The AI ​​Challenge advances disaster mapping using satellites

Applications

10/29/2025 397 views 13 likes

Four teams from different countries were honored for their outstanding work in using artificial intelligence to detect earthquake damage from space, marking the conclusion of a global competition organized by the European Space Agency in cooperation with the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters” – commonly referred to as “the Charter”.

Fifty-fourth meeting of the Governing Council of the International Charter in Strasbourg

The winning teams – TelePIX from the Republic of Korea, Datalayer from Belgium, DisasterM3 from Japan, and Thales Services Numériques from France – were recently honored during a ceremony at the 54th meeting of the Charter's Board of Directors in Strasbourg, where the French space agency, CNES, assumed leadership of the Charter for the next six months.

Combining Charter's operational expertise with ESA's Φ-lab innovation drive, the 'AI Challenge for Earthquake Response', part of ESA's Φ-lab Challenges initiative, brought together 143 participants from 40 countries to explore how far AI can automate post-disaster damage detection from space.

Amnesty International's forecast of earthquake damage in Mandalay

The competitors trained AI models capable of distinguishing between damaged and undamaged buildings using one of the largest Earth observation datasets ever compiled for this purpose – more than 200 high-resolution images of five earthquake events.

This image above shows the TelePIX team's winning model prediction in Mandalay, Myanmar, following the March 2025 earthquake. Mandalay was selected as one of the final test sites in the challenge. Red shapes represent expected damage. The blue dot indicates the location of the image shown below as well.

“When an earthquake strikes, every minute counts. By accelerating the production of reliable building damage maps from satellite data, these models could one day help rescue teams reach affected communities faster,” said Philippe Paley, ESA's representative to the Compact.

An earthquake hits Mandalay

Global cooperation to respond faster to disasters

Recognizing that a single operator or satellite could not meet disaster management requirements, ESA and the National Center for Space Studies launched the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters in 1999. They were joined by the Canadian Space Agency in 2000. It is now a collaboration between 17 space agencies that provides free satellite imagery to support disaster response around the world.

Under a six-month rotation system, the French National Center for Space Studies has now taken over the role of the lead agency, hosting the latest Charter Council meeting and the AI ​​Challenge Awards Ceremony in collaboration with the European Space Agency.

The AI ​​for Earthquake Response Challenge was designed and implemented by ESA's Φ Laboratory together with an industrial team that created the environment, tools and evaluation framework for participants to develop and test their models.

Artificial intelligence for the earthquake response challenge

The dataset used in the competition included more than 200 high-resolution images from five major earthquakes and 13 sites – a total of 475 GB of data – sourced from the Charter Operational Archive, a global cloud platform implemented by ESA and managed by an industry consortium from Italy and Poland since 2018.

These data came from a virtual global constellation of satellites, including Pleiades (CNES/Airbus), WorldView and GeoEye (USGS/Maxar), KOMPSAT-3 (KARI), Global (BlackSky), and Gaofen-2 (CNSA), making it one of the most diverse datasets ever created for AI-based damage mapping.

Behind the scenes, the efforts reflected the spirit of international cooperation embodied in the Charter. The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology and ACRI-ST (France) coordinated the competition, providing scientific supervision and ensuring the quality and relevance of the dataset. Terradue (Italy), developer of the ESA Charter Mapper software, enabled global access to the data through ESA's Earth Observation Training Data Laboratory Φ-lab, giving all teams an equal starting point.

Participants faced similar challenges to real-world emergency operations: multi-sensor imagery, variable resolution, complex co-registration, and severe class imbalance – such as in Mandalay, Myanmar, where only 0.2% of nearly half a million buildings were damaged.

Among the top performers, the European finalists stood out for their cutting-edge techniques. Datalayer leveraged scalable, cloud-based machine learning pipelines to efficiently process the massive data set, while Thales Services Numériques applied trustworthy deep learning and AI techniques from aerospace to accurately identify structural damage.

Next steps

As the operator of the Pleiades constellation and the current lead agency for the charter, the French National Center for Space Studies is now leading a post-challenge evaluation to evaluate how best-performing AI models can be integrated into operational damage mapping workflows.

By combining ESA's spirit of experimentation with the Charter's humanitarian mission, this initiative has demonstrated how space data and artificial intelligence can work side by side to improve rapid disaster response – a clear example of innovation and international cooperation.

He loves

Thank you for liking

You've already liked this page, you can only like it once!

What Are The Main Benefits Of Comparing Car Insurance Quotes Online

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 24, 2020, / Compare-autoinsurance.Org has launched a new blog post that presents the main benefits of comparing multiple car insurance quotes. For more info and free online quotes, please visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/the-advantages-of-comparing-prices-with-car-insurance-quotes-online/ The modern society has numerous technological advantages. One important advantage is the speed at which information is sent and received. With the help of the internet, the shopping habits of many persons have drastically changed. The car insurance industry hasn't remained untouched by these changes. On the internet, drivers can compare insurance prices and find out which sellers have the best offers. View photos The advantages of comparing online car insurance quotes are the following: Online quotes can be obtained from anywhere and at any time. Unlike physical insurance agencies, websites don't have a specific schedule and they are available at any time. Drivers that have busy working schedules, can compare quotes from anywhere and at any time, even at midnight. Multiple choices. Almost all insurance providers, no matter if they are well-known brands or just local insurers, have an online presence. Online quotes will allow policyholders the chance to discover multiple insurance companies and check their prices. Drivers are no longer required to get quotes from just a few known insurance companies. Also, local and regional insurers can provide lower insurance rates for the same services. Accurate insurance estimates. Online quotes can only be accurate if the customers provide accurate and real info about their car models and driving history. Lying about past driving incidents can make the price estimates to be lower, but when dealing with an insurance company lying to them is useless. Usually, insurance companies will do research about a potential customer before granting him coverage. Online quotes can be sorted easily. Although drivers are recommended to not choose a policy just based on its price, drivers can easily sort quotes by insurance price. Using brokerage websites will allow drivers to get quotes from multiple insurers, thus making the comparison faster and easier. For additional info, money-saving tips, and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ Compare-autoinsurance.Org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. "Online quotes can easily help drivers obtain better car insurance deals. All they have to do is to complete an online form with accurate and real info, then compare prices", said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. CONTACT: Company Name: Internet Marketing CompanyPerson for contact Name: Gurgu CPhone Number: (818) 359-3898Email: [email protected]: https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ SOURCE: Compare-autoinsurance.Org View source version on accesswire.Com:https://www.Accesswire.Com/595055/What-Are-The-Main-Benefits-Of-Comparing-Car-Insurance-Quotes-Online View photos