycle and the atmospheric processes which trigger different forms ofprecipitation.

All of these natural processes, solar irradiance, wind, ocean currents and precip-itation can be considered as the “fuels” of various energy conversion systems suchas photovoltaics, wind turbines, wave/current turbines and hydro dams, respectively.One of the primary advantages of these systems is the cost of fuels: once the capitalinvestment is made and the systems are operational, the operating costs are mainlybased on maintenance requirements and are not affected by wide swings observedin the oil and natural gas prices.

However, relying on these natural processes also has its disadvantages. Theenergy output from renewable energy systems can fluctuate significantly over dif-ferent time scales creating daily, seasonal and multi-year variations. Therefore, theability to predict these fluctuations and to characterize the long-term behavior ofthese processes is critical to ensure overall system security and reliability.

There are numerous ways to achieve this objective, particularly where EarthObservation can play an important role. Two specific applications are resourceassessment and forecasting.

Space for Energy 515

Modern-day Prospecting: Resource Assessment and Forecasting

Resource assessment is performed to create an “inventory” of renewable energy ata given location by characterizing the resource using statistical methods and de-termining the potential for energy generation. Forecasting helps us understand theoutput fluctuations and develop tools for predicting these fluctuations.

Resource assessment is a very important prerequisite for making strategic deci-sions such as developing a policy framework for renewable energy and determiningthe optimal locations of renewable energy systems. These decisions are not onlycontingent on the availability of the resource, but also on many additional factors,such as the distance of the candidate site from existing transmission lines, roads andpopulation centers.

Forecasting the expected energy output from renewable energy systems is alsobecoming increasingly important as the amount of installed renewable power in-creases in the electricity grids around the world. In order to manage the variationsin renewable energy output efficiently and ensure grid safety, there are a number ofissues that renewable energy generators as well as electricity system operators haveto deal with.

One significant risk caused by intermittency is rapid loss of power which wouldnormally be generated by renewables. Although the probability of all installed re-newable energy systems in a given region to stop generation is very low, it is stillconceivable. There are certain mitigation methods to control this risk: compensatingfor the loss by acquiring electricity from other generators connected to the gridand balancing the load by generating more power from other types of generation(especially natural gas, coal and hydro systems which can be ramped up quickly).These mitigation methods need to be supported by a well functioning forecastingsystem which can help foresee reductions in supply as well as changes in demand.

Case 1: Siting Decisions for Off-shore Wind Farms

In order to illustrate how EO can add value to strategic decisions in the energysector, this section will examine the use of satellite data for off-shore wind resourceassessment.

Global cumulative installed wind energy capacity reached 94 GW as of January2008 (GWEC, 2008). Although this capacity is mostly supplied by onshore windfarms, off-shore wind farms are considered as one of the most promising renewableenergy systems which can provide large amounts of clean energy. In fact, EuropeanWind Energy Association has set a target of 300 GW wind energy capacity forEurope by 2030. Half of this amount, 150 GW, is expected to be supplied by offshorewind farms.

Currently, Europe is leading the off-shore market with operational wind farmsalong the coastlines of Denmark, Sweden, the UK and the Netherlands and manyplanned ones along the coastlines of Germany, Ireland and Spain (Knight, 2007).A number of factors are stimulating the interest in off-shore wind farms, including

516 O. Gurtuna

the scarcity of land which can be developed as wind farms, some very favorablewind conditions over the oceans and more reliable and powerful wind turbinedesigns.

Wind speed is a key input for resource assessment studies, since the energy outputof a wind turbine is a function of wind speed.

Both for onshore and off-shore wind resource estimation, historical wind speeddata is crucial. The conventional way of acquiring this data is to install a meteoro-logical mast (metmast) on location. These masts are equipped with various instru-ments to measure wind speed and direction, and they also have data loggers anddata transmission systems (such as satellite uplink/downlink sets) for data storageand acquisition.

Due to the complexity of marine operations, the cost of installing and oper-ating a single mast can be on the order of 750,000 euros a year (Mathieu andHasager, 2007). Given that wind information from many different sites needs tobe studied for a siting decision, the cost is prohibitive to install metmasts for eachand every one of them.

The industry practice is to obtain at least one year’s worth of data before a sitingdecision is made. Even though the metmast data can be very accurate for the year itwas in operation, a one-year data set cannot necessarily capture the long-term vari-ability characteristics of wind. In their comparative assessment of satellite derivedwind speed data, Hasager et al. (2006) report that the annual wind speed averagescan vary significantly, resulting multi-year variations of up to 14%. In other words,even though very accurate annual data may be acquired using a metmast alone,without use of other tools, such as meteorological models, the data for a givenyear may not be representative of the climatological averages. Therefore identifyingmulti-year trends is essential before a siting decision is made. Otherwise, investmentdecisions based on a single year’s data can result in significant financial losses.

In order to capture longer-term variations, climatological adjustments are neededbefore metmast data can be used in decision-making (this requirement applies toother short-term data sources as well, regardless of their source). A relatively newtechnique for these adjustments is based on satellite data. For off-shore wind re-source assessment, there are three sets of satellite instruments which can provideuseful data: passsive microwave instruments (e.g., the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager – SSM/I), scatterometers (e.g., NASA’s QuikSCAT satellite) and SyntheticAperture Radar (e.g., RADARSAT series, ERS-2 and ENVISAT).

Although passive microwave instruments provide relatively low spatial resolu-tion, they have been operational for a long time (in some cases providing data setsgoing back as early as 1987). Scatterometers and SAR are both active (radar) in-struments and can provide all weather and night-time coverage capability as well asincreased spatial resolution. Together, the complementary capabilities of these in-struments can be very valuable for the feasibility analysis of an off-shore wind farm.

Research results in this area indicate that, from both reliability and data availabil-ity perspectives, satellite data can be used as a complementary source of information(see for example Hasager et al., 2006 and Beaucage et al., 2007). Satellite dataobtained from multiple platforms show consistent wind speed values. Moreover,

Space for Energy 517

Fig. 2 An off-shore wind speed map derived from Radarsat-1 data (depicting the Gaspe Peninsulain Quebec on April 24, 2003) Source: Philippe Beaucage, INRS, Canada, 2008

comparisons to meteorological mast observations are also encouraging, makingsatellite-based analysis a strong contender for pre-feasibility stage wind resourcemapping activities.

Case 2: Solar Energy Resource Assessment

Solar energy is following the path of wind energy and rapidly becoming a viableform of renewable energy from both technical and financial perspectives. The in-stalled capacity of both solar PV and solar thermal plants is rapidly increasing. Dur-ing the last decade, Europe and Japan have invested heavily in solar energy systemsand built significant capacity. Although other regions of the world have been laggingbehind, momentum is building rapidly, especially in the U.S. and China.

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of solar power systems: solar photovoltaic(PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP). Solar PV technology generates electric-ity by direct conversion of electromagnetic radiation into electrical current. CSP, onthe other hand, relies on a thermal conversion principle, where the solar radiationis focused on a single point (or a small area) to heat a liquid which also stores theenergy. This energy is then used to create steam to power a turbine. In addition toelectricity generation, the same principle can also be used to heat water for residen-tial or industrial use.

