Remote Sensing for Disaster Management

Welcome

Two scales. One observation chain.

During a monsoon flood, responders need two answers at once: how far has the water spread, and who is affected? Then: which embankments breached, which bridges failed, how many homes are lost?

No single sensing platform can address both. Used in a deliberate sequence, satellites and UAVs create an observation chain far more effective than either alone.

Over two and a half days you will work through that chain, using openly licensed satellite data, browser-based cloud computing and standard commercial UAVs, all reproducible with equipment ordinarily available to a Pakistani institution.

By the close of Day 3 you will have produced

1. A flood extent map from Sentinel-1 SAR
2. An exposure table of population, cropland and roads
3. A UAV orthomosaic and DSM from imagery you helped fly
4. A damage assessment quantified from that model
5. A rapid situation brief for an emergency operations centre

Programme at a glance

From the wide view to the close-up.

2½

days

15

contact hours

30

participants

4

expert lecturers

Day 1 · Wednesday 18 November

Foundations & wide-area assessment Morning

1. 08:30
   Registration and tea

   Badge collection, laptop check and Earth Engine login verification.

2. 09:00
   Opening ceremony

   Welcome address, inauguration and course objectives.

3. 09:20
   Module 1 · Foundations of remote sensing across scales

   Passive and active sensing; the resolution quartet; swath versus resolution; what “large-scale” changes; the observation continuum from satellites to ground surveys; Earth observation across the disaster management cycle.

4. 10:10
   Module 2 · Data access and international emergency mapping

   Sentinel, Landsat, MODIS, VIIRS, GPM IMERG and global DEMs; Analysis-Ready Data; Copernicus Data Space and the Earth Engine catalogue; the International Charter, Copernicus EMS, Sentinel Asia and UN-SPIDER, and how a Pakistani agency requests activation.

5. 10:55
   Tea break
6. 11:10
   Module 3 · UAV systems, regulation and payloads

   UAV system composition; fixed-wing, multirotor and VTOL platforms; optical, multispectral, thermal and LiDAR payloads; regulations, authorities and operating procedures in Pakistan.

7. 12:00
   Lunch and prayers

Day 1 · Wednesday 18 November

Mapping the flood & planning the flight Afternoon

1. 13:30
   Lab 0 · Environment check

   Earth Engine Code Editor orientation, shared scripts, a first run and login troubleshooting. Offline data package for anyone without access.

2. 14:00
   Lab 1A · Rapid flood mapping from Sentinel-1 SAR

   Pre- and post-event VV imagery, speckle filtering, change-detection ratio and thresholding, terrain masking with slope and HAND. Output: flood extent for the 2022 Sindh floods.

3. 15:30
   Tea break
4. 15:45
   Lab 1B · Exposure and impact quantification

   Flood extent against WorldPop, ESA WorldCover and OpenStreetMap to build a district-wise exposure table; error sources and where they justify an aerial survey.

5. 16:20
   Lab 2 · Flight planning and mission design

   Area, sensor, overlap, ground sample distance and safety; avoiding restricted airspace; altitude, speed and route generation. Each group plans the mission it flies on Day 2.

6. 17:00
   Close of Day 1

   Field safety and pre-flight briefing issued.

Day 2 · Thursday 19 November

Field operations & UAV data processing

1. 08:30
   Transfer and pre-flight briefing

   To the NUST field site. Airspace, weather and safety limits, crew roles and go/no-go; aircraft checks and ground control layout.

2. 09:00
   Field practical · UAV flight operations

   Supervised stations: manual handling, emergency take-off and landing, return-to-home; the planned mission; orthophoto, oblique and thermal acquisition; GCP survey.

3. 11:30
   Data offload and quality check

   Coverage, overlap and image quality; flight log; transfer to workstations.

4. 12:00
   Lunch and prayers

   Return to IGIS.

5. 13:30
   Lab 3A · Photogrammetric processing

   POS data, pre-processing, alignment, dense reconstruction, DSM and orthomosaic, georeferencing and accuracy.

