Disaster Management with NASA Earth Science Data

Each year, the U.S. government provides billions of dollars in aid to regions impacted by disasters. These may include severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, blizzards, flooding, volcanic ash plumes, wildfires, and earthquakes. Community planners need access to the most accurate and timely environmental information that is available to help them respond to these extreme events. They need to know how vulnerable their jurisdictions are to any of these phenomena in order to plan for proper response. They also need advanced warning to know when extreme weather events will occur, so that they can minimize their impact on society.

Correct forecasts and predictions of natural phenomena are vitally important to allow for proper evacuation and damage mitigation strategies. NASA works collaboratively with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) on this effort. NASA Earth science data are being incorporated into an improved decision support system (DSS) created by FEMA to meet the requirements of planners, early warning systems and first responders, and to contribute to impact assessments, risk communication, mitigation, and implementation of relief efforts.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Land Rapid Response System exemplifies how NASA data are making a difference in planning for and responding to disasters. This system was created to serve the need for quick access to products from the MODIS instrument--onboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites--when disaster strikes. NASA collaborates with the University of Maryland, the USDA's Forest Service (USFS), and NOAA to provide firefighters with the most up-to-date maps and satellite images from Terra and Aqua, to help them strategically plan their response. After the fire is under control, land managers can use the information to assist them in planning for rehabilitating the burned area and for protecting water quality in the affected area.

Data from NASA satellite missions also make significant contributions in the area of hurricane and flood prediction. NOAA combines satellite-derived estimates of precipitation from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) and from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), with winds from QuikSCAT. Doing so substantially improves the accuracy of forecasts for landfall, track and intensity of hurricanes, and increases the lead-time for warnings for both hurricanes and floods. More accurate forecasts, in turn, enable improved decision-making leading to more enhanced community preparedness for these types of events.

As data from additional NASA missions--such as the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, which will succeed TRMM--become available over the next few years, the forecasts mentioned above and others similar to them will be even more accurate and reliable, and increasingly useful for disaster management applications. Provided with such information, decision makers will be better equipped to respond to disasters when they occur. While they will not be able to stop extreme weather events from occurring, it should be possible to significantly reduce the losses from weather-driven disasters over the course of the next decade due to improved forecasts.