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Understanding the variability of solar energy over time is an important step inincreasing the share of solar energy in the overall energy mix. In Europe, especiallyin Germany, France and Spain, a number of R&D efforts are underway to use his-torical time series from satellite data to support solar energy projects, such as theENVISOLAR project.4

At the strategic decision-making level, a critical parameter for site selection ofsolar parks is solar irradiance, the “fuel” of such generation systems. For this pur-pose, meteorological satellite data for solar irradiance is used in combination withother earth observation capabilities such as Digital Elevation Models and cloudcover measurements (Schillings et al., 2004; Davison and Gurtuna, 2007). For siteselection analysis, having access to long-term time series is highly desirable, sinceit can dramatically increase the accuracy of solar irradiance estimates for a givensite (Mathieu, 2005). Therefore archived satellite data sets, such as the one used toproduce the resource map in Fig. 3, are particularly useful for pre-feasibility studies.

This capability can also be used to support operational decision-making: plantmanagers can compare the actual energy production with the estimates from satel-lites on a continual basis. A wide spread between these two values can help identifypotential problems with the performance of solar plants (Schroedter-Homscheidt,2007).

Fig. 3 Global Horizontal Radiation (in kW/h/m2/day) map based on 22 years of satellite observa-tions (source: Turquoise Technology Solutions Inc.; data source: NASA, TerraMetrics; map wasproduced using Google Maps API)

4 More information can be obtained at http://www.envisolar.com/

Space for Energy 519

The data for solar energy resource assessment and forecasting studies comemainly from meteorological satellites at GEO, such as the European Meteosat seriesand the U.S. GOES satellites.

Once a solar energy generation plant is operational, companies generally installtheir own radiometric stations in order to acquire very precise, real-time radiationdata. However, such instruments cannot be readily used for forecasts, since they arenot forward-looking such as meteorological models based on satellite information.

Satellite-derived information has some obvious advantages over other methodsfor solar energy forecasts. Archived satellite data from Meteosat are available goingback as far as 1985. This enables advanced statistical analyses which can providethe backbone of forecasting models. When used with cloudiness forecasts and otherparameters which have an impact on solar irradiance (such as aerosols), these mod-els can be very helpful in managing tomorrow’s large scale solar energy generationsystems.

Recently, the interest in satellite-derived solar energy information has spread tomany different sectors, including financial institutions. Today, such information isbeing used for strategic decisions such as site selection (e.g., map products), as wellas site qualification (e.g., time-series products). ESA reports that time-series of atleast 10 years are required by the banks in Spain as part of the due diligence forextending loans to solar energy investments (ESA, 2006). Given that the scale ofsuch investments has reached the level of 200 million euros for a single project, theeconomic importance of these analyses becomes clear. ESA indicates that for mostplaces in the world this due diligence process can only be achieved through the useof meteorological satellite data.

Space and Fossil Fuels

As discussed in section “ Introduction”, fossil fuels will continue to be the leadingcontributors to the global energy mix in the coming decades. Therefore it is imper-ative to explore possible ways in which space-based capabilities can help industrieswhich are in the business of finding and extracting fossil fuels (i.e., oil & gas andcoal industries) as well as industries which make heavy use of such fuels (e.g.,aluminum and steel production, energy generation, etc).

Furthermore, in order to manage the impact of fossil fuels on the environment ata global scale, continuous monitoring of GHG emissions is required to model andforecast the evolution of atmospheric dynamics and the concentration of variousgases and aerosols over time.

Oil and gas industry already makes extensive use of earth observation data fromboth passive (e.g., optical) and active (e.g., radar) instruments. In recent years,satellite-based hyperspectral systems have also been proposed. Currently, almostall of remote sensing satellites in orbit have either panchromatic or multispectralimagers, collecting data from a few spectral bands and with limited resolution. Incontrast, hyperspectral imaging can enable data acquisition in contiguous narrow

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bands simultaneously (up to several hundred bands) in the electromagnetic spectrum(NRCan, 2005). The “Hyperion” instrument aboard NASA’s EO-1 satellite providedthe first set of hyperspectral data from space in 2001.

Among the various users of hyperspectral maps are oil, gas and mining compa-nies, and government authorities. Such maps can help define potential explorationtargets. This application is of particular interest in areas where either no maps orgeneralized maps exist, such as arctic environments, and it can also assist in thedetection of hydrocarbon micro-seepage.

Hyperspectral imaging can also be used to monitor oceanic and coastal zoneregions for oil spills. Specifically, it can help us predict how oil spills disseminate ina body of water under current environmental conditions, and where it might affectsensitive sites. It can also be used to identify shoreline features and the severity ofoil spills in environmentally sensitive areas such as coastal wetlands. It can evenhelp us determine the pollutant type (e.g., crude or light oil). This information isuseful for the cleanup crews to identify the best cleanup method, the environmentalimpact of burning oil, and to predict the flow path, dispersion rates, and the timebefore a slick hits the shoreline (Salem, 2001).

OECD reports that another space application for the oil & gas sector is theuse of EO data to monitor pipelines and to assist in major energy infrastructureprojects (OECD 2005). Finally, EO data can also be very helpful for day-to-dayoperations. For instance, Synthetic Aperture Radar data is routinely used to managethe risk posed by sea ice to offshore oil & gas platforms. A recent study (Davisonand Gurtuna, 2007) has documented that satellite-derived sea ice information is anintegral part of offshore oil & gas operations off the east coast of Canada.

Case Study 3: Emissions Credits

As discussed in Section “Energy Policy Drivers”, there is mounting scientific evi-dence demonstrating that our heavy reliance on fossil fuels is taking a toll on theenvironment. This impact, along with the continuing dominance of fossil fuels inour energy mix, forces us to explore new ways to curb GHG emissions.

Developing new energy systems with minimal emissions, as discussed in theprevious two case studies, is part of the solution. However, in the short to mediumterm, given the modest amount of renewable energy output in our energy mix, it isclear that solutions targeting fossil fuels are also needed.

Proposed methods such as carbon capture and sequestration can help us operatefossil-fuel plants while decreasing their overall emission levels. In parallel to suchtechnological innovations, there are also market-based mechanisms which can makea difference. These economic innovations function by putting a price on GHG emis-sions and creating incentives and/or penalties to change the behavior of emitters.

Cap-and-trade systems (also called emissions trading) is defined by IPCC as “amarket-based approach to achieving environmental objectives that allows, those re-ducing greenhouse gas emissions below what is required, to use or trade the ex-cess reductions to offset emissions at another source inside or outside the country”(IPCC, 2001).

Space for Energy 521

In January 2005 the European Union launched Greenhouse Gas Emission TradingScheme (EU ETS), with the primary aim of cutting industrial emissions within theEU. This multi-national system created interest worldwide and resulted in some veryvaluable lessons. The higher the price of permits that allow for extra emissions, themore incentive there will be for market participants to limit their GHG emissions. InApril 2006, the price of permits dropped from 31 euros to around 12 euros (per tonneCO2), when it was revealed by national governments that power producers and otherenergy-intensive European industries were 44 million tonnes under the permittedlimit for 2005, significantly below the expected level (Schiermeier, 2006). Duringsubsequent trading sessions, the price of credits dropped even further. Critics arguedthat this was largely a result of overly generous emission caps set by the Europeangovernments.

As this experience demonstrates, the efficiency of any trading system in control-ling GHG emissions is limited by political and regulatory risks to a certain extent.However, the success of these markets in reducing emissions is ultimately depen-dent on the market fundamentals. Currently, CO2 output constitutes the main pricedriver for permits, which in turn is a function of various parameters such as weather,fuel prices and economic growth (European Climate Exchange, 2007). Therefore,monitoring the level of CO2 output and incorporating this information into trad-ing decisions can give a competitive edge to informed traders in this market whileensuring market efficiency.

