Climate change can cause extreme weather events and natural disasters, affecting many people. These events can disrupt important infrastructures such as energy supply, communication, and transport, which can seriously impact daily life. To quickly restore critical infrastructure after an incident, it is important to promptly understand the overall situation.
Current monitoring processes for such infrastructure includes sensor-based monitoring of certain sections (e.g. for railway tracks or bridges), local monitoring with cameras (mainly for buildings), airborne monitoring or manual inspection of routes. However, these are expensive,
hard to implement in remote areas, inconsistent due to different technical solutions, and not easily scalable or automated. Also it is not always possible to quickly check infrastructures after or even during extreme weather events, such as storms or flooding.
Earth observation satellites can regularly monitor critical infrastructure from space, since they can operate independently from the earth’s atmospheric interferences. Which raises the main important question: Why aren’t such earth observation (EO) services for infrastructure monitoring already available on the market?
There are several reasons why the widespread adoption of such technology has not yet been realized. We have listed here some of the main challenges which needs to be overcome:
- Long Response Times: Current EO systems have long response times, which means they cannot provide real-time updates needed during critical incidents.
- Low Resolution: Many EO satellites lack the spatial and temporal resolution necessary to detect and monitor fine details of infrastructure damage effectively.
- High Costs: Implementing and maintaining EO services can be expensive, making it difficult to offer affordable solutions.
Within the IIMEO project, we aim to offer services that overcome these challenges. We are excited to announce a series of news posts that will introduce the various services provided by our project partners. So stay tuned for the upcoming news article.
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