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12 October 2004
State Department Uses Satellite Imagery as Foreign Policy Tool
Humanitarian assistance a growing application for "digital diplomacy"
Washington -- The U.S. State Department is using remote-sensing technology on board satellites in an increasing number of nonmilitary applications to support U.S. foreign policy objectives. One of the fastest-growing applications may be humanitarian assistance.
Remote sensing is defined as collecting information about an object without being in physical contact with the object. Satellites are common platforms for remote-sensing observations and have been used for that purpose since the early days of space flight.
Satellite sensors acquire images of the Earth and transmit the data to ground receiving stations worldwide. Once the raw images are processed and analyzed, they can document changing environmental conditions like pollution, global climate change, natural resource management, urban growth and more.
The first satellite, Sputnik I, was launched in 1957. For the next 15 years, the number of satellites grew, but most satellite imagery was classified -- produced and seen mainly by government organizations for military purposes.
In 1972, the first civil satellite was launched to collect data about the Earth's surface and resources. The Earth Resources Technology Satellite, later renamed Landsat I, developed by NASA, made satellite imagery available to the public for the first time.
Since the 1970s, satellite imagery has revolutionized the study of the natural environment and global hazards, agriculture, energy use, public health and international policy. The number of satellites has increased, there are a growing number of commercial satellites and imagery vendors, and the associated computing technology, software and remote-sensing technology have advanced.
However, one of the greatest changes in the way satellite imagery is used has arisen from its availability to the public.
HUMANITARIAN INFORMATION UNIT
The two-year-old Humanitarian Information Unit (HIU) is a U.S. government interagency center within the State Department that identifies, collects, analyzes and disseminates unclassified information that is critical to responding to humanitarian emergencies around the world.
"From the beginning," said Dennis King, a humanitarian affairs analyst, "it was envisioned that imagery would be part of this effort."
The HIU is staffed with analysts from agencies that include the State Department, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Defense.
Because HIU analyses, visual graphics and other briefing products are unclassified, said humanitarian affairs analyst Noam Unger, "they can be more easily shared -- with the United Nations, with partner governments and with nongovernment organizations. They can also be used to show antagonistic governments that we can see what's happening. That was done in the case of Sudan."
In June, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios briefed the United Nations on the urgent situation in the Darfur region of Sudan as a result of the 19-month-old rebellion of African Sudanese and the genocidal reprisals by government-supported Arab Sudanese militias. HIU geospatial analyst David Springer used raw commercial imagery to create graphic products that illustrated the destruction of local villages from January through June. Natsios used these images to brief the United Nations.
The images are available at the USAID website, at http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/sudan/satelliteimages.html.
Also in June, USAID Assistant Administrator Roger Winter used HIU imagery products in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Natsios used HIU graphics products depicting destroyed Sudanese villages on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, a national television news program.
"And that," Unger said, "is most assuredly a new use of commercial, unclassified imagery."
The unit responds to a humanitarian crisis by researching each situation, including the availability of appropriate imagery from a range of government and commercial sources. If none exists, it may requisition the collection of imagery for a specific area.
"Imagery is useful because you can use it to quantify certain pieces of information," Unger said. "You can use imagery of a refugee camp to understand how it is organized or do a rough estimate of the population based on the number of tents per block or blocks per camp. You can identify healthy vegetation, waterways and structures, and this can be very useful to humanitarian actors operating on the ground and to policy makers."
The team determines the best way to combine a range of data -- text, graphics, satellite imagery -- from sources inside and outside the U.S. government and turn it into a visual representation of the question it wants to answer.
The finished product is disseminated to those who can use it, through Web sites around the world -- government Web sites such as USAID and those of organizations like the United Nations (http://www.reliefweb.int) -- and through e-mail and briefings to policymakers.
"We're using imagery much more publicly," Unger said. "With the advent of organizations like the HIU, alongside commercial providers of imagery, the State Department can use it to respond to humanitarian crises. That's important because people who never used to consider imagery an asset or resource are starting to realize its utility."
Satellite imagery can be used to help plan relief operations for refugees and internally displaced persons, and it can help in less direct humanitarian ways, by adding knowledge and raising awareness around the world about global environmental trends, conditions and issues, and contributing to the goal of sustainable development.
SPACE AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY
In the State Department Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES), the Space and Advanced Technology (SAT) staff harnesses information technologies -- including remote sensing and satellite imagery -- to further U.S. foreign policy objectives.
"Sustainable development," said staff member Fernando Echavarria, "is the integrating theme of the broad spectrum of issues that OES addresses, including oceans, the environment, science, technology and some health issues."
In 2002, he said, the State Department and USAID presented an initiative called Geographic Information for Sustainable Development (GISD) during the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa.
GISD was an international partnership led by the State Department and USAID whose objective was to apply a new generation of Earth observation data, Geographic Information System-linked technologies, and field-tested geographic knowledge to sustainable development issues in Africa. The work included helping with disasters, managing natural resources and reducing poverty.
The partnership initially focused on four target regions in Africa -- the Upper Niger River Basin, East African Great Lakes, Kenya-Tanzania Coast and Limpopo/Zambezi River Basin. GISD has now expanded to include other regions, countries and partners in and outside Africa (http://www.opengis.org/gisd).
GISD includes more than 20 initiatives that address sustainable development issues at different levels -- local, provincial, national, regional and global. "Each level is a different challenge," Echavarria said. The technology combines different types of information to "allow people to make better decisions in addressing multiple problems such as deforestation, desertification, coastal zone management, integrated watershed management, fisheries, and poverty eradication.
"One type," he said, "is biophysical information, such as wind direction, temperature, climate, soil types and elevation, which you can overlay with socioeconomic information. That includes, for instance, population -- where are the people, where are the roads, where are the major urban areas, where is the major fragile infrastructure?
"The tools allow you to overlay for the first time two radically different types of information -- families of data types -- and then do an analysis, such as what should be the hurricane evacuation response of Appalachia County in the Florida panhandle? Or what is the best and most efficient way to get a million people out of New Orleans? That's the power of these tools," Echavarria said.
"We do that constantly," he added, "and we're able to do it better and better, at a faster pace, in a more accurate manner, and in a way that allows us to disseminate the information immediately, using cable with the Web, newspapers, magazines and more."
The United States leads the world in the integration and synergy of geospatial tools, Echavarria said, but willingly shares the technology and data with the world.
In 2001, NASA and the USGS agreed to give the international community, through the U.N. Environmental Programme (UNEP), the global Landsat dataset -- satellite images of the entire planet -- for 1992 and 2000. Landsat's first satellite was launched in 1972, its seventh and most recent in 1999.
That $20 million worth of Landsat images is allowing environmental ministers in Africa -- with help from UNEP, NASA, USGS, the University of Maryland and the Earth Satellite Corporation -- to learn about and analyze environmental changes in their regions over eight years, according to UNEP.
Because many African countries do not have Internet access, Echavarria said, datasets are being disseminated to ministers of the environment on high-density hard disks called "databricks" that hold hundreds of satellite images. The same data are freely accessible through portals from NASA, Michigan State University, University of Maryland, and the USGS.
Landsat datasets have shown the extent of illegal logging in southeast Asia, urban sprawl in the United States, habitat loss in sub-Saharan Africa, diminishing marshlands in Mesopotamia and much more.
"The Landsat program is one of the gifts that U.S. taxpayers have given the world," Echavarria said. "As a result of Landsat, you have more than 30 years of observations that allow you to monitor the environment and detect and quantify natural and manmade changes to the environment all over the world."
(This is the first of a two-part series on digital diplomacy. Part two will examine several global initiatives involving satellite imagery.)
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
