GMES Services for Conflict Prevention and Mitigation: Supporting the DG RELEX in Mission Planning

Earth observation (EO)-basedex postassessment of internally displaced person (IDP) camp evolution and population dynamics in Zam Zam, Darfur

“…For example, the European Earth observation programme Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) foresees the use of EO-based services for different policy-related issues of global concern, including the domains of humanitarian aid and conflict prevention (Verjee 2005, Kranz et al 2010. Analysis of the crisis situations outlined previously provides substantial reasons to explore the potential of remote-sensing approaches.…”

“…The results have successfully proved the transferability of established methodologies to fulfil monitoring requirements in terms of automation and information provision at an operational level. User appraisal of this method (see Kranz et al (2010)) is stimulating its increased use and its fast onset improvements. Due to the fact that alternative methods for a rapid estimation of populations in IDP camps either do not exist or are impossible to implement under prevailing crisis conditions, the proposed method of performing camp-population assessments, together with camp-structure analyses and ex post investigations of camp evolution, has a high potential in the context of effective crisis management.…”

“…A first estimation aiming at information provision within 1 week of satellite-image acquisition has already been published in Kranz et al (2010), summarizing the results as provided to DG RELEX (see §2.1). The results herein differ from the ones previously presented due to improvements and refinements in the methodology.…”

“…In the case of IDP camp analysis, the workflow includes the following elements: (i) dwelling extraction and pseudo-realistic three-dimensional (3D) visualization (Lang et al 2006a,b), (ii) distributed computing for tiled processing to handle very large datasets , (iii) the spatial analysis of the internal structures of spontaneous growth patterns (Kranz et al 2010) and (iv) analytical 3D views for policy-oriented information delivery, public awareness and other disseminations (Tiede and Lang 2010).…”

Towards a multi-scale approach for an Earth observation-based assessment of natural resource exploitation in conflict regions

“…Thus, mineral extraction is carried out by individuals, groups or cooperatives under extremely bad conditions and moreover, many mines are very difficult to access. As a result, field surveys are cost-intensive or even impossible which brought satellite data analysis and semi-automated mapping techniques into the focus of the peace and conflict research community (Brown 2010;Kranz et al 2010;Schoepfer & Kranz 2010;Zingg Wimmer & Hilgert 2011;Schoepfer, Blaes, et al 2012Lang et al 2015). The assessment of the situation using satellite imagery and the detection of changes through frequent monitoring can provide essential information for surveillance and situational awareness over large areas as well as focussed on certain regions of interest (Kranz et al 2015).…”