Over the last 15 years, the use of satellite imagery for disaster management support increased significantly, from seven cases in 2000, to 123 in 2014, according to a recent review published in the journal Science.
The review presents the trends in spatial and temporal distribution of more than 1000 disasters in the period 2000-2014 where satellite emergency mapping (SEM) was used. The steep increase in the use of satellite emergency mapping confirms the usefulness of satellite imagery for disaster damage assessment. The spatial coverage shows that SEM is most intensively used in Asia and Europe and follows the geographic, physical and temporal distributions of natural disasters globally, as confirmed by the data contained in the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT) dataset.
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