Sentinel-2 is a European mission that provides multiple optical bands at varying resolutions. Its twin satellite design provides a high revisit time of 5 days. Sentinel-2 data is provided free of charge to the public and can be downloaded through NASA’s Earthdata access portal or other satellite data repositories, such as Google Earth Engine. Sentinel-2 imagery is available at 10m resolution (bands 1-4), 20m resolution (bands 4-8A, 11-12), and 60m resolution (bands 9-10).

Sentinel-1 is a European mission that consists of 3 satellites, Sentinel-1A, -1B, and -1C. Sentinel-1 imagery is generated from a C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instrument that penetrates clouds and provides day-and-night coverage.

Planet makes available select imagery for major disaster events, including major earthquakes, floods, storms, wildfires, and human-made disasters. Individuals and groups affiliated with NGOs, government authorities, and international organizations assisting with response efforts are eligible for access. To request access and see if you qualify, one can fill out the form and Planet’s Crisis Response Program will be in touch as soon as possible.

Maxar provides very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery of sites before and after disaster to assist in humanitarian response, primarily from the Worldview-1, -2, and -3 satellites. Following a disaster, Maxar releases imagery packages of before and after the event under a Creative Commons 4.0 license, allowing for rapid humanitarian and community response efforts. This program only makes imagery for certain disasters available; coverage is limited.

Copernicus DEM is a Digital Surface Model (DSM) which represents the surface of the Earth including buildings, infrastructure and vegetation. DEM/DSM data can be helpful for analyzing changes in built environment and development, including formal and informal settlements. It can also be useful for determining climate and disaster risk due to topography in and around settlements.

Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) provides global conflict data and forecasting. Conflict is separated into five categories: repression, insurgency, atrocities, terrorism, and foreign military engagement. Conflict data proves useful for mapping and analyzing human rights crises and their impacts.

Developed and endorsed by the Inter-agency Standing Committee (IASC), and disseminated by OCHA, Common operational data sets (CODs) are datasets used in humanitarian emergencies to support technical standards, improve the quality of data, and strengthen interoperability. OCHA identifies, publishes and maintains CODs for use in humanitarian emergencies on the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX).

Core CODs are administrative boundaries and population statistics. OCHA aims to make these available for all its operational countries Other CODs (e.g., roads, hospitals, schools, hydrology, etc.) are available on the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX).

NASA VIIRS produces a daily, top-of-atmosphere nighttime irradiance product, which is helpful for identifying population clusters, development, and conflict/displacement. This can be done by tracking changes in nighttime light coverage before and after a significant conflict or displacement event.

Climate Hazards Center Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) is a quasi-global rainfall dataset that relies on satellite-based thermal infrared precipitation totals as well as in-situ gauge stations across the globe. CHIRPS rainfall data can be helpful for analyzing rainfall totals and determining flood risks/impacts.

The NASA SWOT mission provides sea surface height, wave height, and surface water height measurements globally. SWOT totals can be helpful for flooding measurements and response, as well as drought and settlement mapping as rivers and lakes change seasonally and with fluctuations in climate.

The Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) IMERG is a NASA product estimating global surface precipitation rates at a high resolution of 0.1° every half-hour beginning 2000. IMERG has three Runs with varying latencies in response to a range of application needs: rapid-response applications (Early Run, 4-h latency), same/next-day applications (Late Run, 14-h latency), and post-real-time research (Final Run, 3.5-month latency). Similar to other precipitation datasets, GPM IMERG data can be used to assess flood risk and hydrologic modeling, but its low temporal latency makes it particularly useful for humanitarian response.

The Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL), maintained by the European Space Agency (ESA), includes a collection of datasets that show high resolution, gridded data on global built-up environment. GHSL helps analyze population density, built environment, and settlement distribution. The GHSL dataset collection includes gridded data, risk exposure mapping, building footprints, reference datasets, and Europe-specific collections.

This dataset provides the locations of active fires detected by NASA’s satellite instruments (VIIRS at ~375 m resolution and MODIS at ~1 km). Each detection includes timestamp, latitude/longitude, confidence level, and Fire Radiative Power (FRP, indicating intensity).

Tracking active fires around known formal or informal settlements can inform rapid response, where dense settlement zones and flammable materials can exacerbate fire spread. Also relevant for active conflicts or forest margins.

WorldPop provides gridded population estimates and related data for countries and administrative boundaries. Gridded population estimates, as well as population density estimates, are important for integrating population numbers into risk assessments and response frameworks.

Global mosaics are generally produced with a 1km resolution, while individual countries are provided with an 100m resolution.

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap provides crowdsourced collections of geographic data, from both in-situ and remote data collection. HOT data is used for humanitarian response, infrastructure planning, and understanding access constraints during conflict.

HOT datasets generally provide country-wide infrastructure data, including roadways, railways, ports, health facilities, and hydrologic systems. Such infrastructure is important for developing rapid response frameworks, analyzing conflict, and planning/locating formal and informal settlements.