United Nations – Page 2 – The Space Report

Telecommunications Support For Disaster Relief Efforts

In the hours and days after a natural disaster occurs, satellite communications serve a vital role in coordinating humanitarian response when terrestrial communications systems are overwhelmed with heavy call traffic…

Solving Territorial Claims with Geographic Information Systems

The U.N. is also using GIS to help resolve disputes over the location of international boundaries. The U.N. Cartographic Section is developing the U.N. International Boundary Information System (UNIBIS), a…

Coordinating Peacekeeping Through Space

As of the end of 2010, 13 U.N. peacekeeping missions around the world use systems that integrate location information with satellite imagery, referred to as geographic information systems (GIS), as…

Woodchoppers Fall: Catching North Korean Illegal Logging Operations

In May 2010, a researcher at Purdue University used a combination of NASA satellite imagery and information from Google Earth to determine that North Korea was conducting illegal logging operations…

Protecting Global Heritage with Open Initiative

The Open Initiative on the Use of Space Technologies to Support the World Heritage Convention is a program sponsored by ESA and the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).…

Mapping “Hot Spots” to Fight Fires

The same wide perspective that allows satellites to track the effects of an insect infestation helps forest managers and emergency response agencies to monitor and respond to forest and wildfires.…

Coordinating Aid with GPS

Increasingly, United Nations and international nongovernmental workers dealing with humanitarian needs in war-torn countries, such as Iraq and Somalia, are relying on GPS technologies to coordinate aid remotely. Increasingly, United…

Satellite Sentinel Records Humanitarian Abuses

The Satellite Sentinel Project, a collaboration between Google, the United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT), the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and other nongovernmental organizations, is attempting to use similar technology…

World Heritage Sites Protected Using Satellite Imagery

To protect sites around the world, the Global Heritage Fund, in cooperation with Google Earth and DigitalGlobe, has put together a program called the Global Heritage Network to provide satellite…

Disaster Charter Helped Japanese Recovery Efforts

When Japan was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, more than 63 satellite observations were made in the first 48 hours following the event. Japan invoked the…