A joint experiment of remote sensing monitoring of geological disasters and emergency and application began April 11th in Beichuan County, according to the implementation of the key National 863 Project—“Remote Sensing Monitoring of Typical Geological Disaster and Emergency Key Technology and Application”. Beichuan County had suffered the effects of a 5·12 earthquake in the past. The special scientific experiment is planned to last for two weeks and evaluate the immediate response to a similar disaster.
The project is led by China’s National Disaster Reduction Center and will be accomplished through the joint effort of Tsinghua University, Wuhan University, Tongji University, Central South University, China University of Geosciences, Southwest Jiaotong University, the Institute of Crustal Dynamics, China Earthquake Administration and so forth. Assistant Professor Du Zhiqiang from the National Key Laboratory of Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, together with other ten teachers and students, will participate in this experiment.
Wang Wei, Deputy Director of Aerial Remote Sensing Department of NDRCC, stated that this experiment will make full use of such multi-source data such as high-resolution multi-dimension remote sensing data, disaster scene techniques, fundamental geology and so on, aiming to make a breakthrough in at least three (3) key areas. The first targets the technology of the physical quantity loss evaluation of main hazard-bearing bodies (houses and roads). The second tries to improve the high-speed multi-dimension time-space data integration and the collaborative study and judgment of main hazard-bearing bodies based on “Heaven-Earth-Scene” integration multi-source data. Last, but not least, the experiment focuses on ameliorating the timeliness and accuracy of geological disaster emergency management, the support deployment in a disaster emergency, disaster rescue and reconstruction for our country. “By means of satellites, planes and field force, the disaster data collection and analysis system of “Heaven-Earth-Scene” integration is put together, bearing in mind that we need to get hold of the disaster and evaluate it in the shortest time possible, providing the basis for scientific decision-making. This is the right manner in which we can avoid the situation where at the beginning of the disaster people spare no effort to control it, fact which renders them unable to develop an overall grasp of that particular disaster and address its effects promptly and accurately. The system is remarkably fast, accurate and complete. Even if only aftermath data is provided, the precision rate of judging the whole disaster can reach over 70%”,” said Assistant Professor Du Zhiqiang. The reason why the project group choose to perform the field test project in the earthquake relic, Beichuan County is that Beichuan earthquake and its secondary disasters are the most serious, multi-hazards are the most concentrated, the damaging characteristics of different surface features are the most abundant and typically, evaluating a disaster rapidly and accurately is the most difficult. “Throughout this experiment, we will create a digital map of the main current streets in Beichuan County and digitally archive the Beichuan Earthquake Relic.” illustrated Du Zhiqiang.
(edited by Diana)
