Global Reach: The Charter's International Collaborations
Part I – Collaboration with Sentinel Asia
The International Charter: Space and Major Disasters is dedicated to supporting disaster response by acquiring satellite observations and providing value-added products that illustrate the impact of disasters. To achieve its purpose of contributing to international disaster management, the Charter values cooperation with external entities, such as Sentinel Asia
As widely known, Asia incurs serious damages from natural disasters. According to statistics presented in “2024 Disasters in Numbers” by the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT), the region sustained 167 disasters out of 393 worldwide recorded by EM-DAT in 2024. That is approximately 42 percent of global natural hazard-related disasters that occurred last year.
Due to the frequency and impact of these disasters, the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) proposed the “Sentinel Asia” initiative in 2005 to showcase the value and impact of Earth observation technologies in combination with near real-time Internet dissemination methods and Web-GIS mapping tools for disaster management support in the Asia-Pacific region.
Sentinel Asia has provided satellite images for more than 500 disasters in nearly 20 years of activity. Sentinel Asia is promoted by cooperating partners in the space community such as APRSAF, the international community—including the United Nations’ World Food Programme (UN WFP), United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN AHA Centre), and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT)—and the disaster management community, including the Asian Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC) and its member countries.
To promote Sentinel Asia, the Joint Project Team (JPT) was established. The JPT is open to members of the space community, disaster management organizations, and regional or international organizations that wish to participate in Sentinel Asia’s disaster information-sharing activities.
Collaboration with the Charter began in 2010, with the signing of an Interface Control Document (ICD) between the two organisations. This ICD defines the interface between Sentinel Asia and the Charter and was established to implement a Co-operating Body Agreement with ADRC, which is authorized to activate the Charter on behalf of Sentinel Asia members in the Asia-Pacific region. Through this agreement, satellite observation images are provided to Sentinel Asia users when they “escalate” their Sentinel Asia observation requests to the Charter’s corresponding activation. Sentinel Asia received 70 Emergency Observation Requests from its members in 2024 and 16 of those were escalated to Charter Activations.
One of the recent examples of this cooperation is the Mount Ruang eruption in North Sulawesi, Indonesia on 16 April 2024. ADRC, on behalf of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) of Indonesia, requested an Emergency Observation Request, or EOR, of Sentinel Asia and escalated it to the Charter. The Charter assigned a Project Manager from BRIN to coordinate the Charter activation and collaborate with Sentinel Asia.
In 2024, Indonesia faced a series of major disasters, including the eruption of Mount Ruang. The eruption forced a full evacuation of residents from the island, while hazardous conditions prevented ground teams from accessing the area directly. Operational, freely available optical satellite data—such as from Sentinel-2 and Landsat—were limited due to ash cover and observation gaps. In response, the Charter provided rapid access to a wide range of satellite imagery, spanning medium to very high resolution and incorporating both optical and radar sensors.
“This timely and diverse satellite data enabled authorities to monitor the evolving situation despite restricted field access, supporting faster, more informed decision-making and improving situational awareness. Collaboration with value-added providers and geospatial experts further strengthened the response. Multiple radar datasets—such as TerraSAR-X, ALOS-2, and RADARSAT—enabled the detection of changes beneath ash-covered areas, including summit crater change. Monitoring these changes was especially critical for supporting emergency decision-making by the authorities.”, an expert from BRIN stated.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) supported the realization of this collaboration as both a member of the Charter and the secretariat of Sentinel Asia. JAXA has been providing Project Manager (PM) training annually in the member countries of Sentinel Asia to support the ongoing cooperation between the two organizations and to provide a pool of PMs to aid the Charter.
Unlike the Charter, whose members are exclusively space agencies, Sentinel Asia includes a broader range of participants such as space agencies, disaster management organizations, international entities focused on disaster risk reduction, and research institutions. Thanks to the collaboration between Sentinel Asia and the Charter, input and feedback from these members are passed on to the Charter, helping to deepen its understanding of disaster management and the needs of those affected by disasters in the region.
Both international frameworks work toward their mutual purpose of serving humanity, through their collaborative efforts in responding to disasters.
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