Colour radargrammetric DEM using Envisat ASAR.

Project participants UNOPS, UNITAR, Spot Image, Digitech and Gamma Remote Sensing

Objectives & Anticipated Achievements:

UNOPS is a branch of the United Nations that provides services & operations in the domains of humanitarian aid & international development. It is the largest service provider in the United Nations, working on behalf of UN bodies, as well as offering services to bilateral donors, NGOs, international financial institutions and others on request.

The aim of the UNOSAT project is to help set up an operational consulting and delivery system for the UN system for high quality geo-information services including capacity building, with the goal to reduce the time and costs linked to the purchase, processing and interpretation of Earth Observation data for the user. This activity is focusing on the exploitation of both Radar and Optical data to meet user needs for the following types of geo-spatial information:

Cartographic information for planning humanitarian response actions,

Thematic maps for planning purposes within post-crisis reconstruction projects in relation to conflicts and natural hazards (including change detection of features associated with infrastructure, urban & agricultural land, etc)

Thematic maps for planning & management purposes within development projects (e.g. land use, cadastral maps, statistics on renewable resources, etc)

Turn-key projects to establish and/or strengthen EO/GIS capacities of local end-users

UNOSAT is a Consortium grouping UNOPS, the Market Owner, their partner UNITAR, and Value Adders such as Spot Image (F), Digitech (F) and Gamma Remote Sensing (CH). It is providing geo-information solutions covering regions at risk or affected by disaster or conflict, and is performing thematic studies, as well as capitalising and maintaining knowledge about specific areas. Commercial trial case studies have been performed in 2002 and 2003 such as for instance in Afghanistan and Nicaragua.