** November 2021 News from Sentinel Asia Project Office **- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *Topics:
1. [News] Emergency Observation of Disasters
2. [Interview] Dr. Kuang-Chong Wu, President of National Applied Research Laboratories(NARLabs), and Dr. Jong-Shinn Wu, Director General of National Space Organization (NSPO)
3. [News] Special Session on Sentinel Asia “Sentinel Asia for the ASEAN Region” under the
AHA Centre Executive Programme held on 17 November 2021
4. How to Send an Emergency Observation Request
5. Using the Sentinel Asia Operation System, OPTEMIS- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *1. [News] Emergency Observation of Disasters (as of 25 November 2021)(1) Floods and Landslides in Vietnam (GLIDE Number: FL-2021-000166-VNM)
From 22 to 25 October, heavy rainfall was recorded in Vietnam, causing widespread floods.
“VNExpress” reported that 11,000 houses were submerged, one person was killed and threeothers were missing.
(https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/record-rainfall-deluges-central-vietnam-province4376382.html)
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) of Vietnam made an EOR to
Sentinel Asia on 25 October. Among Data Provider Nodes (DPNs), the Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), and the GeoInformatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) provided data. Among
DANs, the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) provided its VAPs. Information on the latest
response by Sentinel Asia is available at the following link:
https://sentinel-asia.org/EO/2021/article20211022VN.html

Satellite image (THEOS1) provided by GISTDA

Satellite image (Resourcesat-2) provided by ISRO

Satellite image (ALOS-2) provided by JAXA

Value-Added Product by AIT(2) Floods and Landslides in Sri Lanka (GLIDE Number: FL-2021-000188-LKA)
Heavy rain from the north-east monsoon in Sri Lanka caused floods and landslides. “India
Today” reported that at least 26 people have been killed and over 230,000 others affected as of
12 November.
(https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/people-killed-affected-extreme-weather-conditions-srilanka-1876063-2021-11-12)
The Disaster Management Center (DMC) of Sri Lanka made an EOR to Sentinel Asia on 15
November. This EOR was escalated to the International Disasters Charter. AIT assumed therole of Project Manager for this Charter activation. Among Data Provider Nodes (DPNs),

JAXA provided data. Among DANs, AIT provided its VAPs. Information on the latest response
by Sentinel Asia is available at the following link:
https://sentinel-asia.org/EO/2021/article20211105LK.html

Satellite image (ALOS-2) provided by JAXA

(3) Floods in India (GLIDE Number: FL-2021-000172-IND)
Heavy overnight rain led to flooding in several areas of southern India including the city ofChennai. CNN reported that there was more than 20 centimeters of rainfall in Chennai, theheaviest since 2015. (https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/07/india/chennai-india-rain-flood-intlhnk/index.html)
ISRO made an EOR to Sentinel Asia on 15 November. Among Data Provider Nodes (DPNs),
JAXA and the National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL) provided data. Among DANs,
AIT and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) provided their VAPs. Informationon the latest response by Sentinel Asia is available at the following link:
https://sentinel-asia.org/EO/2021/article20211107IN.html

Satellite image (ALOS-2) provided by JAXA

Satellite image (Formosat-5) provided by NARL

Value-Added Product by MBRSC

Value-Added Product by AIT- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *2. [Interview] Dr. Kuang-Chong Wu, President of National Applied Research Laboratories(NARLabs), and Dr. Jong-Shinn Wu, Director General of National Space Organization (NSPO)The National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) of Taiwan joined Sentinel Asia (SA)in 2010. Since then, NARLabs, along with the National Space Organization (NSPO), one of theinstitutes under NARLabs, continues to provide its satellite data to SA. Recently, they
contributed to the realization of SA operation system OPTEMIS in collaboration with
Academia Sinica from Taiwan and Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development
Agency (GISTDA). They are also working with the newly developed Taiwan Data Cube(TWDC) on the further application of Earth observation data. The SA secretariat interviewed
Dr. Kuang-Chong Wu, President of NARLabs, and Dr. Jong-Shinn Wu, Director General of
NSPO, to ask about their connection to SA and related contributions, past and future.

