Floods in Germany: National Service ZKI-DE activated

The German Joint Information and Situation Centre (GMLZ) tasked the Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI) with the creation of satellite and aerial image-based situation information covering the regions most affected by the current floods in Thuringia, Saxony, Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg. The request was made in the context of the national service ZKI-DE which is operational since January 2013 and makes DLR products accessible for federal agencies in Germany through the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI). The GMLZ is a facility of the German Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK). Furthermore, GMLZ activated the International Charter Space and Major Disasters which ensures that public and private operators of earth observation satellites provide fast and cost-free access to satellite images covering a disaster area. During this activation and in its role of a German Charter member, DLR acts as a satellite data provider (TerraSAR-X) as well as the Charter project manager. ZKI was able to deliver the first map products showing the disaster aereas to GMLZ in the early morning of June 4. For this products, data of the German radar-satellite TerraSAR-X were used which were acquired no more than 10 hours earlier and which were deliverd to ZKI at 23:00 CEST.