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Norway
eSmart Systems
Håkon Melbergs vei 16
1783 Halden
Norway
Protecting Polish forests from fire hotspots
A column of smoke in a National Park forest can cause chaos. During the dry season and when visitor numbers are high, a stray spark from a cigarette end or a campfire can spell the end of a holiday for tourists, closing areas of the park and even triggering the evacuation of a local town.
Polish company and expert in geoinformatics, SmallGIS, are trialling what is locally a trailblazing solution developed under ESA’s Business Applications programme, using space data to spot and fight fires more effectively.
In Poland, where national parks form a special fire danger zone, the Krakow-based company have rolled out a remote sensing system to support fire management activities.
The Remote Sensing Fire Protection System integrates satellite technology with an airplane platform that uses thermal and optical sensors combined with GNSS. The service grew out of a Geographic Information System Mapping (GIS) method which SmallGIS developed in the first instance to improve the management of timber logging operations – TIKKA Service.
Now the state-of-the-art service has been adapted to help identify fire hotspots in Polish National Parks – namely the Kampinoski National Park where it is being piloted.
Due to the huge influence of human activities the park is affected by many unpredictable fires.
“Local fire management teams now have vital support in real time from the remote sensing data service,” explains Piera di Vito, Applications Engineer at ESA. “The service generates VHR (Very High Resolution) Earth Observation imagery for the specified search area. A GNSS positioning system is used to assign the coordinates of the images registered by the sensors so that fire hot spots can be rapidly identified and their geolocation transferred to the mobile devices of the field team.”
Mapping and tracking fires in real time
Highly detailed topographic and vegetation maps generated by data processing outputs from the plane sensors give vital clues for fire route planning. The maps, when overlaid with other map data give critical information such as fuel density, spatial distribution and fuel gaps – key factors involved in fire management decisions. Fire fighters have a better picture of how fast the fire will spread, where there are breaks in the path of the fire, such as treecanopies or corridors which could limit – or hasten the spread of the blaze.
“Fire managers can make faster and more accurate decisions. It also makes firefighting work safer, reduces fire and smoke damage to the park and its users as well as reducing the time and cost of firefighting,” Bartosz Kulawik, Market Development Director, SmallGIS
“The data processing on board during operational fly actions was the most important technical aspect of this project,” says Bartosz Kulawik. “The most critical part was building the data link as this solution had to be very fast at transmitting large quantities of data in order to allow early detection and maintain a current situational picture”.
The demonstration phase has been so successful that the commercialisation of the service in the National Park is now underway.
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ESA to partner with AXA to harness the provision of seamless and sustainable healthcare
On October 14th, 2019, ESA and AXA signed a Memorandum of Intent to work together for better Healthcare in Africa.
Too many people in emerging countries are unable to obtain affordable access to healthcare due to a lack of social security, while huge gaps in coverage exist that are not being met by public services or private insurance. To help tackle this issue, ESA is joining forces with AXA in a partnership that will enable ESA’s cutting-edge expertise in satellite technology, data management, artificial intelligence and digitization to be harnessed for the provision of seamless and sustainable healthcare.
The partners are exploring how to leverage ESA’s satellite technology to provide remote areas with Internet coverage, as well as back up for urban areas to ensure the sustainability of our service. ESA and AXA aim to use digital services and technologies that don’t even exist yet in western markets, such as medication delivery to homes, teleconsultations, the concept of health coaches, and more. The technologies could leverage much more reliable and affordable healthcare, at costs that would have been unimaginable just 10 or 20 years ago. So the benefits to millions of African customers are threefold: accessibility, affordability and quality.
The partnership will start in Egypt, but any service developed for one market can be developed for anywhere else.
Hassan El Shabrawishi, CEO of AXA One Health expressed, “We signed our memorandum of intent between AXA and ESA, which is our first step. This memorandum is intentionally very broad because there are so many projects and technologies that ESA is willing to share with us”.
Nick Appleyard from ESA Business Applications and Space Solution said, “Healthcare in Africa is a good example of one of the common interests between ESA and AXA. The problems of infrastructure and access to health services can be greatly reduced by using satellite technology – and satellite services are available around the globe”.
AXA’s overall strategy of promoting healthcare in emerging countries.
Forming partnerships with public and private actors is at the core of AXA’s strategy. The Group is very keen to work closely with multilateral organizations on key topics, including health. AXA One Health initiative bases itself on the payer-to-partner principle, but doing so requires the support of an ecosystem of private, public and multilateral organizations, to achieve this aim of making healthcare more accessible for millions.
Benoit Claveranne, CEO AXA International and New Markets, commented, “Health systems in emerging markets are at a crossroads. As insurers, we have a role to play in expanding access to care and filling the gap when needed. We must adapt to these changes and provide health solutions that are relevant to local needs.”
The MOI will open the prospects of engaging into concrete projects within our respective programmes, to engage in the development of novel and sustainable services in emerging countries.
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Kydea srl
Via Ufente, 20 int. 28/M
04100 Latina
Italy
SIPAL spa
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10146 Torino
Italy