Earth observation satellites can provide the required data to monitor the evo-lution of emissions. An international coordination entity, the Committee on EarthObservation Satellites (CEOS), has identified continuous monitoring of CO2 outputand understanding the carbon cycle as priority areas. As indicated in the Earth Ob-servation Handbook published by CEOS: “Since the dominant influence on futuregreenhouse gas trends is widely agreed to be the emission of CO2 from fossil fuelburning, an improved understanding of the global carbon cycle has become a policyimperative for the forthcoming decades, both globally and for individual countries.”Although global observing systems for climate will involve multiple instruments,both terrestrial and space-based, CEOS expects that earth observation satellites willbecome the single most important contribution to global observations for climate(ESA, 2005). In the near future, coupled with more mature emission trading marketsspanning both developed and developing economies, EO-based CO2 monitoringcapability is likely to make a significant contribution to reducing GHG emissions.

Future Exploration Technologies

Some of the prominent energy technologies of today, such as photovoltaics and fuelcells, have a very distinct space heritage. At the beginning of the Space Race, inorder to provide a steady supply of energy to their satellites, both the U.S. and theSoviet Union launched research projects to develop practical solar PV technologies.In 1958, the U.S. Vanguard I satellite was equipped with solar PV technology andsolar panels become an integral part of spacecraft design (DoE, 2008).

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As part of the U.S. Space Shuttle program, liquid hydrogen is used as fuelfor rocket propulsion, and also as fuel for the fuel cells aboard the Shuttle fleet,providing electricity and water to the crew. Although NASA started using fuel cellsin 1960s, it took almost three decades for this technology to diffuse to other sectors,such as automotive and energy generation (Gurtuna, 2005). The recent boom in theterrestrial solar market and the increasing use of fuel cells for industrial applicationswere, to some extent, enabled by the space investments made decades ago duringthe Apollo era.

Likewise, the renewed interested in space exploration, embodied by the GlobalExploration Strategy (GES), may result in new space technologies which can beused for terrestrial applications in the coming decades.

The deliberations of 14 national/international space agencies resulted in theGlobal Exploration Strategy document which was published in May 2007.5 GESemphasizes the importance of human exploration and outlines future strategies forinternational partnership in this endeavor. At least two of the priority technologyareas identified within the GES are related to the energy sector: efficient powergeneration and energy storage, and planetary resource extraction and utilization.A sustained interest in human space exploration is likely to push the footprint ofhuman presence from LEO to the lunar surface and other planetary bodies in duecourse. This expansion will no doubt trigger many innovative approaches for energygeneration and storage, which may be one day be used for terrestrial purposesas well.

Conclusion

This chapter provided a broad overview of the role space technologies and applica-tions play in the energy sector. Given the complexity of the energy problem and thelimitations of our existing infrastructure, it is not realistic to expect a single break-through technology to emerge and meet all of the energy needs of the growing globaleconomy. Although the dominance of fossil fuels will continue in the foreseeablefuture, it is clear that renewable energy sources have a lot of potential in addressingthe environmental and energy security concerns. Therefore, a sensible approach isto develop a host of applications which will help us manage our existing fossil fuelresources more efficiently, and actively develop new-generation renewable energysources in the meantime.

In this regard, the role of innovation cannot be overemphasized. By developingnew technologies such as carbon capture, and new applications such as emissionstrading, we can decrease the environmental impact of our energy mix, address en-ergy security issues and create new industries. In this endeavor, space technologiesand applications will also play an important role.

5 Available at http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/resources/publications/global.asp

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With all the promise of space exploration ahead of us and many space-basedresources waiting to be explored, perhaps the single most important contribution ofspace activities will prove to be the mastery of managing the energy and environ-ment balance of our home planet.

Acronyms

CSP concentrating solar powerDoE U.S. Department of EnergyEO Earth observationESA European Space AgencyGEOSS Global Earth Observation System of SystemsGES Global Exploration StrategyGHG Greenhouse gasGOES Geostationary Operations Environmental SatelliteIEA International Energy AgencyIPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeNASA National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationOECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentPV photovoltaic(s)SAR Synthetic Aperture Radar

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Davison, M. and Gurtuna, O., “Environmental Predictions and the Energy Sector: A CanadianPerspective”, Research Report prepared for Environment Canada, Montreal, 2007

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Sharing Brains: Knowledge ManagementProject for ESA Space Operations

R. Mugellesi Dow, M. Merri, S. Pallaschke, M. Belingheri and G. Armuzzi

Abstract Knowledge Management (KM) is a relatively new area that has beenevolving at an astonishing pace since mid-1990 as organizations increasingly recog-nize the importance of developing an internal environment where the knowledge iseffectively managed. As in other technical fields, space operations face the challenge

R.M. Dow (B)ESA/ESOC, Darmstadt, Germanye-mail: Roberta.mugellesi.dow@esa.int

P. Olla (ed.), Space Technologies for the Benefit of Human Society and Earth,DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9573-3 21, C© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

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of preserving and sharing knowledge. At the ESA Space Operations Centre, ESOC,KM is considered a strategic issue for maintaining and strengthening the leadershipin spacecraft operations and ground systems infrastructure in an expanding interna-tional context. The article provides first a general background of the knowledgemanagement approach, then describes the knowledge audit experiment that wasconducted in ESOC as a pilot project in a specific area, then focuses on the currentknowledge capture and sharing project.

Keywords European Space Operations Center · Knowledge management · Knowledgesharing · Knowledge criticality

Introduction

Continuing technological evolution, the search for ever-increasing capabilities and amore complex external environment have placed an emphasis for the Centre to iden-tify, capture and share knowledge effectively and efficiently. This includes learningfrom the past, identifying the knowledge needed in the future and infusing KMpractices into the daily work, thus making the workforce as effective as possiblewhen dealing with operations, ground systems, and customers.

The European Space Operations Center (ESOC) located in Darmstadt, Germany,is one of the five establishments in Europe of the European Space Agency (ESA).The Agency, whose convention was signed in May 1975, is the European orga-nization in charge of promoting, exclusively for peaceful purposes, cooperationamong European States in space research and technology and their space appli-cations. It has the mandate to establish and maintain the infrastructure of groundsegment facilities (including control centre, ground stations, dedicated computersand network communications), and is specifically responsible for the operations of

Maspalomas

Kourou

Santiago

ESA stationNon-ESA station

Malindi New Norcia

Perth

Cebreos Villafranca

Redu

Svalbard

Kiruna ESOC

Fig. 1 ESOC and the ESA ground stations network

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the Agency’s satellites. Figure 1 shows the location of ESOC and the ESA groundstations network.

The support of ESOC includes the activities performed during the definitionphase of the mission, the mission preparation until the launch of the satellite, theoperations needed to reach the target operational position in orbit, the interfaces withthe scientists for the delivery of the science data, the monitoring and maintenanceof the satellite status and position until mission completion. The support can extendover a number of years.

During the satellite mission preparation and execution an intense interactiontakes place between the ESOC technical responsible, the ESA project, the industrialteams, and the “users” scientific community, leading ultimately to an optimum sys-tem understanding and definition. The framework in which ESOC activities are per-formed is characterized by interrelations between multidisciplinary teams, severalcontractor and industrial teams, and activities shared with other groups within ESA.Moreover, traveling is very often required because the mission teams are workingin different ESA locations, the ESOC operational model is based on contractor staffoften off-site, the ground segment infrastructure is installed and maintained in sev-eral part of the world. Therefore, there is the need to access and exchange knowledgeand data in a very effective and efficient way and to provide staff with suitable toolsto retrieve and distribute information at the time it is needed in order to take the bestdecisions for mission safety and success.

