Contributions of the Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) to emergency response in the International Space and Major Disasters Charter

Abstract

AbstractBrazil participates, through the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), in the International Charter Space and Major Disasters—Disasters Charter, an international cooperation effort to provide satellite images of major disasters around the world. The Disasters Charter is a joint and voluntary cooperative effort of 17 members. The characteristics of how the Charter works and the support of the satellites CBERS-4, CBERS-4A and AMAZONIA-1, including its cameras, are presented. There were 213 Charter Activations during the studied period (from mid-2018 until the end of 2022) with as many as 368 satellite images being provided (43% from the WFI camera-presented in all three satellites). Floods were the most frequent type of disaster and with the highest number of images provided. Of all the Activations during this period, INPE provided as much as 70% of all the Charter requested remote sensing data. Our internal operational scheme is revealed and the limitations of the satellite imaging are discussed to foster Brazil’s capacity in satellite imaging.