The disasters that hit our planet in recent years have shown that earth observation (EO) techniques from satellites have become an essential tool for the management of the different disaster phases: rapid response, recovery and mitigation (e.g. in Haiti earthquake, Pakistan and Thailand flood among others). International initiatives to develop and deploy services based on EO are nowadays established and operational. The research and technology transfer effort to produce effective operational tools is an ongoing one and brings together different communities: remote sensing and process experts as well as disaster managers.

The session aims to bring together the research community, the local and international operational organizations, and the users for reasoning about research and technological opportunities and gaps to match current end user needs.

Contributions describing satellite-based techniques for the rapid mapping of disasters, emergency management, damage assessment, risk assessment and mitigation are welcome. Contributions should focus on new algorithms for the exploitation of present and upcoming satellite missions and other remotely sensed information, the implementation of techniques that include crowd sourced information, the description of experiences related to existing operational services, the modelling of the impacts of extreme events that include direct and indirect vulnerability estimates on life, goods and environment.