Digital Earth for Disaster Mitigation

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter describes the state-of-the-art of the potential of Digital Earth for progressively better solutions for disaster mitigation. The chapter illustrates the use of strong Digital Earth tools for data sharing and important potential for users, such as 2D or multi-D visualizations. Milestones of developments in early warning, disaster risk management and disaster risk reduction concepts are highlighted as a continuous movement between sustainable development and original concepts of disaster risk reduction. Improved solutions have been based on new research directions formulated in Sustainable Development Goals tasks and by expanding the possibilities of new effective solutions via newly organized data ecosystems generated by the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management, the Group on Earth Observations and the Group on Earth Observations System of Systems, Copernicus and, more recently, the Digital Belt and Road initiative. The new trends in spatial big data are emphasized; the most important for disaster risk reduction are the basic theses of the U.N. Conference in Sendai. This chapter describes three aspects: innovative Digital Earth development, national and local disaster risk assessment and the benefits arising from the use of maps and dynamic data, and analyses of the contributions of cartography to disaster risk reduction.