Application field: Humanitarian relief support, mission planning, conflict prevention,
crisis monitoring. From a humanitarian point of view, there is no doubt that the most
critical parameter to be mapped and monitored is the number of people affected by a
crisis or disaster. This applies to all phases of the disaster cycle, ranging from the
alerting and emergency response phases to recovery and rehabilitation phases.
Remote sensing may, however, at best provide only indications of human presence,
since individuals are not directly visible. Areas such as IDP camps can show rapid
changes in annual population averages, with sudden, dramatic increases or decreases
in numbers. As a result of such rapid population changes in these ephemeral
settlements in situ population censuses are often the only means of acquiring relevant
population figures within the time frame required for humanitarian aid.
Methodology used / workflow: A workflow for conditioned information comprising
situation awareness, user specifications, data integration, automated data analysis,
added value products and scientific visualization (maps and globe browsers).