6. 15:15
   Tea break
7. 15:30
   Lab 3B · 3D modelling and damage quantification

   Oblique modelling; change detection between epochs; landslide displacement; building damage and road length, reconciled with the Lab 1 exposure table.

If weather or airspace prevents flying, a pre-flown reference dataset keeps the labs on schedule.

Day 3 · Friday 20 November · half day

Integration, case studies & rapid response

1. 09:00
   Module 4 · Integrating the observation chain

   Nested assessment from satellite screening to UAV tasking and ground validation; handover points, authority and latency; uncertainty and defensible figures.

2. 09:35
   Applied case studies

   Attabad Lake flood risk · Shisper Lake GLOF with HEC-RAS 2D · Jhang riverine flooding, ENSO and the monsoon.

3. 10:15
   Tea break

   Scenario cards and data packages distributed.

4. 10:30
   Capstone · Rapid-response simulation

   Six groups, 45 minutes, a four-slide brief: event footprint, exposure table, UAV tasking plan and confidence statement. Scenarios include Dera Ghazi Khan floods, a Hunza GLOF, a Muzaffarabad earthquake, Tharparkar drought, Karachi urban flooding and Sindh reconstruction.

5. 11:45
   Communication, summary and closing

   Pak-NSDI and data sharing; self-study packages and online clinic; remarks by dignitaries, certificates and group photograph.

6. 12:15
   Close

   Ahead of Friday congregational prayers.

Learning outcomes

What you’ll be able to do.

1. Choose platform, sensor and resolution for a hazard and reporting scale.
2. Access free satellite archives and request international emergency mapping.
3. Map flood extent from Sentinel-1 SAR and quantify exposure.
4. Select a UAV platform and payload against mission requirements.
5. Follow Pakistan’s UAV regulations, permissions and flight-safety procedures.
6. Plan and fly a survey mission for orthophoto, oblique and thermal data.
7. Process imagery to an orthomosaic, a DSM and an oblique 3D model.
8. Quantify damage and reconcile it with satellite exposure estimates.
9. Design a nested multi-scale workflow with stated uncertainty.
10. Deliver a rapid situation brief under time pressure.

Expert lecturers

Your lecturers.

• 
  Dr. NIE YongProfessor · Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (IMHE), CAS

  Director, Mountain Science Data Center. Glacier and glacial lake hazards and remote sensing; 50+ papers including ESI highly cited work; risk assessment for the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor.

• 
  Engr. WANG WenAssistant Engineer · Mountain Science Data Center, IMHE, CAS

  Remote sensing for mountain hazards and the cryosphere; extensive UAV fieldwork and processing, from flight planning to orthomosaics, DEMs and 3D models.

• 
  Dr. Javed IqbalProfessor · SCEE – IGIS, NUST

  Three decades in GIS, remote sensing and hazard mapping of landslides, glacier avalanches and flash floods; 200+ scholarly contributions.

• 
  Dr. Shahid Nawaz KhanAssistant Professor · SCEE – IGIS, NUST

  Explainable machine learning for Earth observation, SAR–optical fusion, Earth Engine and UAV remote sensing; FAA Part 107 remote pilot.

Before you arrive

Come ready to work.

The schedule is compressed, so there is no slack to recover from a failed login on the day.

• Google Earth Engine access registered and verified with a linked Cloud project. Allow 7–10 days.
• Laptop with Google Chrome.
• QGIS 3.34 LTR installed, with 5 GB free disk space.
• UAV ground-station app on a charged phone or tablet, with a cable.
• Field clothing for Day 2: closed-toe shoes, sun protection and a hat.
• Pre-reading pack, circulated two weeks ahead.
• Signed field-safety acknowledgement, handed in at registration.

Venue & contact

Where to find us.

NUST_CPJRC_WRKSHP@igis.nust.edu.pk
051 886 4479

Notes