About the Charter

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Our Mission

The International Charter Space and Major Disasters strives to be a key provider of Earth-observation satellite data and works with experts to derive information products to support disaster relief organizations in saving lives, property, infrastructure, and the environment following major disasters worldwide.

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International Charter infographic
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Minimize Charter Benefits

Support National Needs

The Charter is a worldwide collaboration, through which satellite data are made available for the benefit of disaster management. By combining Earth observation assets from different space agencies, the Charter allows resources and expertise to be coordinated for rapid response to major disaster situations; thereby helping civil protection authorities and the international humanitarian community.

This unique initiative is able to mobilise agencies around the world and benefit from their know-how and their satellites through a single access point that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and at no cost to the user.

Contributing

In addition to the space agencies that form the Charter, national and regional disaster monitoring organisations also support the Charter's efforts as co-operating bodies. Members and co-operating bodies join an international initiative to provide support to those in need following major disasters, and benefit from the wide distribution of data that the Charter offers.

Organisations that wish to co-operate with the Charter in this way must be approved by the Board, and may be granted exceptional requests for data from Charter satellites.

Disaster Relief Organisations

The satellite data obtained by the Charter offers invaluable aid to the end-users - typically disaster relief organisations. Following a successful activation of the Charter, they may receive satellite data of affected areas within a matter of hours or days; depending on the type of the disaster and available satellite resources.

The data is delivered on an ongoing basis throughout the duration of the Charter activation and provides valuable information about a disaster that is not possible to obtain on the ground.

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How the Charter Works

Learn about how to activate the Charter and how an activation is then processed by our international teams following approval.

 

How to become a user

Learn about how to participate in the Charter as an Authorised User through the principle of Universal Access, granting national disaster management authorities the ability to submit a request for activation.

 

Membership History

Learn about the history of the Charter and the milestone dates when our member agencies joined.

 

Text of the Charter

Read the original text defining the goals and purpose of the Disasters Charter.

 

 

Minimize Helping to save lives when disasters strike

This scribble video highlights the Charter in celebration of its fifteenth anniversary in 2015.

This video describes the way the Charter works, with testimony from our members.