It is well recognized that staff and their knowledge are the most valuable resourcefor the directorate. Therefore, already in 2004, some initial work on KM started withthe objective of exploring state-of-the-art KM initiatives in other domains and defin-ing a strategy for applying the most promising ones. In 2006, the ESOC KM CoreTeam, with representatives of the major technical domains, was set up to drive, leadand promote the KM initiative. The first step consisted of defining a KM strategyand validating it in a suitable pilot area.

Background

To begin, a clear understanding of what is meant by “knowledge” is required to-gether with its relationship with the notions of “data,” “information” and “exper-tise”. Data usually refer to raw numbers, measurements or observations, whereasinformation involves the manipulation and organization of data into meaningfulpatterns. Knowledge is better defined as the cognitive resource that helps to producevaluable information from data and is necessary to accomplish a task or correctlyinterpret a message. Expertise is a higher level of knowledge and an expert is some-one who is able to perform a task better than others because he or she possessesin-depth knowledge of the topic. The expertise could be within a specific domainand could be acquired via training or hands-on problem solving.

Different types of knowledge are often quoted in the literature: explicit knowl-edge (sometimes referred to as formal knowledge), which is documented in wordsand numbers, and tacit knowledge (also informal knowledge), which is personalknowledge from experience, not documented and constituting the major part of

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individual knowledge. Another way of classifying knowledge is to separate it intogeneral knowledge, which is possessed by a large number of people and can be moreeasily transferred, and specific knowledge, which is possessed by a limited numberof people and is more expensive or difficult to transfer.

Why Knowledge Management?

Before we go into the question of knowledge management, some remarks concern-ing knowledge itself and its definition, What, then, is KM? KM consists not onlyof “getting the right information to the right people at the right time” (from theNASA Strategic Plan for Knowledge Management), but also of assisting people tocreate and share knowledge in ways that will measurably improve the performanceof the organization. Ultimately, this means establishing an environment that helps usobtain the information we need to make better and faster decisions. As an example,KM may give access to spacecraft engineers to the history of their satellites’ designdecisions, or allow project managers to quickly identify the right experts for a newteam. In this sense, knowledge is not the end, but rather the means for further action:what we try to do is use and share available knowledge to get better at doing whatwe do.

ESOC is a knowledge-intensive organization, in which each individual has dif-ferent skills, knowledge and expertise. This valuable knowledge is very often onlyarchived in their heads, and is lost when a specific individual is no longer availablefor some reason, e.g. retirement or a new assignment. Additionally, there is also aneed to transfer lessons learned from the past to new projects and to provide staffwith suitable tools to retrieve information at the time it is needed in order to take thebest decisions for mission safety and success. KM comprises a range of practicesthat allow identifying, capturing, preserving and distributing the knowledge that isneeded for current and future activities, as shown in Fig. 2.

KM benefits include more efficient resource management, a faster learning curvefor new staff, and improved leveraging of core competencies. Also, it stimulates the

Strategic knowledgeManagement

operational knowledgeManagement

obtain

contribute learn

applyassess

Knowledge Assess

Knowledge base

Relationships

Information technology

Communicationinfrastructure

Skills and competences

Process know-how

Organizational intelligence

Experiences & best practices

External Sources

build

sustain

divest

Fig. 2 Strategic knowledge management

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creation, growth and re-direction of knowledge itself. KM is a people and technol-ogy challenge. As such, it implies making some (small) changes in the way everyoneworks and this is best achieved with the help of proper processes and tools thatleverage knowledge across different times, places and people. Obviously, culturalacceptance of KM objectives by individuals is fundamental to the success of anyKM system.

Knowledge Management System

The Japanese Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi can be considered as two of theinitiators of Knowledge Management with the publication in 1995 of their book en-titled ‘The Knowledge Creating Company’. They defined knowledge managementas the process of continuously creating new knowledge, disseminating it widelythrough the organization, and embodying it quickly in new products/services, tech-nologies and systems. Another definition says that knowledge management standsfor the systematic handling of the resource knowledge and the target oriented em-ployment of knowledge in an organisation.

Although criticism against knowledge management is heard, as it is too expen-sive, too time consuming and would fail very often because of the missing moti-vation of the employees, knowledge management is required as knowledge aboutimprovements, about avoidance of mistakes, about clients and competitors as wellas the participation in the experiences made by others are only a few examples thatcould bring the essential lead in the competition. In any case, knowledge is theprerequisite for problem solving.

Knowledge management is not done for its own sake: the prime goal is to im-prove the competency to act. Increased efficiency and reduction of risk for opera-tions are the two main drivers of the KM project for ESA Space Operations. Theobjective is to establish a KM system and a set of related procedures covering thefollowing aspects:

– Knowledge identification– Knowledge capture– knowledge evolution– Knowledge classification– Knowledge archiving– Knowledge preservation– Knowledge sharing.

As a general requirement, the KM system should be built upon and utilise exist-ing capabilities and resources whenever possible (for example, education and train-ing programs, collaborative tools, document management systems, lessons learned,etc.) and deliver an integrated suite of processes and tools to ESOC that are intuitiveand easy to use.

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Knowledge Management as Benefit to the Society

Knowledge is widely recognized as a resource that is critical for explaining per-formance differences, innovation, market dynamics, and governance issues. Aseconomies have become more knowledge-intensive, interest in knowledge manage-ment has significantly increased. The abilities to create, acquire, disseminate, andapply knowledge within the firm and across firms are increasingly recognized as es-sential for gaining and sustaining a competitive advantage. In a constantly evolvingand competitive environment, organizations are faced with the need of continuouslyimprovement in the area of products and services that would meet the constantlyevolving needs and wants of their customers.

Knowledge about improvements, about avoidance of mistakes, about clients andcompetitors as well as the participation in the experience made by others are onlya few examples that could bring the essential lead in the competition. As benefit ofknowledge management the following points can be listed:

– Avoidance of unnecessary expenditure of resources;– Usage of idle knowledge resources;– Networking of expert knowledge;– Increase in quality of decisions;– Intensification of innovation- and competition capabilities and– Improvement in the learning capability of the organisation.

These benefits will have an impact on the way an organization thinks and operatesto achieve its objectives, for example, to provide quality products and services, forthe good of the human society.

Therefore, organisations are increasingly paying attention to their systems ofknowledge management to ensure that they are capturing, sharing and using pro-ductive knowledge within their organisation to enhance their learning performance.Recent work of OECD on knowledge management confirmed that knowledge man-agement practices in companies have considerable effect on innovation and otheraspects of corporate performance.

Informal structures as personal networks and communities of practice play animportant role in the context of knowledge management as complex nets of di-visions, complex structures within the hierarchy may hinder the flow of informa-tion and knowledge. Teams across the borders of divisions facilitate the transfer ofknowledge within an organization. The importance of the Face-to-Face exchange ofknowledge within these informal structures should not be underestimated. A recentFraunhofer study (“Wissen und Information 2005”) concludes that the support tothe informal exchange and the provision of platforms for communities (workshopsfor objectives and strategies) will become increasingly important over the next fewyears.

To conclude, knowledge management has provided a rational for a better man-agement of knowledge, regarded as a collection of objects rather than somethingto be ’known’ only by the knower. This shift in cultural thinking has several

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implications on how we acquire, archive, generate, apply, share and dispose theknowledge. The insights being gained by knowledge management are applicable toany area of business and commerce in the human society.

