Articles

FireSim simulations of Palisades wilfire (TEMA Project. Tecnosylva. Wildfire simulation research. 2025-04-01. Own elaboration).

Technosylva: The Spanish Brain Fighting Wildfires in California

Thu, 03/04/2025 - 13:30

In the fight against infernos, technology has emerged as a powerful tool and at the forefront of this innovation is Technosylva. Over the last decade, Technosylva has played a crucial role in California’s wildfire prevention and response efforts, developing cutting-edge technology that helps firefighters and emergency responders make informed decisions and act swiftly.

Flood Sentinel-3B scene from Jan. 9th 2025 (18:24), showing the smoke plumes produced by the Palisades Fire (left) and Eaton Fire (right; source: DLR)

Multi-sensor Near-Realtime Burnt Area Monitoring of the devastating Palisades and Eaton Fires

Thu, 03/04/2025 - 13:00

Starting on 7 January 2025, several severe wildfires raged in the Greater Los Angeles area. The department for Georisks and Civil Security at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) prepared damage assessment maps through automated analyses of satellite data. Burnt area perimeters could have been derived in near-real time after the acquisition from the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem.

Drones in Search and Rescue Operations

Mon, 24/03/2025 - 14:30

In the last decade, however, the development of drones has accelerated significantly. The aircraft have become smaller and more affordable. Control systems have become simpler and smarter, and the range of applications has become increasingly diverse. Starting from research purposes, drones have found wide usage in all Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) organisations.

Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides visiting the European Emergency Response Coordination Centre in Brussels. ©EU/ECHO (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The Importance of Natural Disaster Management Platforms for First Responders: Lessons from the EU TEMA Project

Tue, 04/03/2025 - 15:00

As the frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as wildfires, floods, and flash floods have increased due to the global climate change, there is a perceived need for innovative disaster management platforms, a need which is becoming more critical than ever.

People walk outside of the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium on September 20, 2023. Photo by Alexandros Michailidis on iStockPhoto (CC BY 4.0).

Evidence for policy and policy for evidence: European Union initiatives for national and European civil protection development

Thu, 20/02/2025 - 17:00

The public sector is increasingly adopting practices to utilize existing information in order to make decisions for the future. In civil protection, evidence-based policymaking is used to evaluate risks and incident statistics and to guide prevention and preparedness work towards risk reduction and mitigation of future incidents.

"Smoke" – © Kaibab National Forest, 2020, CC BY 2.0

Reactive Model Correction: Mitigating Spurious Correlations in Natural Disaster Management

Mon, 17/02/2025 - 12:30

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a critical tool in natural disaster management, enabling real-time predictions, risk assessments, and decision-making. However, the effectiveness of AI models can be undermined by spurious correlations—where irrelevant features in the training data influence predictions. These shortcuts, often due to imperfections in training datasets, pose serious risks in high-stakes scenarios.

Image generated using 3Di Watermanagement

3D Water Tiles

Thu, 13/02/2025 - 15:00

Hydrodynamic software such as 3Di Watermanagement is able to calculate and simulate real-world scenarios and adjust them. This way, water experts can predict and mitigate the impact of pluvial, fluvial and coastal floods, perform climate impact studies and make hydraulic designs of open water channel and sewer networks.

Ethics in Action: Building a Co-Design Framework for Responsible Disaster Response

Fri, 13/12/2024 - 11:00

Incorporating ethics into the use of emerging technologies for Natural Disaster Management (NDM) is not just a responsibility; it is a necessity. Recognising these imperatives, TEMA adopted a collaborative, co-design methodology to align technological innovation with ethical responsibility.

Town after a flood with diffusion models, ATOS Spain

Using Diffusion Models to Generate Datasets of Images Affected by Natural Disasters

Wed, 11/12/2024 - 16:00

In recent years, diffusion models have become powerful tools in the field of artificial intelligence for image generation. Their applications extend beyond traditional creative or artistic uses, proving highly valuable for scientific, engineering, and crisis management purposes.

Drowning in the information flood: Identifying relevant social media posts for disaster management

Thu, 05/12/2024 - 12:30

Data from geo-social media can provide great added value for disaster management, as they offer a wide range of information (texts, images, videos, etc.) in near-real time. In order to be able to offer such an automated workflow, researchers at the University of Salzburg developed a methodology for relevance classification of Tweets for disaster management.