The CopernicusLAC EO Service activities include the development of twelve innovative services for disaster risk reduction (DRR) based on Copernicus Sentinel satellite data. These services will be integrated into the future CopernicusLAC Panama Centre, which will provide users in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) access to the information, services, and processing capabilities established by the Centre in the region.
The hydrometeorological hazards theme will focus on leveraging Copernicus Sentinel data for flood, drought, and wildfire assessment and preparedness in the LAC region.
Four services will be developed dedicated to flooding, one service to drought, and three services to wildfires. The corresponding use cases will be tailored according to the specific needs of the geographic area of application. Use cases include topics on flooding dynamics, hydraulic modelling with Copernicus Sentinel data, hurricane forecasting, drought index customisation, and biofuel and land use and cover for fire danger assessment.
Flood extent mapping
Single-event flood detection from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and optical satellite data. Products include flood delineation maps for specific flooding events, with maximum extent derived from the combination of Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 imagery.
Flood frequency mapping
Multiple-event flood detection from SAR and optical satellite data. The service product is a frequency map derived from delineation maps of all events in the Copernicus Sentinel catalogue or those within a given time range, taking into consideration the number of times a pixel was flooded and extracting the return period.
Flood hazard
Service for merging Earth Observation (EO) data and hydrological/hydraulic models for flood hazard characterisation. Products include a new set of hazard maps obtained by combining EO and model data information. These maps are characterised by frequency and water depth.
Flood depth mapping
Service for merging EO data and a Digital Surface Model for water depth extraction. The service product is a map with maximum water depth based on a flood extent map.
Drought Indices Mapping
Service for calculating and combining indices relevant for drought monitoring, including anomalies related to precipitation, soil moisture, and vegetation. These indices are derived from EO data combined with climatic time series analyses.
Burned Area Mapping
Service for near-real-time monitoring of active wildfires. This service relies on thermal anomalies acquired from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) to automatically delineate burned areas on high-resolution Copernicus Sentinel-2 Multi-Spectral Instrument (MSI) tiles. Products include hotspot, burned area extent, probability, and severity maps.
Fire Danger Mapping
Service to estimate the Fire Danger Index per pixel of Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery based on variables derived from Copernicus, the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS) Fire Weather Index, and other EO sources.
Fire Recovery Mapping
Service designed to monitor and evaluate the recovery of vegetation in areas affected by wildfires. It generates user-defined temporal Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) composites over detected burned areas and compares them to pre-wildfire conditions to determine the degree of vegetation recovery (in percentage).
Urban flood mapping
Service to improve urban flood detection leveraging Artificial Intelligence, as well as Intensity and Coherence information. The service product is an event-based flood delineation map which maximises flood detection capabilities in urban or scarcely vegetated areas.