Knowledge Management in ESOC

ESOC Technical Domains (TD)

In ESOC the implementation of a KM system can be achieved at different levels: fora dedicated project, for a family of missions, or for a well-defined part of the organ-isation. In order to define procedures and strategies as generally as possible, it wasdecided to concentrate the implementation on the main ESOC technical domains,which are:

a) Ground Stations Engineering and Network Operations

This domain addresses the construction, maintenance and control of the ESAground stations and of the communications network used for spacecraft operations.A continuous improvement of the infrastructure is required to satisfy new missionrequirements in term of performance, operability and cost effectiveness. It includesexpertise in Radio Frequency and communications engineering with in-depth tech-nical knowledge of the station software and hardware, local- and wide area networksand communications security.

b) Flight Dynamics, Navigation Support, Space Debris

This domain includes all activities related to the analysis and early definitionof a space mission, from the measurement and control of spacecraft orbit andattitude for a wide scope of mission types, to the promotion of and innovationin satellite geodesy, development and improvement of reference frames and def-inition of models for those aspects of the physical environment that influenceorbital motion and observations. It include also the knowledge related to spacedebris modelling and measurements as well as mitigation measures and spacesurveillance.

c) Mission Data System and Infrastructure

This domain addresses mission data systems and relevant software infrastructurefor the preparation, control and operation of a space mission, i.e. mission controlsystems and spacecraft simulators. The staff possesses in-depth technical knowledgein software engineering, and in designing, developing, validating and operating theirsystems.

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d) Mission Operations

Expertise includes operations preparation and execution for several kinds of mis-sions, e.g. scientific, earth observation, telecommunications, navigation, in severaltypes of near earth or deep space orbits.

Specific knowledge in these domains is concentrated in the relevant ESOC de-partments and divisions and it is there that KM is required in order to facilitate thetransfer of expertise across staff and missions.

Knowledge Management Strategy

Work started on a pilot KM project within ESOC, and to prepare for this, the KMCore Team adopted a strategy of analyzing each aspect of the KM system high-lighted above.

Knowledge identification: Each member in the KM Core Team was asked toact as a focal point in his/her domain of expertise and identify the main knowl-edge fields (k-fields). The knowledge levels are illustrated in Fig. 3. Knowledgefields represent a specific know how in terms of academic discipline and specificapplication field, whereas knowledge area is an aggregate of knowledge fieldswith a good homogeneity inside and similar sources of know how. The Com-mon Knowledge inside Knowledge Community represents common knowledge

Fig. 3 Knowledge levelsPC 1 PC 2 PC 3 PC 4

Transversal knowledgecommon to more TD communities

Common knowledge Inside one

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Knowledge objects (methods,news, theories, articles, books,professional blogs)

KnowledgeArea

Sharing Brains 533

through each knowledge area within TD Community (tools) and Transversal Knowl-edge represents common knowledge through more communities (IT tools, projectmanagement, etc).

Knowledge capture: The knowledge audit methodology was selected as the wayto extract knowledge from those who possess it (more details below).

Knowledge evolution: The identification of a strategy for knowledge evolutionto meet future needs was considered one important output of the work. For this,it was agreed to tailor the knowledge audit methodology to focus not only on theknowledge needed at present, but also on its evolution over time.

Knowledge classification: The KM Core Team recognized the strong need ofESOC to be equipped with advanced search capabilities allowing data retrieval with-out the need for in-depth knowledge of any specific subject or familiarity with thestructure or organisation of the underlying data. Among the tools and techniquesconsidered, the Core Team proposed the definition of taxonomy (that is a methodallowing to classifying object/concepts and their relationships) and ontology (thatis specifying the relationships of terms defined in taxonomies with other terms)for Space Operations, enhancing domain-specific free-text retrieval, and devising acorresponding prototype.

Knowledge archiving: The Core Team looked at several mechanisms for archiv-ing knowledge, including document management systems and Wikis. To demon-strate the use of a Wiki as a knowledge repository, a prototype was developed.

Knowledge preservation: The ability of maintaining the knowledge is not onlyrequired due to staff mobility, but also because of the typical long duration ofthe space missions. Some experience is already available in house, for instancethe KM system developed for the Rosetta mission, ROSKY, and currently in usein ESA. Other measures to ensure and/or maximize knowledge preservation arecross-training within the operations teams, dedicated hands-on-training programsand availability of visual tools for pre-launch workshops on each spacecraft subsys-tems.

Knowledge sharing: This is a critical aspect requiring a specific strategy foreach technical domain. A prototype of a KM portal will be developed as part ofthe ESOC KM initiative, aiming to share internal as well external space operationsknowledge. In the context of knowledge sharing and for specific areas, e-learningwill also be prototyped since this technique allows to efficiently sharing knowledgethrough the visualization process.

The next sections of the paper present some findings from the pilot project.

Pilot Project

The Method

The method proposed by the KM Core Team for knowledge capture and evolutionrelies on the concept of knowledge audit whose implementation in the pilot project

534 R.M. Dow et al.

was followed closely by the Core Team. The knowledge audit allows assessing thecurrent level of coverage of the k-fields, identifying those k-fields which are stronglyperceived as of increased value and therefore candidates for a deeper process ofexternalization, and evaluating the criticality of k-fields in the future as perceived bythe experts of the technical domain. The results of the audit constitute an importantinput to the management in terms of which areas may need to be improved in viewof longer-term strategic goals.

The method used in the pilot project consisted of four major steps:

– define the k-fields,– perform the audit,– identify the knowledge gaps, and– define potential measures to close these gaps.

The pilot project was conducted in the technical area of Flight Dynamics. Theobjectives of the pilot project were to:

– Validate the methodology and provide guidelines for implementation in otherknowledge domains.

– Verify the k-field map prepared for Flight Dynamics and assess its evolution overtime.

– Scrutinize some of the current operations processes from a knowledge point ofview by identifying gaps and duplications.

– Collect requirements for a documentation system and for information flow withinthe teams and sub-teams and across organisational borders with the external en-vironment.

– Investigate the flow of tacit knowledge inside the division.

Firstly, the k-fields in Flight Dynamics were collected and assessed. The next stepwas to plan and perform the audit, shown in Fig. 4. During the preparatory phase,suitable framework conditions for the execution of the audit were established bydefining the processes, aligning content and selecting and involving the participants(information & responsibilities).

To better prepare the staff for the audit, it was decided to conduct a questionnaire-based survey in the pilot area. The questionnaire was designed by the Core Teamand structured in three major parts:

– Assessing and verifying the proposed k-fields and estimating the strategic impor-tance of these in the medium and long-term future.

– Assessing the current state of knowledge exchange in terms of communicationsand documentation.

– Evaluating any barriers against an effective exchange of knowledge andexperience.

Sharing Brains 535

General informationSupportingtools andmethods layer

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Fig. 4 Knowledge audit model

The questionnaire was designed in a such a way that survey participants wereinvited to think about their expertise, core processes and the activities and decisionsperformed in the course of their day-to-day work as well as how faster access tobetter knowledge might help them in that regard. The questionnaire was kept simplein order to promote participation.

Knowledge audit sessions were conducted by members of the Core Team overdifferent groups of Flight Dynamics personnel. In particular, these aspects wereexplored:

– The current status of knowledge in each identified knowledge field and their ex-pected evolution,

– The status of relevant documentation,– The availability of experts,– The use of operative processes and best practices,– Any gaps or deficiencies from a knowledge point of view.

