Nowcasting from space: tropical cyclones’ impacts on Fiji’s agriculture

Abstract Ground-based disaster damage assessments typically take the form of a team of experts being sent to the affected areas to conduct a survey. This approach is time-consuming, difficult, and costly. An alternative to this is an assessment based on satellite data, which can provide...

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Main Authors: Noy, Ilan, Blanc, Elodie, Pundit, Madhavi, Uher, Tomas
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Joint Program on the Science & Policy of Global Change
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Springer Netherlands 2023
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151065
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author Noy, Ilan
Blanc, Elodie
Pundit, Madhavi
Uher, Tomas
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Joint Program on the Science & Policy of Global Change
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Joint Program on the Science & Policy of Global Change
Noy, Ilan
Blanc, Elodie
Pundit, Madhavi
Uher, Tomas
author_sort Noy, Ilan
collection MIT
description Abstract Ground-based disaster damage assessments typically take the form of a team of experts being sent to the affected areas to conduct a survey. This approach is time-consuming, difficult, and costly. An alternative to this is an assessment based on satellite data, which can provide faster, cheaper, and possibly accurate insights into disaster’s specific impacts. An even timelier option of disaster ‘nowcasting’ is supposed to inform on impacts during or very shortly after the event. Typically, this has been done using risk models, but these usually do not account for compounding and cascading effects. We propose a novel nowcasting approach for tropical cyclones employing pre-existing socio-economic and demographic data and calibrated with satellite data. The method could be used to assess cyclone impacts based only on its known trajectory, and even before post-event satellite imagery is available. We investigate the feasibility of this approach focusing on Fiji and its agricultural sector. We link remote sensing data with available household surveys and the agricultural census data to identify potential correlates of vegetation damage from cyclones. If robust enough, these correlates could later be used for nowcasting cyclone impacts. We show that remote sensing data, when combined with pre-event socio-economic and demographic data, can be used for both nowcasting and post-disaster damage assessments.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1510652024-01-22T18:22:34Z Nowcasting from space: tropical cyclones’ impacts on Fiji’s agriculture Noy, Ilan Blanc, Elodie Pundit, Madhavi Uher, Tomas Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Joint Program on the Science & Policy of Global Change Abstract Ground-based disaster damage assessments typically take the form of a team of experts being sent to the affected areas to conduct a survey. This approach is time-consuming, difficult, and costly. An alternative to this is an assessment based on satellite data, which can provide faster, cheaper, and possibly accurate insights into disaster’s specific impacts. An even timelier option of disaster ‘nowcasting’ is supposed to inform on impacts during or very shortly after the event. Typically, this has been done using risk models, but these usually do not account for compounding and cascading effects. We propose a novel nowcasting approach for tropical cyclones employing pre-existing socio-economic and demographic data and calibrated with satellite data. The method could be used to assess cyclone impacts based only on its known trajectory, and even before post-event satellite imagery is available. We investigate the feasibility of this approach focusing on Fiji and its agricultural sector. We link remote sensing data with available household surveys and the agricultural census data to identify potential correlates of vegetation damage from cyclones. If robust enough, these correlates could later be used for nowcasting cyclone impacts. We show that remote sensing data, when combined with pre-event socio-economic and demographic data, can be used for both nowcasting and post-disaster damage assessments. 2023-07-10T18:37:36Z 2023-07-10T18:37:36Z 2023-07-04 2023-07-09T03:17:38Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151065 Noy, Ilan, Blanc, Elodie, Pundit, Madhavi and Uher, Tomas. 2023. "Nowcasting from space: tropical cyclones’ impacts on Fiji’s agriculture." PUBLISHER_CC en https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-023-06080-0 Creative Commons Attribution http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Author(s) application/pdf Springer Netherlands Springer Netherlands
spellingShingle Noy, Ilan
Blanc, Elodie
Pundit, Madhavi
Uher, Tomas
Nowcasting from space: tropical cyclones’ impacts on Fiji’s agriculture
title Nowcasting from space: tropical cyclones’ impacts on Fiji’s agriculture
title_full Nowcasting from space: tropical cyclones’ impacts on Fiji’s agriculture
title_fullStr Nowcasting from space: tropical cyclones’ impacts on Fiji’s agriculture
title_full_unstemmed Nowcasting from space: tropical cyclones’ impacts on Fiji’s agriculture
title_short Nowcasting from space: tropical cyclones’ impacts on Fiji’s agriculture
title_sort nowcasting from space tropical cyclones impacts on fiji s agriculture
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151065
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