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On July 13, NASA Lifelines joined the Sea-Europe Youth Partnership for the Sustainable Development Goals (SYEPG) for a Supper Club discussion on how Earth observation can support resilience work on the ground.

Much of the conversation focused on the relationship between satellite data and local knowledge. Participants pointed out that indigenous and community groups often already know where risk concentrates and what’s changing on the ground, and that Earth observation should complement that expertise rather than sideline it. That meant rethinking what a useful map even looks like. Several participants noted that maps built around roads may miss what a community actually needs, like footpaths, since those are the routes people use to move and to reach safety.

The group also worked through a harder question. What happens when the data exists, but a community doesn’t have the capacity to use it, or a local government lacks the political will to act on it? There was no easy answer, but a few starting points emerged, including sustained education rather than one-off training, simpler and clearer risk communication, and working directly with local authorities to build the infrastructure and trust needed for data to actually get used.

The discussion closed on collaboration. Participants agreed that making Earth observation genuinely useful will take partnerships across governments, NGOs, academia, and the private sector, along with clearer data-sharing frameworks and shared standards for humanitarian use, treating satellite data less like a proprietary resource and more like a public good.