As result of the audit, specific measures to improve the existing knowledge pro-cesses were identified. These constitute the basis for an educated decision on thebest KM system for ESOC. The proposed options range from either the adoptionof accepted standards or best practices to the development of new, individualisedsolutions. Recommendations were discussed with representatives of the technicaldomains and project leaders. The outcome of those discussions, despite derived forthe Flight Dynamics technology area, provided information on tools, technologies,methodologies which are relevant also to other areas in ESOC

536 R.M. Dow et al.

Pilot Project Findings

The pilot project achieved the objective of validating the proposed knowledge cap-ture method and provided more insight into the management of the knowledge inthe selected technical domain. Major findings are discussed below.

Audit method: The audit sessions, including the questionnaire, gave the oppor-tunity to verify the inventory of k-fields and to identify improvements in the knowl-edge processes. In particular, the capability of the method for assessing current andfuture knowledge needs was demonstrated. These findings provide input for a co-ordinated workforce strategy. Moreover, the importance of continuous training andspecific training programs was reinforced.

Knowledge Exchange: Major findings concerning knowledge communicationwere the identification of communication patterns and of different knowledge usergroups. Related to the documentation, concerns were expressed during the audit onthe accessibility and maintainability of documents. In fact, there is a proliferationof documentation management systems – many of which are independent of eachother and having different search facilities. Often, to retrieve a particular piece ofinformation, one must have pre-existing knowledge of the structure and the contentof the individual document archive, which, of course, is very rarely the case. Oc-casionally, project documents are distributed via email and in this case there is arisk that not everyone concerned would receive it. Concerning the maintainabilityof documents, it was found that sometimes the updating of reference documents isnot done in a timely manner.

Knowledge Barriers: The audit revealed significant barriers including the usageof different documentation systems, insufficient internal knowledge exchange andtime and budget constraints for documentation management and archiving. Majorconclusions were the need for focusing on the informal knowledge-exchange cul-ture, by fostering a working-level horizontal knowledge exchange, and on thesharing of explicit knowledge, by streamlining deployment of documentation man-agement systems and enhancing relevant information channels.

Requirements for the KM System: During the audits, requirements were sug-gested by participants as measures to improve the current situation. These con-stituted the basis for an educated decision on the best KM system for ESOC.The proposed options range from either the adoption of accepted standards orbest practices to the development of new, individualised solutions. Recommen-dations were discussed with representatives of the technical domains and projectleaders. The outcome of those discussions, despite derived for the Flight Dy-namics technology area, provided information on tools, technologies, methodolo-gies which are relevant also to other areas in D/OPS, some of these shown inFig. 5.

Only requirements rated with high priority are listed below and they are groupedunder main topics. Some of these requirements are already partially implemented,whereas others are rather new. It can be recognized that most of the listed KMrequirements are also applicable to other technical domains.

Sharing Brains 537

Fig. 5 Types of measures

1. Knowledge about internal expertise and divisional capabilities: The list of itemsconsidered of value by the participants as a means to locate expertise and tobetter understand the services provided by the division is provided in the tablebelow.

Requirement Description

Internal TechnicalTraining

Provide information to personnel with theright level of detail required to completeassigned tasks

Hands-on Training Hands-on training on routine operationsand on tools/procedures regularlyperformed

List of Custodians Contact details for the custodian oftools/methodologies and deliverables

Expert Directory Inventory of skills acquired, linked to thematrix of division capabilities and topast and current projects

Increase InternalSynergy

Reinforce communication and informationflow in ESOC to increase knowledge oninternal expertise and capabilities

2. Knowledge of past and future projects and opportunities: The list of items con-sidered of value by the participants as a means to avoid duplication of effortand improper communication when dealing with projects and opportunities isprovided in the table below.

538 R.M. Dow et al.

Requirement Details

Increase CustomerSynergy

Reinforce communication and information flowwith customers to promote new opportunitiesfor knowledge generation and development

Projects/ActivitiesTracking Tool

Tool to track correspondence anddocumentation generated during past andcurrent interactions, plus contact details ofkey personnel and a history of previousrelationships

OpportunitiesManagement

Establish a strategy to record the type, initialcontact, nature and scope of opportunity, pluscurrent status

Strategic Alignment Align k-fields development and maintenance tothe strategic objectives of the division

Lessons Learned Systematic review of any key learning frompast projects

3. Knowledge about technical and learning resources: The list of items consid-ered of value by the staff to ensure that the technical and learning resources areappropriately deployed and communicated to the staff is provided in the tablebelow.

Content Details

Increased ExternalParticipation

Increase ESOC participation in external events as well aspromote knowledge sharing events in the centre

Key DocumentsCatalogue

Complete and up-to-date documents: analysis reports,user manuals, etc., shared among projects andpersonnel of the same technical domain

e-learning Promote visual trainingEmail mining Mechanism for email archiving and centralizing; extract

technical information and recordKnowledge Sharing

StrategyDevelop strategy for knowledge sharing for each technical

domain

Benefits: During the audit, participants were also asked to formulate their opin-ion of the expected benefits of the KM system, as shown in Fig. 6. Many consideredthe major benefits of a KM system to be:

– guiding strategy for the future,– increase standardization of tools,– improve communication,

Sharing Brains 539

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Fig. 6 Knowledge management benefits

The ESOC KM Project

KM is a fundamental pre-requisite in support of ESA’s mission operations and per-taining ground infrastructure. To be able to support in the future shorter developmenttimes and quicker integration, the infrastructure, the processes and the informationenvironment must be easily adaptable and “at the fingertips” of the new teams thatneed them.

The pilot project has shown that a difficult and critical challenge is to encour-age and support personnel in sharing information and therefore moving towards aknowledge-sharing culture, while preserving the ESOC spirit and maintaining focuson the strategic goals of the centre. Having gone through the initial audit process inthe selected pilot area, a subsequent step should be the implementation of a Knowl-edge Audit in other technical domains of ESOC.

The recommendation of the ESOC KM Core Team was to concentrate initiallyin enhancing knowledge capture and sharing, to manage knowledge efficientlyand to develop techniques and tools to enable teams to better work together. Toachieve this, sharing of the knowledge from lessons learned should be encour-aged, and intelligent systems could be exploited for better decision making. Theinformation already available should be more efficiently and effectively managed.In this respect, the integration of systems should be enhanced and data min-ing techniques could be used to pull together isolated knowledge bases. Differ-ent types of traditional and electronic processes should support communities ofpractice.

540 R.M. Dow et al.

The next area is knowledge content management to enhance the processes bywhich information is created, organized, stored and distributed to others. Mecha-nisms and tools guiding the project documentation lifecycle could be envisaged aswell as the use of ontologies for semantic web (consisting of taxonomy of dataand a set of inference rules) to facilitate searches for information. Last area in theproposed journey is increasing the technologies to support the KM activities.

The KM Core Team investigated means to harmonize individual KM practicesand tools used at the project and technical–domain level in order to derive a con-sistent and staggered approach for the corporate KM system having in mind thatKM is an activity which must be followed in the future to improve interdisciplinaryinformation transfer and evolution of knowledge within new projects.

In all organizations the main issue is to “make things happen”. Therefore, thechallenge is to come through the barriers of daily routine and stress KM strategicimportance.

In most of the analyzed cases, KM practices were not applied because consideredtoo complex and people had no time to dedicate to it, that means if KM is left topeople goodwill it will never work.

