Page 240 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 4

STS583 Daniel C.
(or earth observation) imagery, creates powerful opportunities for assessing
and managing risk from environmental degradation.
The first version of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration
(NASA)’s Landsat programme – which at the time was called Earth Resource
Technology Satellite (ERTS-1) – launched on July 23, 1972. Six additional
versions of Landsat and many other earth observation satellites have since
been launched [1], providing high resolution information for deriving data and
statistics for analyses of land cover, land use, qualities of ecosystems, habitats,
and for analyses of change over time. The world’s national and international
space agencies are collaborating to produce and disseminate high quality
geospatial data sets for open access and free use for non-commercial
purposes, and the statistical qualities of the available data sets are constantly
improving.
Case studies were developed as part of an effort to develop
methodological guidance and tools to build capacities among national
statistical systems in Asia and the Pacific to unlock the potential from
integrating existing population and social statistics with the new sources of
earth observation data for assessing sustainability of environmental
management and for identifying risks from current or potential environmental
degradation.

2. Methodology
Risk assessment is a methodology, developed for the insurance industry
and for use by governments to reduce risk from catastrophic losses. Each main
risk element (see below) is location-specific and thus are commonly mapped
and integrated for the assessment using geographic information systems
(GIS).
Risk = f (Hazard exposure, Vulnerability, Capacity) [2]
There are three main types of geospatial data that are integrated in order
to produce statistics for risk measurement. They are: (i)point statistics (data
associated with a specific point location – e.g. GPS coordinates on a map, (ii)
vector (or polygon statistics), aggregations by regions (e.g. administrative
regions or other defined areas like river basins) and (iii) Grid (or raster)
statistics which are data associated with a selected grid system for a
geographic study area.
All three types of geospatial datasets can be integrated in GIS to evaluate
risks, including integration of traditional sources of population and social
statistics and data from earth observation satellites.
Ecosystem condition is defined as the overall quality of the systems’ key
characteristics and is related to non-market benefits provided to societies via
ecosystem services. [3] The main purpose for measuring condition of
ecosystems is to track how they are changing over time, identify signs of

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