Planet, a leading provider of near-daily high-resolution data and insights about Earth, has announced a collaboration with its partner New Light Technologies Inc. (NLT) to provide the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) imagery to support enhanced situational awareness for effective disaster response.
Emergency managers require up-to-date information throughout the lifecycle of an incident on the conditions of impacted communities in order to make decisions about where and how to respond. Planet's high-cadence and high-resolution satellite monitoring capabilities and image archive can provide ongoing regional coverage, enabling disaster risk mitigation, rapid response, and informed recovery.
Through this collaboration, NLT, a renowned leader in the development of satellite-derived analytics and delivery of real-time decision-support systems for emergency management, works directly with FEMA to integrate Planet's near-daily PlanetScope imagery into its disaster response program to assess damages and plan recovery following incidents such as hurricanes and tornadoes. Working together, Planet and NLT rapidly deliver imagery through API and cloud-based platforms to streamline data access and integration with disaster response systems and commercial software platforms such as ESRI and Google Earth Engine.
"We are happy to be partnering with New Light Technologies and FEMA to provide critical information for natural disaster response and resilience efforts," said Nelson Imade, Planet Federal Account Executive. "Our satellites keep a watchful eye over our planet, equipping our partners to be able to respond to and prepare for disasters more quickly, helping to save lives and mitigate economic impact."
The NLT team utilized PlanetScope to evaluate predictive deep learning models of tornado damage, examine the impacts of the New Waverly floods in Texas, and conduct visual assessments of infrastructure damage caused by winter storms. Planet's SkySat satellites have also been employed by FEMA on a tasking basis to gain enhanced high-resolution insights to complement the near-daily datasets. This advanced visual coverage supports the organization's ability to keep impacted communities safe and informed.
Operating the largest fleet of earth observation satellites in history, Planet offers near-daily images of every terrestrial location on Earth, supporting a robust dataset of global change. This data is particularly useful for disaster management as evaluators can gain a before-and-after look at key regions within 24 hours of catastrophic events and effectively target relief efforts.
Through Planet's archive imagery dating back to 2009, this time series data will also support FEMA's ability to mitigate risk and plan for climate resilience and adaptation, revealing regional patterns and global change.
Planet's data has supported a number of other disaster response initiatives ranging from preventative research to rapid relief. Through Planet's Education and Research Program, scientists utilized PlanetScope data to create predictive tools monitoring earthquakes and landslides in the Himalayas, and by pulling Planet's data just hours after the Chamoli landslide, researchers were able to understand how the event occurred.
In 2018, the World Food Programme and the Republic of the Congo leveraged Planet's data to create the Cloud to Street flood mapping and response organization. In collaboration with NASA Harvest, Planet's data also supported rapid food and agriculture response in Togo as COVID-19 disrupted food security.
