By Carolyn Gordon
Through the millennia, early practitioners used simple tools and instruments to document the new world—one mountain, river, prairie and ocean at a time.
Now analysts measure, map and monitor the world’s geographic regions with remarkable precision. Automated software tools are redefining geospatial analysis, and an explosion of mobile devices record every detail.
Around the clock, commercial and tactical satellites, aerial vehicles, and private citizens are snapping images of Earth from all angles. As quickly as digital data can be uploaded to the Internet, they’re immediately available for viewing, sharing and analysis, creating a global database of free information.
The availability of instant data is changing the way individuals, businesses and governments operate. It’s becoming increasingly useful for many activities in everyday life, ranging from finding the shortest driving route while avoiding toll roads to recovery and evacuation missions, such as the 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti earlier in 2010.
Multispectral or hyperspectral imagery with information in the near-infrared band can be exploited to determine the health of vegetation. This is useful for determining the health of crops after a disaster that could affect future sources of food. The False Color panel in this image shows the near-infrared band as bright red, which indicates healthy vegetation.
"Before the January 12 earthquake, widely available maps of the country of Haiti had little more than a few highways and roads," wrote Andrew Turner, a self-described "neogeographer," on opensource.com (opensource.com/life/10/1/openstreetmap-haiti). "The capital city of Port-au-Prince was a shaded outline that suggested a city. The problem was that Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, had been ignored by traditional commercial data providers. Few could afford a GPS, so why build digital maps of roads or buildings?
"When the earthquake struck and crisis responders began planning their aid, they were left without a means to identify cities, routes of entry, buildings, parks, or much of anything that would allow them to know how to possibly provide support to the citizens of Haiti," he added.
In the aftermath of a catastrophic event, such as the Haiti earthquake, there’s a critical window of time for successful evacuation and rescue operations. Local refugees demand immediate assistance. Citizens become desperate to flee the same areas where aid groups and military troops are attempting to arrive, creating additional challenges at the points of entry. Official response teams must compile a common operating picture based on current maps and data, which may be limited to archived files. In underdeveloped countries, providing assistance can be especially challenging.
Geospatially accurate maps with additional data layers and intelligence reports are the basis for establishing situational awareness. However, when a pilot is approaching a landing zone equipped with supplies, he or she may not be prepared to circle endlessly after observing that the airport has been converted to a refugee camp. There needs to be a designated landing zone that only current images of the scene can provide.
History has illustrated that it can be difficult to activate relief efforts instantly. Military commanders and other key decision makers must communicate with local governments, non-profit aid organizations and other groups providing assistance to mobilize support teams as well as arrange transportation and accommodations for personnel traveling to the periled area.
Mobile Technology to the Rescue
Every day, thousands of unsolicited files are uploaded to video-sharing, mapping and social-media sites. Many more resources are available on news and company Web sites, and the U.S. armed forces maintain extensive catalogs of images captured during active missions.
A half-meter-resolution satellite image shows Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the area on Jan. 12, 2010. The image shows extensive damage, roads covered with debris from collapsed structures, and people crowded in the streets and public places such as sports fields and stadiums. The white-colored National Palace shows damage along the roof line. The image was taken by the GeoEye-1 satellite from 423 miles in space on Jan. 13, 2010, as it moved from north to south over the Caribbean at a speed of four miles per second.
This proliferation of unconventional geospatial-intelligence (GEOINT) assets can be useful in establishing geographic context and creating immediate situational awareness for intelligence reports used in crisis-management situations.
First responders and emergency-management personnel need comprehensive resources for strategic planning: assessing damage to the transportation infrastructure, determining if airports and port facilities are operational, and identifying safe helicopter landing zones to transport aid workers and relief supplies. Typically, these missions rely on standardized information to mitigate risk.
GEOINT from Unlikely Sources
Increasingly, obtaining and sharing live images has become routine, and there has been an unexpected proliferation of useful information created by the world community. Mobile devices capture raw images of real-time events that are posted to the Internet as quickly as users can hit the "send" button.
These images, when compiled with precise geographic data, create databases of information that can be useful assets when there’s a delay in acquiring traditional data sources. These unlikely sources of valuable data have changed the GEOINT paradigm, creating new platforms for information sharing. The general public’s curiosity for information, fueled by 24-hour news cycles and social-media networks, has yielded unforeseen benefits.
Without consciously knowing it, anyone with a mobile device who has captured an image or video and posted it online has contributed to the vast data stores that are being used in the field. It may be difficult to quantify, but it can’t be denied that these resources can help fill the gap that separates a solution from a quandary.
GEOINT behind the Scenes
When the U.S. armed forces and other official relief agencies are called on for assistance, they must use all the certified tools at their disposal and follow established protocols to get the job done. In a catastrophic disaster such as the Haitian earthquake, mission-planning teams quickly gather intelligence data from multiple sources.
Image analysts, GIS professionals and other GEOINT practitioners work behind the scenes to build intelligence products and briefing charts that are essential to emergency operations. Static maps are a means to establish basic geographic context or pinpoint a road that leads to a target rescue point. However, specialized software is required to determine if a proposed transportation route is navigable.
Before-and-after change-detection comparisons and digital-terrain models can be generated to assess viable transportation routes. Using current satellite, aerial or light detection and ranging (LIDAR) data, GEOINT software such as BAE Systems’ SOCET SET and SOCET GXP, and Esri’s ArcGIS provide terrain-analysis capabilities for identifying and analyzing obstructions, erosion and flood risk to effectively designate evacuation zones. TerraGo Technologies’ geo-enabled PDF format, GeoPDF, and associated Web-based and mobile software tools make it possible for advanced geospatial collaboration in the field.
