As the population in developing countries is rapidly increasing, often amplifying well established cultural, economical and political disagreements, the chance of such horrifying disasters to happen again is unfortunately increasing, and so a continuous search for more effective emergency response methods is necessary. Today, images with 2 m resolution obtained from Russian surveillance satellites are commercially available. Unclassified HighRes satellite images are not regularly used for refugee monitoring. Although the military might have conducted similar studies, information based on such images is seldom available to relief organizations. The images can be used to monitor, in near real-time, refugee movements and camp locations, thus rapidly providing information on the magnitude of the emergency.
Experience shows that traditional estimates tend to vary considerably among different aid agencies.
Remotely sensed images, combined with experiences from previous relief-operations, can provide a better overview of what is needed of medical and logistical support, which is especially valuable information in the early phases of an operation. Monitoring of refugee camps can estimate exact camp locations, areal extent, the number of people in the camps, conditions of roads and airstrips, water sites, special terrain features such as rivers, hills, valleys and vegetation and also provide detailed information on landmine areas. From this, relief-organizations can be updated on camp situations in order to handle them as effectively as possible. Geosynchronous Operational Environmental Satellite. Some general information, appplications.