Accessing satellite imagery for disaster response through the International Charter: Lessons learned from the 2011 US Midwestern Floods

The International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters' (“Charter”) is a collaboration among Earth observation satellite owners and operators to provide remotely sensed (RS) data following natural and man-made disasters. Charter members provided post-flood and pre-flood or archived RS data after the April 2011 floods in the Midwestern US. These multispectral and RADAR images provided valuable information to end users and first responders in the flood affected states for their planning and relief efforts. This effort was successful because of the process established by the Charter for soliciting requests, and acquiring and distributing data through a network of international and national agencies, and data vendors. This paper describes the a) role played by the Charter to acquire and distribute RS data through six of its members, b) value of archived satellite data, c) need for image processing experts to process these near real-time data, and transfer them in a timely manner, and d) data acquisition and distribution policies of the Charter. Lessons learned from this response along with the policy recommendations will be helpful in future activations for maximizing the value of RS data and services provided by the Charter.