In Gaza, Satellites Show 157,200 Damaged or Destroyed Buildings
- Author: Undark Magazine
- Full Title: In Gaza, Satellites Show 157,200 Damaged or Destroyed Buildings
- Category: articles
- Document Tags: #geospatial
- URL: https://undark.org/2024/03/13/satellites-show-damaged-buildings-gaza/?utm_source=Undark%3A+News+%26+Updates&utm_campaign=718bd5202c-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5cee408d66-185e4e09de-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
Highlights
- Van Den Hoek and Scher are part of an ad hoc association known as the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group. The loose network of about 18 researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Turkey came together last year to increase the understanding and use of satellite data for monitoring the impacts of conflict. (View Highlight)
- Van Den Hoek and Scher see the work done by DDMG members as a step toward establishing a growing field called conflict remote sensing. Such independent findings from satellite data could help address disputed claims about the level and extent of damage from military attacks — though putting an end to that violence is a separate, political matter. It’s mostly been journalists disseminating the findings from such satellite imagery so far, and researchers hope they could be of use to humanitarian groups as well. Some experts have warned that satellite data could also be exploited by the military or others who want to find new targets. (Recent reporting from NPR suggests Israel may make use of such data as part of an AI-based targeting system called the Gospel.) (View Highlight)
- For their work, Van Den Hoek and Scher took advantage of the European Space Agency and European Commission’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2, a group of Earth-observing satellites. The Sentinel-1 satellite constellation comes equipped with instruments that send out radar pulses and detect how those pulses scatter and reflect off the Earth, similar to how a bat navigates a dark landscape. While the images have lower spatial resolution than some commercial satellites — which affects the clarity of the image when assessing damage — the data is made public quickly, and for free. The researchers apply algorithms to interpret the images and spot structures that have changed over time. (View Highlight)
- Van Den Hoek and Scher also benefit from the fact that the Sentinel-1 satellites take their images at an angle, rather than straight down, Scher said. This helps to discern damage to the walls of structures, such as collapsed buildings with mostly intact roofs. This may help explain why their estimates on building damage are higher than those from other groups, he said. Nevertheless, the researchers find at least 70 percent agreement between their damage maps and those of the United Nations Satellite Center, which has higher-resolution images but releases updates less often. (View Highlight)