Dr. Kuang-Chong Wu, President of National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs)

Dr. Jong-Shinn Wu, Director General of National Space Organization (NSPO)

Sentinel Asia Secretariat
NARLabs and NSPO are long-time SA members in addition to being major players in thisregion. Could you introduce the missions and roles of each organization to readers?
Dr. Kuang-Chong Wu, NARLabs
NARLabs, the National Applied Research Laboratories, is the largest R&D organization underTaiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology. We have four major missions: to establish R&D
platforms, to support academic research, to promote frontier science and technology, and tofoster high-tech manpower. There are eight research centers under the umbrella of NARLabs,
including NSPO, the National Space Organization, TORI, the Taiwan Ocean Research Institute,and NCREE, the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering.
Taiwan has a “2030 Science and Technology Vision,” which is to create an innovative,
inclusive, and sustainable society. With our earth and environment technology, NARLabs isready to support the Sendai Framework in building a disaster-resilient society. That’s why
NARLabs as a whole, not only NSPO, volunteered to join Sentinel Asia in 2010. In the past
decade, NARLabs has also invited partners from Taiwan’s Academia Sinica and National
Central University to collaborate with the Sentinel Asia family. Looking back at the evolution

of Sentinel Asia, NSPO has made many contributions. NARLabs has more to offer when we
expand our work from disaster response to preparedness/mitigation and the recovery phase.
Dr. Jong-Shinn Wu/NSPONSPO is the only national space research organization in Taiwan. We have nearly 300
employees working for national missions, most of which are satellite projects, and are very
happy to cooperate with the Sentinel Asia.
Secretariat
You mentioned that NARLabs had also invited partners from the National Central University tojoin Sentinel Asia. Does NARLabs collaborate with universities and other institutes under
NARLabs for SA activities?
NARLabs
Universities are not under NARLabs, but all of our centers work very closely with them. Also,
there are other institutes for ocean research, earthquake engineering, and supercomputing that
we work with. They are not SA members, but our data are on the Open Data Cube, which we
cooperate on. We will continue to find future opportunities to engage in discussions with suchinstitutes and bring them into our framework of cooperation when needed.
Secretariat
The Sentinel Asia Secretariat appreciates Team Taiwan for its long-time support to SA as a
DPN and a DAN. Could you highlight some of your contributions to past EORs?
Dr. Jong-Shinn Wu/NSPOThe most significant effort, I think, is that related to the Great East Japan Earthquake andtsunami in 2011. In that tragic disaster, NSPO worked very closely with JAXA to schedule joint
observation by FORMOSAT-2 and ALOS-2 of the disaster for a one-month period. The firstimage captured by FORMASAT-2 after the tsunami struck was shown on the front page of the
SA website.
In 2010 and 2021, NSPO has contributed to Sentinel Asia activities as a Data Provider Node.
NSPO as a DPN has successfully responded to various Emergency Observation Requests(EORs) pertaining to 23 countries and 173 major disaster relief activities with FORMOSAT-2
and FORMOSAT-5 satellite datasets comprising before and after events.
Secretariat
The Secretariat also appreciates your support to the Sentinel Asia Step 3 system. We think it is asignificant achievement in SA Step 3 activities that this system is operated under multinational
cooperation, combined with OPTEMIS provided by GISTDA. What role did you have in the

OPTEMIS operation?
Dr. Jong-Shinn Wu/NSPOThe Sentinel Asia Step 3 system was developed by the SA Step 3 technical team, which
consists of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) of Japan, GISTDA of Thailand,
NARLabs, and Academia Sinica Grid-computing Centre (ASGC) of Taiwan. The Step 3 system
is a cloud-based system that aims to improve the data efficiency and security of the previous
generation SA system. In this system, the GISTDA-provided OPTEMIS is used as theoperational interface and the system is hosted on NARLabs/ASGC using cloud infrastructure.
The tech team was organized in April 2019, and resulting system development activities wereconducted at three different sites and through monthly Web meetings and a face-to-facemeeting in June 2019 in Taipei. Finally, the SA Step 3 system was released online andannounced operational in October 2019 as planned. The new system provides up-to-datefunctionalities from an ICT technical point of view for Sentinel Asia disaster relief andmitigation activities. The more important achievement is the mechanism of multinational
cooperation and the process of distributed implementation, which can serve as a success story
for future cooperation.
Secretariat
Indeed, this is a success story. Sentinel Asia has evolved stepwise from the pilot project phase
into the current operational phase, “Step 3,” and in this phase, Sentinel Asia aims at “joint
implementation,” whereby each member of JPT-3 is recommended to share its resources inorder to achieve more effective and sustainable operation. This contribution by NSPO andAcademia Sinica perfectly matches this ideal.
Could you tell us how this cooperation started?
Dr. Jong-Shinn Wu/NSPO
After 10 years of working closely with Sentinel Asia as a core DPN, we thought we could
contribute further by providing Taiwan’s famous ICT and cloud services. In January 2019,NSPO represented NARLabs and signed an agreement with SA Step 3 Joint Project Team toprovide cloud service for the SA Step 3 system. The selected cloud service provider ASGC in
Taiwan is a long-term partner of NSPO, and helps to bring FORMOSAT data from Svalbard
receiving station back to Taiwan. They are both technically capable and familiar with the
FORMOSAT operational environment, which can be integrated into the system development
team efficiently. The later successful experience of implementing the Step 3 system on timedemonstrates this. The Step 3 system has been operational now for more than two years, withan availability of 99.9%. NSPO, NARLabs, and ASGC will provide further necessary
assistance to fulfill SA’s future operational needs in order to contribute to regional disasterhumanitarian relief.

