You have agreed to coordinate inputs regarding experiences concerning the application of satellite remote sensing data to disaster management. The purpose of this note is to provide guidelines for your effort to help assure that the information provided is uniform and sufficient for our purposes and to try to facilitate your task. If you chose to deviate from these guidelines, please point out where you do, and why.

The objective of the Disaster Management Support project is to support natural and technological disaster management on a worldwide basis by fostering improved utilisation of existing and planned Earth Observation (EO) satellite data.

To accomplish this objective, Coordinators are requested to review operational and developmental applications and document these in summary rather than in detailed form. They are then asked to analyse user requirements and identify improvements in system performance, and/or data services, and/or delivery of services which would provide more effective support for disaster management.

Each Coordinator has accepted responsibility for leading a task team for a single hazard type. The analysis should be viewed from the user view point. In some cases, the user being served is an end user, but often satellite data and products are delivered to an intermediary user, who in turn merges the satellite products with other information to make end user products. Even when the user is an intermediary, the analysis should be end-to-end, including a brief statement of how the intermediary serves the end user.

Each task team should consider three dimensions of disaster management, e.g., user level, disaster management category, and operational status1. Each dimension can impose different requirements within each hazard category. It is recognized that all teams may not move at the same pace, and that initial progress may cover a subset of the elements listed in each dimension as follows:

Provide a short description of the overall requirements for your Hazard Type. This should act as an introduction to separate sections for each specific application, e.g., for each combination of User Level, Disaster Management Category, and Operational Status which is relevant to this disaster type and has been analyzed in this version on the Summary Document.

Beginning with the end user, each summary should try to state and analyse the user requirements and how satellites can meet these requirements. Typically there will be several layers of requirements, beginning with a general requirement, perhaps moving to services or models with merged satellite and non-satellite (auxiliary) data or products that meet these requirements, and then moving to specific satellite data and products that support intermediate users who make models or provide services.

Whatever the sequence, each layer should be analyzed separately and should try to address each of the following topics, as appropriate. For example, when addressing "Products/Services" please indicate how effectively existing products/services are being used, and when addressing "Observations" and "Data," please note which system parameters proved effective, which were not effective, and what changes in systems parameters might prove more effective.

In specifying observational requirements you are encouraged to look at the NASA Remote Sensing Requirements Matrix for Disaster Reduction which provides a useful frame of reference, particularly if difficulty is encountered in dealing with the categories of measurements listed. The matrix can be found from the "Remote Sensing Requirements for Disaster Reduction" WWW site.

• Current products/services available
• Whether operational or experimental
• Frequency of delivery
• New and improved products/services necessary to meet requirements
• Improvements in accessibility to, and/or delivery of products/services necessary to meet requirements

• Format compatibility requirements
• Data/information delivery to user
• Fusing of space and non-space data

• Instrument/spacecraft
• Spatial resolution
• Temporal resolution
• Spectral resolution (bands, wavelengths)
• Throughput requirements
• Auxiliary non-space (e.g., ground) data
• Auxiliary space data

Where requirements are new, tentative or not being met by existing services please provide citations to references of closely related studies wherever possible. Be selective, and provide only those citations that support definition of requirements, the usefulness of satellite data to support those requirements, and the analysis you have done. To assist in this effort, you are requested to check the Natural Disaster Reference Database at: http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/ndrd/. Citations not in the Database, and worth noting should be forwarded by E-mail to the NASA coordinator Thomas Hood at: Thomas.L.Hood@gsfc.nasa.gov.

1. While recognizing that definitions differ, the following operating definitions are used here:
   Hazard - A phenomenon which may cause disruption to humans or their infrastructure;
   Disaster - An event which can, is, or has cause(d) such disruption;
   Disaster Management - A set of actions and processes designed to lessen disastrous effects either before, during or after a disaster;
   Mitigation - Actions undertaken to insulate people or infrastructure from hazards generally;
   Preparedness - Actions undertaken to insulate people or infrastructure from specific hazardous events.
   Often, for remote sensing observations, this takes the form of warning;
   Relief - Actions taken during and immediately after a disaster. For remote sensing, this often takes the form of damage assessment.
2. If appropriate, include both Optimum and Threshold levels for "Spatial" and "Temporal" resolutions. While recognizing that definitions differ, the following operating definitions are used here:
   Optimum - Level above which there is no significant improvement in usefulness
   Threshold - Level below which there is no significant usefulness