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Gisat has successfully concluded first year acting as service provider in the RESPOND project – focusing on delivery of geospatial products for humanitarian and development aid. Gisat has utilized its previous experiences in this area and became the first partner from the new EU members joining this alliance.

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Gisat on AlertNet

In addition to being available on the Respond website, all Respond Phase 1 mapping, including Gisat products, is now available on the Reuters Foundation award winning* website AlertNet. Respond partners Reuters and ITUK have been working closely together over the past 2 months to develop the capability of displaying Respond maps as soon as they are published to the Respond website. This will increase the number of users accessing Respond services with over 25,000 daily visitors and 400 NGO’s currently signed up to use the AlertNet services.

RESPOND is an alliance of European and International organisations working with the humanitarian community to improve access to maps, satellite imagery and geographic information. RESPOND aims to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the European and international humanitarian relief community through the appropriate and reliable application of geographic information. It is led by Infoterra UK Ltd as the “Prime Contractor. Gisat has joined the RESPOND team in 2007.

RESPOND is funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) within the European GMES initiative – a joint approach of ESA and the European Commission – as GMES service supporting humanitarian relief, disaster reduction & reconstruction.

To find out more about Respond, please visit website.
To find out more about Reuters AlertNet visit their website.

*Reuters AlertNet is a humanitarian news network based around a popular website. It aims to keep relief professionals and the wider public up-to-date on humanitarian crises around the globe. It was started in 1997 by Reuters Foundation – an educational and humanitarian trust – to place Reuters’ core skills of speed, accuracy and freedom from bias at the service of the humanitarian community. AlertNet has won a Popular Communication award for technological innovation, a NetMedia European Online Journalism Award for its coverage of natural disasters and has been named a Millennium Product by the British Government—an award for outstanding applications of innovative technologies.

RESPOND Czech 2007

During 2007, Gisat has joined as service provider partner the RESPOND – a strong team with a proven reputation in delivery of geospatial products for humanitarian and development aid. Gisat has utilized its previous experiences in this area and became the first partner from the new EU members joining this alliance taking on board also two Czech humanitarian NGOs – Adra and People In Need – as service users.

In total, Gisat has provided during Phase 1 (2007) production 31 mapping products of various thematic scope and scales, both in softcopy (raster digital data and vector layers usable in GIS environment) and hardcopy versions (paper maps). Regionally, the 2007 production covered user activities in Africa and Asia (see examples in image galery). Major beneficiary of our RESPOND services has been People In Need (PIN) and ADRA CZ. Certain capacity is also left for European users (e.g. DG RELEX, DG ECHO) and UN users via UNOSAT (e.g. Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) in 2007). All GISAT production can be found on the RESPOND Map Catalogue

The map catalogue contains over 450 map entries dating back to 2004, which are available as low, medium or high resolution jpeg images. They can also be viewed directly as a Google Earth overlay. Full GIS layers are also available for selected regions such as Sumatra. Detailed information about each map entry can be found including satellite date used, map producer, date published, bounding coordinates and other details.

RESPOND is an alliance of European and International organisations working with the humanitarian community to improve access to maps, satellite imagery and geographic information. RESPOND aims to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the European and international humanitarian relief community through the appropriate and reliable application of geographic information. It is led by Infoterra UK Ltd as the “Prime Contractor.

RESPOND is funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) within the European GMES initiative – a joint approach of ESA and the European Commission – as GMES service supporting humanitarian relief, disaster reduction & reconstruction.

For more information please visit the RESPOND website