Secretariat
Recently, you started operation of Taiwan Data Cube. Could you introduce this system, andhow do you evaluate its benefit to the Sentinel Asia Community?
Dr. Jong-Shinn Wu/NSPOCurrently Taiwan Data Cube (TWDC) has been established in NSPO to manage and operate
analysis-ready data acquired by FORMOSAT series satellites and other open-source, remotesensing satellites. The features of TWDC are:-Provision of analysis-ready data for FORMOSAT-2 and FORMOSAT-5 and other open
satellite data;-

High-performance cloud computing environment maintained by National Center for
High-performance Computing;-

Development and execution of data analysis in a cloud computing environment;
Provision of public and private cubes, with authorized users able to access data ofvarious cubes.

It is not free for all use cases. For large commercial users, we charge only management costbecause it is mostly built with open sources.
For the latter question, we evaluate its benefit by two major points:-

Taiwan Data Cube applications are showcased to highlight the value of Earth
Observation for SDGs. They properly connect data and users.

-

Value-added products can be easily made available to the stakeholders in the form ofopen data cubes, in the public domain.

Secretariat
Could you tell us about past and future contributions of the FORMOSAT satellite series, related
to disaster monitoring and early recovery, to the SA community?
Dr. Jong-Shinn Wu/NSPOFirst, one of the characteristics of the FORMOSAT satellite series is its short repeat cycle orbit.
This means that the imagery data are especially suited for regular monitoring of rapidlychanging situations, such as in effective response in the aftermath of a disaster. We follow
emergency management planning guides to process the EOR in the response stage to support
the SA community for disaster management. In the past 10 years, FORMOSAT satellites havesupported time series observations to help disaster agencies in the Asia-Pacific region assess theextent of damage, facilitating early recovery. The data have been applied in various types of
EOR during the early phases of crises. Examples include object-based image classification
using change detection to obtain damage assessment data and detection of flooding areas frommultispectral data.

