Resilience managers in businesses and local government can take advantage of the UK’s world-leading Earth observation community for planned response to the Covid-19 pandemic and long-term recovery.
Space-enabled products, quality-assured datasets and climate services are able to help with stress testing and climate-resilient recovery and are feeding cutting-edge, reliable information to Government and public sector departments that are making crucial strategic decisions.
Space4Climate, a member of the London Climate Change Partnership, brings together the UK’s government, industry and academic climate data from space community. It is a conduit, matching expertise in satellites, analysis and exploitation of satellite data for extreme weather events, multi-hazard mapping and scenario analysis.
Briony Turner, Climate Services Development Manager and coordinator of the Space4Climate group says:
“Our members have an important role to play in helping us all better understand the risks posed between temperature, flooding, air quality and Covid-19. Space-enabled air quality and climate datasets and services can help stress-test and quantify impacts, and save lives.”
Decision-support tools that use satellite data from space to inform concurrent and cascading multi-hazards risk stress-testing, vital in preparation for summer and winter seasons during Covid-19, include:
Eco:Actuary, a data platform built by King’s College London and partners. Eco:Actuary analyses risk reduction and resilience potential of nature-based solutions to avoid losses under different climate scenarios. It can also assess the co-benefits of flood management interventions for environment and human health. It is suitable for corporations with assets across the world. Further development for a bespoke interface to the tool is managed by not-for-profit consultancy AmbioTEK.
Telespazio VEGA UK’s Rapid Flood Hazard Mapping, real-time hazard monitoring and management of concurrent weather extreme risks using SAR (synthetic-aperture radar) data.
4 Earth Intelligence’s new Heat Mapping data product uses satellites to create the UK’s first street level map of ‘at risk’ areas to help plan for and manage the effects of extreme weather conditions. With support from the Ordnance Survey through its Covid-19 Response licensing, the Heat Hazard Postcode data is being made available free at the point of use to national organisations and multi-agency partnerships, such as Local Resilience Forums, that are currently battling the coronavirus pandemic, for a limited time.
Acclimatise also has a multi-hazard risk platform – the Physical Risk Heatmapping Tool – which provides banks and investors with an early indication of where the higher risks may lie within their portfolios, overlaid with asset value. The tool identifies key areas of physical risk by screening the portfolio for vulnerability to a full range of climate impacts as defined by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Working Group II Fifth Assessment Report (AR5).
Space4Climate, through its dedicated air quality network, AQNUK, also helped to convene the Air Quality community around the critical knowledge gaps on the possible interactions between air quality and COVID-19, indoors and out.