Using Satellite Imagery from the International Charter to Support Disaster Response Management

The International Charter provides satellite remote sensing imagery to emergency response and decision-making communities during major natural and anthropogenic disasters to help mitigate the effects of disasters on human life and property. The International Charter (http://www.disasterscharter.org) is a commitment by 15 of the world's space agencies to provide data from over 31 satellite systems and series to provide remote sensing imagery at no cost during a major disaster. The Internal Charter has been activated over 400 times since it was established in 1999 supporting the emergency response efforts for earthquakes, floods, ocean storms, volcanic unrest, landslides, oil spills, fires and others. The US Geological Survey Hazards Data Distribution System (HDDS: http://hddsexplorer.usgs.gov) delivers satellite imagery from the InternationalCharter and other data sources to support global disaster response. We will provide an overview of the remote sensing imagery from the International Charter with examples from the 2010 Haiti Earthquake and 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.