Second, Formosat-2 and Formosat-5 data can be used in satellite image artificial intelligencecorrection research; the training data sets can be applied in AI applications such as compilingmaps and rice field detection programs.
Finally, in the future remote sensing program, we are considering Formosat-8, for which there
are plans to develop six remote sensing satellites, constructing a constellation, for global
coverage and multiple local revisits. It will be able to acquire data more frequently, with highspatial coverage. Furthermore, it is also expected to achieve not only more abundant spectral
information but also higher spatial resolution. We believe that this program can contribute
further benefits to overall disaster assessment for the SA community.
To be more specific, and for your information, Formasat-8 will have 1-meter resolution forpanchromatic and 2-meter resolution for multi-spectral, with 12-kilometer swath. It was
originally planned to be launched in 2023, but now it will be in 2024 due to the COVID-19
pandemic. Formasat-8 consists of six satellites, A to F, and the constellation enables us toshorten the revisit time, which is three times per day for the Taiwan area. We are now planning
the orbit but some of them will observe in morning and others will do so in afternoon, which
will contribute to disaster monitoring.
Secretariat
Could you tell us what you expect from Sentinel Asia and about your future plans to support it?
Dr. Kuang-Chong Wu/NARLabs
Recently I have seen that Sentinel Asia is proactively working on several strategic plans in the
Step 3 phase. The efforts are aimed at several important issues such as improving efficiency
and building private–public partnerships. Among the goals set in the SDGs’ agenda, “Leave noone behind” is the first thing that I expect from Sentinel Asia. We in the Asia-Pacific region,
including Taiwan, are constantly facing various threats from natural hazards, so I am very glad
we joined Sentinel Asia. During the past decade, we provided assistance to others who needed
it, and conversely, we received assistance when we needed it through the Sentinel Asia
community. I hope that we did not leave any one behind, especially those who do not own
technology and do not have resources to reach out for help. The second is that I’d like to see
Sentinel Asia in the global picture. The community could establish mechanisms to exchange
experiences with other regional/global communities so that they can learn from each other.
About future plans to support it, earlier this year, Taiwan passed the "Space Development Act."
Since then, the Ministry of Science and Technology has focused on completing related
regulations including those for “Establishing the National Space Center as an Executive Legal
Entity," in order to lay a long-lasting foundation for Taiwan's space development. Then,sometime in the next year, NARLabs and NSPO will become separate entities. As I had
mentioned earlier, in addition to NSPO’s capabilities, NARLabs has more to offer in Step 3,
especially when Sentinel Asia expands research from disaster response to the preparedness,
mitigation, and recovery phases. Among these capabilities, the most important one is theestablishment of a regional Open Data Cube. We have proposed this platform to the Steering
Committee for a decision. If it is adopted as an infrastructure, I believe the interoperability will
significantly improve the operational efficiency. In addition, we recently encouraged NCREE tojoin Sentinel Asia. NCREE and National Taiwan University are combining AI and satellite
remote-sensing data to conduct landslide susceptibility analysis. Moreover, TORI has
developed an Ocean Bottom Seismometer Observation system. In a joint research project with
the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), the observation data
provided better understanding of the science of tectonic evolution and the dynamics of multisubduction zones. Building on the success of what we have achieved together in the past
decade, we will, with all our efforts, support and safeguard our homeland with all partners in
the Sentinel Asia community.
- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *3. [News] Special Session on Sentinel Asia “Sentinel Asia for the ASEAN Region” under the
AHA Centre Executive Programme held on 17 November 2021
“The AHA Centre Executive Programme (ACE Programme)” is an over 4-month training course
conducted by the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disastermanagement (AHA Centre) with a view to developing future leaders of national disastermanagement offices (NDMOs) in ASEAN countries. Started in 2014, this year marks the 7thbatch of the programme. As its vision states, many of the alumni of previous batches of ACE
Programme have been already representing and leading their NDMOs.
Prof. Mizan Bisri of Kobe University (JPT member organization based in Japan) had been
appointed by the AHA Centre to facilitate to liaise with Japanese-base resources for the
programme and organized the “Japan Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Online Course” from 15
to 18 November 2021, as part of the ACE Programme. As part of the Japan DRR Online Course,
an invitation was extended to the Sentinel Asia Secretariat for organizing a dedicated joint session
composed of speakers from Japan-based Sentinel Asia JPT member organizations.
The joint session was held on 17 November 2021, with the title “Sentinel Asia: Space-based
disaster risk management support for the benefit of the Asia-Pacific region ~Sentinel Asia for the
ASEAN Region~”. More than 30 future young leaders from 24 NDMOs (as well as AHA Centre
staff members) attended the session. Experts from the Asian Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC),
the University of Tokyo, and the JAXA/Sentinel Asia Secretariat gave lectures and hands-on
training courses. The thematic topics of the training courses include “How to make Emergency

Observation Requests (EORs) to Sentinel Asia”; “How to utilize Web-GIS system for obtaining
tangible damage information”; and “Extraction of building footprints from satellite data.” At theend of the session, information on many other training opportunities by JPT members including
those who were not at the session was also introduced, and participants whose organizations are
not yet JPT members were strongly encouraged to make applications for membership.
The organizing team is convinced that, as the outcome of the session, participants have become
familiar with the significance and benefits (including ones to be upgraded in the future) of
Sentinel Asia and how they can enjoy such benefits. Through this joint session with the AHA
Centre and Kobe University, the partnership between NDMOs of ASEAN member states andSentinel Asia has been further strengthened.

- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *4. How to send an Emergency Observation Request
JPT member organizations are entitled to send an Emergency Observation Request (EOR) for
disasters in the Asia-Pacific region. Please refer to https://sentinel-asia.org/elearning/Emergency_Observation_Request.html.

EOR Order Desk:
Asian Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC)
HP: http://www.adrc.asia/
E-mail: sarequest@adrc.asia

FAX: +81-78-262-5546,
TEL: +81-78-262-5540- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *5. Using Sentinel Asia Operation System, OPTEMIS
Sentinel Asia launched a new operation system, OPTEMIS. Please refer to the website on how tocreateanaccount
for
OPTEMIS.
https://sentinel-asia.org/elearning/Emergency_Observation_Request.html+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+=
Copyright 2021 the Sentinel Asia Secretariat
Sentinel Asia Project OfficeSatellite Applications and Operations Center (SAOC)
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
Ochanomizu Sola City, 4-6 Kandasurugadai, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-8008 Japan
E-mail: Z-SENTINEL.ASIA@ml.jaxa.jp
TEL: +81-3-6435-6785
FAX: +81-3-5777-1580