To solve these problems the ESOC KM Core Team performed the followingactions:

– Build an organization to support the KM project defining roles and responsibili-ties amongst the technical domains,

– Chosen people (KM oriented) and Roles (Assistant) to facilitate the achievementof results,

– Defined a knowledge map to measure Knowledge criticality and coverage andsome KM action plans,

– Defined some quick win solutions

The steps of the project are shown Fig. 7.

Building the Organization

As first step in the project, the KM organization has been defined based on two-levelworking model: the KM core team and the technical Domain Communities as shownin Fig. 8. For each TD, the following roles have been defined as the TD owner, theAssistant to the Community, the Knowledge Area leader and the experts.

Moreover, the functioning processes inside the Communities and with the KMCore Team have been defined.

Analyzing the Knowledge Coverage and Criticality

Assessing the knowledge coverage and criticality required to create an architec-ture for the knowledge of the communities. A sound part of the communitiesknowledge environment has been covered by means of a concrete and agreed

Sharing Brains 541

Step 1Building the KM organization

Step 3

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……Benvenuto Carlo Ferrari, nuovo PM xxxxx……Benvenuto Carlo Ferrari, nuovo PM X……Benvenuto Carlo Ferrari, nuovo PM xxxxx……Benvenuto Carlo Ferrari, nuovo PM X

Step 4Analyzing the technical and soft

KM tools

Fig. 7 Knowledge management project steps

knowledge architecture that divides knowledge in 3 hierarchical levels: knowledgeareas, knowledge fields and knowledge components. This process of identifying theknowledge levels has been applied to each community and knowledge area leadershave been selected. This was the basis for the next step of the project, that is theknowledge appraisal.

KM Core

Ground Stations Eng.Network Operations

Mission Operations

Flight DynamicsNavigation Support

Space DebrisMission Data System

& Infrastructure

Monitors and leads the KM process

Processes, Methods, Techniques, tools Common Knowledge

Fig. 8 KM working model in ESOC

542 R.M. Dow et al.

The purpose of the knowledge appraisal is:

� To have the knowledge ground to build a KM strategy specific for each profes-sional community, knowledge area and knowledge field

� To define the “critical importance” of knowledge fields to achieve organization’sgoals and evaluate their future importance

� To collect the knowledge gaps and to define a KM Strategy to reduce the gaps� To verify the current level of knowledge coverage� To identify the general and individual development needs and to plan develop-

ment activities, such as:

– Training/Coaching/Explicit and Tacit Knowledge sharing, etc

� To involve the Knowledge Area Leader in the development planning activitiesfor professionals;

� To help the knowledge sharing and avoid knowledge monopoly in fewer people;� To help the future development of knowledge required.

The knowledge appraisal process is carried out by the Knowledge Area Leaderon its specific knowledge area.

The valuation of knowledge criticality is based on the role’s feature and not onpersonal characteristic of each person. One important element for the criticalityassessment of the knowledge field is represented by the knowledge life cycle. Tofacilitate the assessment, the Knowledge Area Leader have to identify the objects(methods, tools, formula, handbooks) that cover the knowledge.

In the knowledge fields criticality and coverage assessment we consider also thecommon knowledge.

The knowledge appraisal is done on two levels.The first level is done by the Knowledge Area Leader, it’s specific for each pro-

fessional’s community member and evaluates:

– Current and future criticality of the knowledge field– Coverage level– Suggestions: possible development action for the member and for the knowledge

field

The second level is done by the TD Community Owner and evaluates:

– Current and future strategic criticality of knowledge area or of an aggregate ofknowledge fields for the TD Community

– Current life-cycle of knowledge area or of an aggregate of knowledge fields– Principal issues for the TD Community– Suggestions: possible development actions for the TD Community

Results of the criticality and coverage analysis could be shown graphically in thefiur-quadrant matrix defined below in Figs. 9 and 10.

Example of the matrix in a specific field is below as example of achieved results.

Sharing Brains 543

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A simplified wiki based portal has been produced, as given in Fig. 11, that couldbecome the front door for knowledge fruition and for collaborative knowledge build-ing. The portal is compliant with the primary characteristics of a good wiki: sim-plicity in language and searching, collaboration, process management.

As last step, an action plan has to be established and recommendations have tobe expressed on:

� characterization of the communities� results of Knowledge maps� results of Technology and soft KM tools� results of e-learning and portal pilot project

The KM action plan will define the activities for a full achievement of the KMstrategy at specific and general level.

The Way Forward

We have defined what are the KM role and responsibilities for individual teamsin ESOC, but the real challenge comes in sharing amongst many teams. There aremany problems to solve in this area, including human and cultural differences, or-ganizational perspectives and sensitivity of information and technical challenges insharing knowledge electronically.

There are several activities on-going in ESOC related to knowledge management,amongst others different project Document Management Systems, which organizeand administrate the use of project related document, the Lessons Learned Pro-cedure, which documents the experiences coming from unexpected outcomes of

Sharing Brains 545

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546 R.M. Dow et al.

a procedure or a task, the Project Reviews, which review the project throughoutthe lifecycle and in accordance to the guidelines and principles as laid down inthe Policy for ESA Project Reviews. Moreover, primarily driven by the needs of theRosetta mission to maintain the expertise over the long duration mission, the RosettaKnowledge System has been developed and populated with all relevant informationover the time and it is accessible to the project teams. Rosetta is an interplanetarymission launched in 2004 and planned to encounter the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.

Working in a satellite mission involves complex relations amongst differentteams where each team is the holder of information and knowledge which is criticalfor the effective functioning of the overall body. Mainly because of the geographicaldistribution of the teams, there is a heavy use of emails. This is in favour of theinformation exchanges and communication, but on the other side generates a lot ofinformation overload and it makes difficult the screening and classification of theinformation in a way that it can be more widely accessed and reused at later stage.Moreover, there is a difficulty in transferring the knowledge amongst different mis-sions, difficulty in improving with systematic reviews the learning from past expe-riences, capturing tacit knowledge into documents, etc. A systematic review of pastexperiences is not always performed, or often there is no recording of the lessons in away that as many people as possible find it accessible. For each mission a consistentset of documentation is available which is maintained under configuration controland regularly updated to reflect actual status. Generally these produced documentscontain projects specific information, which cannot be immediately reusable byother projects or easily identified as applicable to other projects. Sometimes there isno systematic approach to the analysis of the information collected during lifecycleof a single project to allow drawing of inferences, which are more generally valid.

The explicit knowledge related to design, specification of the developed systemsis documented, but the know-how of the people is difficult to be captured.

Current on-going ESOC KM activities include set up the KM organization, cre-ation of technical knowledge maps, assessment of knowledge areas criticality, def-inition of a simplified wiki that will become the front door for knowledge fertil-ization and for collaborative knowledge building, building a prototype e-learningtool to describe in a very simple and evocative way the functioning of one technicalarea. Although significant progress has been achieved in the standardization of theterminology used to address space related subjects, still further work needs to bedone for making it homogenous amongst the teams and to ease the retrieval of therelevant information in a timely fashion. Ontology might be helpful to provide quickaccess to the ESOC resources and to share knowledge by enabling users to easilyfind text files, databases and tools and to enable the ability of moving content towhere it is needed most.

Working on a satellite mission requires virtual teaming, learning lessons from thepast, transferring knowledge from the experts and develop deep expertise. Knowl-edge Management System can provide the solutions to work across boundaries,identify and provide mechanisms by which the knowledge can be captured, sharedand used to drive innovation.

