Introduction of Safe Taiwan Information System (SATIS) - An emergency remotely sensed group for disaster surveillance

The top five major nature disasters of Taiwan are Earthquake, Typhoon, Flood, Landslide, and Debris Flow, which have caused huge losses of properties and casualties in the past five decades. The managements of these five disasters from monitoring potential disaster areas to disaster warning announcement are divided by the specific authorities. For example, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) is responsible for earthquake and typhoon hazards; the Water Resources Agency (WRA) is responsible for flood inundations; the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau (SWCB) is for landslides and debris flows. However, when Typhoon Morakot attacked Taiwan in August 2009, it brought nearly 3,000mm of rainfall to Taiwan in August 2009. Even the 24-hour rainfall and 48-hour rainfall achieved respectively 89% and 96% in the world rainfall record. The multi-disaster conditions happened here and there at the same time. Warnings for typhoon, landslides, debris flow, and flooding announced by different authorities had made the public and the rescue teams confused during this severe disaster. After this event, it was found that if a disaster exceeded what a single authority was able to respond, an information integration system based on consolidating various forecasts from the related authorities would be urgently needed. Therefore, Safe Taiwan information system (SATIS), a decision support system for National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC), was established by the National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction (NCDR) in July 2010. An Emergency Remotely Sensed Group, one of the schemes of SATIS, aims to collect the real time disaster intelligence through a multi-platforms mechanism. This multi-spatial and multi-temporal disaster collection mechanism is useful and helps a great deal for disaster assessment.