Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer
An Interoperable Decision Support System for Flood Disaster Response Assistance
Project Description
For flood monitoring and response, NASA and other agencies are increasingly stepping up to the challenge to harness its remote sensing and modeling resources during an event. As these capabilities are designed and then progressively improved, there is a coupled need for mechanisms to sustain them. There is to date no global decision support system for flood disasters that ingests all the data from existing systems and provides real-time critical information that can guide operational reactions on the ground. Because these capabilities evolve over time, any such interoperable system must incorporate changes and improvements thereof, it must be flexible, and itself robust and able to be maintained into the future. These challenges are addressed in this SBIR where Remote Sensing Solutions collaborates with existing efforts of the Dartmouth Flood Observatory to develop an interoperable one-stop-shop based on open geospatial data standards that unifies information relevant to flood disaster response. Four primary objectives have been defined to achieve this goal (product, i.e. data layer, design; system development; demonstration; commercialization plan). The technical approach to meet the objectives is streamlined into specific work packages, each one including a milestone target to ensure successful project completion.
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Anticipated Benefits
We plan to keep the proposed system flexible enough to accommodate data from future flood-related missions, such as the post-launch data products of the NASA/CNES SWOT mission, and the water level product planned for ICESat-2 (also ESA?s Sentinel 3). Also for pre-mission projects, in particular to the mission Science Definition Team (SDT) and Science Team (ST), such a DSS system proves very valuable since it provides a global viewing and analysis platform of many available geospatial data layers from major satellite missions as well as models. The proposed DSS will be developed in close collaboration with relevant partners and stakeholders from all kinds of economic sectors. This will ensure maximum impact of a ?one-stop-shop? for flood disaster response that meets the top priority requirements of each community active in flood response, thereby greatly facilitating operations. Also for the NASA Applied Science Disasters Program, the DSS will be a very valuable resource for assisting disaster response. This SBIR project will also help support continuation of the very successful GEO/CEOS Flood Pilot that ends officially in December 2017. In fact, the PI and many others on this team, including the NASA and non-NASA advisors have been active contributors to the Flood Pilot and would like to continue such activities, and such could be easily done under the auspices of this SBIR project.
For commercialization, the team envisages ?paid access? to the DSS to ensure ongoing maintenance, upgrades and sustainability of the DSS. This would allow full free access to scientists, researchers, the development aid sector and government organizations as well as NGOs. The team has identified the following two target customer groups to engage with: (i) Geospatial data and information management companies; Flood modeling vendor companies; (re-) insurance companies; mortgage lenders/banking industry; (ii) Emergency response organizations; humanitarian agencies; development aid organizations. Note that the team has already engaged with most of the above identified end users/customers. See for instance attached Letter of Interest from a potential industry sector. Also, the team collaborates with the UN WFP, the World Bank and FEMA on a regular basis. Potential users and customers include a large variety of actors operating in flood disaster response. The following list of selected development partners for Phase I and II provides an idea of the multitude of organizations that we expect to be using the proposed DSS: FEMA, USGS, NGA, StormCenter Communications Inc., Center for Space Research (CSR), JPL ARIA, World Bank, UN WFP, CEOS, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)/ ESA, Louisiana Department of Transportation (LA DOT). More »
For commercialization, the team envisages ?paid access? to the DSS to ensure ongoing maintenance, upgrades and sustainability of the DSS. This would allow full free access to scientists, researchers, the development aid sector and government organizations as well as NGOs. The team has identified the following two target customer groups to engage with: (i) Geospatial data and information management companies; Flood modeling vendor companies; (re-) insurance companies; mortgage lenders/banking industry; (ii) Emergency response organizations; humanitarian agencies; development aid organizations. Note that the team has already engaged with most of the above identified end users/customers. See for instance attached Letter of Interest from a potential industry sector. Also, the team collaborates with the UN WFP, the World Bank and FEMA on a regular basis. Potential users and customers include a large variety of actors operating in flood disaster response. The following list of selected development partners for Phase I and II provides an idea of the multitude of organizations that we expect to be using the proposed DSS: FEMA, USGS, NGA, StormCenter Communications Inc., Center for Space Research (CSR), JPL ARIA, World Bank, UN WFP, CEOS, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)/ ESA, Louisiana Department of Transportation (LA DOT). More »
Project Library
Primary U.S. Work Locations and Key Partners
| Organizations Performing Work | Role | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remote Sensing Solutions, Inc. | Lead Organization | Industry | Barnstable, Massachusetts |
Goddard Space Flight Center
(GSFC)
|
Supporting Organization | NASA Center | Greenbelt, Maryland |
Primary U.S. Work Locations
-
Maryland
-
Massachusetts
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