Sharing Brains 547

KM system could help by addressing and merging the social and technologicalaspects and by testing and proposing a new type of environment for the knowledgeprocesses with social mechanisms supported by the required technologies. Socialnetworks play a key role in the process of retaining and enhancing the knowledge.

The KM system should be built upon existing capabilities and resources when-ever possible (for example training programs, collaborative tools, document man-agement systems, lessons learned, etc.) and deliver an integrated suite of processesand tools that are intuitive and easy to use by embracing information and knowledgebetween human actors and machine provided services.

For satellite missions operations KM should achieve the following objectives:

� ensure an optimal interaction amongst different teams to obtain best quality in-formation and documentation,

� develop a toolbox for knowledge management,� verify proper application of standards pertaining to storage, retrieval, and archiv-

ing functions required for the mission data set,� enhance the existing project directory,� organize regular post-launch social events, possibly coupled with campaign/

anniversaries,� allow post-launch developments, proficiency/cross training for all mission ele-

ments (payload instruments, ground segment, etc.),� maintain a complete and organic photographic survey of spacecraft and payload,� conduct videotaping during spacecraft/payload mission education workshops,� apply Knowledge Book Principal (User Manual) for mission constituting ele-

ments and amend with special tools/systems where appropriate.

Virtual worlds are an emerging new space which could be used to understandand test the social interactions occurring during the day-to-day work and simulatethe same effects.

Objective of the KM system is also to create a test virtual environment withvirtual rooms and populating it with the resources we need for the selected satel-lite mission. The characteristics of the new world are dependent on the constraintsdefined by the reality.

Setting a working virtual environment (wiki based professional portals, webi-nar, virtual classroom, second life based meetings, etc) will increase the efficiencyvia reduced travel time, interact with more people, reduce costs by using emergingstandards and infrastructure, better learning via interactive and immersive trainingsessions and seminars and improve creativity via rapid brainstorming sessions.

The social network could be used to support mission modelling and prepara-tion, simulation, collaboration, proposal development, training and event supportand planning.

The other objective of the work should be to prototype technologies to allow thecomputer to establish patterns of work, to model and represent the knowledge basedon the patterns of work established through the social network. This should openthe way to more advanced KM techniques, creating new trends, and new ways ofworking which could be of benefit for ESA. Social semantic tools, like collaborative

548 R.M. Dow et al.

filtering and desktop could be prototyped not only to extract the meaning of thesentence, but also to memorise the events, connect input and output establishing aricher and improved context for what has been captured. This should improve theknowledge management in particular supporting an intelligent retrieval, reuse of theknowledge and establish patterns.

A number of new ways of exploring knowledge processes and mining techniquesto create new relationships, to detect patterns, to establish trends and to create newconcepts could be envisaged making use of the established social network.

Concluding Remarks

Knowledge management has been acknowledged at ESOC to guarantee reliable andefficient execution of the responsibilities of the centre. This paper has described themethod proposed to integrate the knowledge management in ESOC.

The two most important driving factors for the introduction of knowledge man-agement in ESOC are the efficiency and the decrease of the risks during the imple-mentation of the responsibilities of the centre. A way to achieve these objectives isby establishing a standard and procedures for the management of the knowledge inthe ESOC processes.

When knowledge is shared appropriately amongst different organizations, theKM system increases the interoperability of space operations. Therefore, KM con-tributes to build and secure a prosperous society through the use of aerospace activ-ities and contributes to advance the knowledge of our universe and to broaden thehorizon of the human activities.

Index

AAfrican water management, 58, 64Applications into humanitarian aids using

satellite technology, 431–450

CConstellation of Indian EO satellites, 40–41Convergence of internet and space technology,

201–230

DDamage assessment, 46–47, 305–328, 332,

352, 389, 391, 394, 399, 401, 437, 505The diffusion of information communication

and space technology, 413–429Digital divide, 199, 425, 428, 485–486Disaster

mitigation, 85, 291, 388monitoring, 52, 305–328, 331–374, 458

Droughtmanagement practices, 387–389risk reduction, 383–406

EEarly warning and monitoring system,

392–393Earth/Earth’s

monitoring, 421, 423water monitoring mission, 3–33

Environmental data dissemination, 291–303EO (Earth Observation) 3–4, 9, 11–12, 17,

30, 31, 37–54, 59–60, 82, 104,291–296, 303, 306, 307–308, 310,318, 328, 332, 351, 365, 383–406,415–418, 420–425, 428, 435, 436,458, 468, 470, 472, 473, 475, 486–487,500, 505, 506–507, 512–514, 518,519–521, 532for forecasting agriculture, 43–44

products, 47, 49–50, 52, 54, 383–406, 505pyramid for holistic development, 37–55

European Space Agency (ESA), 3, 59, 75,81–82, 106, 125, 150, 184, 308, 319,331, 365, 513, 526

Space Operations, 525–529

GGeographic information systems (GIS), 41–50,

58–60, 62, 67, 105, 109, 110, 118, 309,314, 331, 346, 389, 394, 395, 404, 415,424, 501, 506–507

techniques, 331–374Geonetcast Americas, 291–303GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of

Systems), 52, 291–303, 306, 418, 422,423, 427, 512–513

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS),30, 89, 94–96, 257–258, 261–264,269–271, 274, 276–278, 280–283,286–287, 421–422, 475

Global resource management, 3–33, 37–55,57–73, 75–97, 99–118

HHealth

divide between rural and urban areas,159–178

forecasting services, 425, 425Human settlement mapping, 433–435

IIndia/India’s

Earth Observation, 37–55as a space model, 453–480

Indian space-infrastructure, 486–487Inflatable antennas, 233–253ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization),

159–178, 458–463, 467, 478, 484–486

549

550 Index

KKnowledge management, 525–480

NNational development through space, 453–480Natural disaster monitoring, 331–374

OOil spill detection, 83, 99–118Operational oceanography, 75–97

PParadigms in water management, 57–73Portable satellite-based personal

communications systems, 233–253Protection

of coastal resources, 30, 101, 428of marine resources, 30, 428of terrestrial resources, 30, 428

RRemote sensing, 47, 58–60, 62, 86, 99–118,

305–310, 318, 331–374, 400,415–416, 419

satellite, 40, 41, 46, 52, 54, 305, 310–311,319, 320, 349, 352, 353, 384, 458, 465,475, 477, 486, 507, 519–520

SSatellite

applications, 460, 479based telemedicine, 159–178, 497communication network, 201–230and sensors, 434, 435–447technology, 431–450, 473, 486

Sentinel–3, 75–97SMOS (SoilMoisture and Ocean Salinity),

3–33

Solutions in space medicine, 123–155Space

applications, 249, 417, 462, 470, 473,507, 526

based capabilities for managing energyresources, 509–523

based societal applications, 483–507communication systems, 180, 209–211,

215, 250, 415, 497–498for energy, 509–522in society, 413–429, 431–450, 483–507solutions for terrestrial challenges,

123–155for sustainable development, 38, 60, 63,

402, 413–414, 418, 427–428, 429, 470,474, 489, 506

technologies for the benefit of society,413–429

technology for disaster monitoring,305–328

technology for mitigation and damageassessment, 305–328

technology for oil spill detection, 99–118STWS (Space-Borne Tsunami Warning

System), 257–287System using commercial satellites, 291–303

TTele-health applications, 123–155, 201–230,

233–253Telemedical support for travellers and

expatriates, 179–199Telemedicine in India, 159–177Telemedicine technologies, 146–155TEMOS (Telemedicine for the Mobile

Society), 179–199Thriving in space, 130–132Tsunami monitoring, 331–374