A multi-directional analysis of refugee/IDP camp areas based on HR/VHR satellite data

About this project

<p>Both natural and humanitarian catastrophes result in massive displacement of the affected population. The problem of the continuous increase of refugees/internally displaced persons worldwide raises a great interest among the stakeholders and decision-makers in emergency response of the European Union, United Nations and Non-Governmental relief organisations. The main drivers of the investigation are the environmental considerations, particularly the mutual influence between the environment and the camp inhabitants (exposure to the natural hazards included). Specifically multidirectional analysis of HR/VHR satellite data in time-series of several types of camps will be performed. The spatial analysis of the camps and their surroundings will be complemented by in-depth interviews including the position of people working and/or living in a given area. The main goal of the social research is to identify the most important factor of the camp inhabitants activity which are the drivers behind the environmental changes. The interdisciplinary analysis will result in a recommendation and best practices for refugee/IDP camp areas management and satellite monitoring system concept design. The project outcomes will be published on the developed “Online Geo-platform” providing the information on inhabitants activities in relation to the environment, including both the geospatial information and informative reports and additional descriptive data, in order to raise public awareness of the environmental changes taking place in the camp areas, their impact on the camp population and their causality, including the humanitarian assistance provided to the camps’ inhabitants on their way to self-reliance. Through this project, the partners will build up new capacities and competences, both on a national and international scale. This advantage lead to developing a permanent network of contacts in two directions - between entities from the same sector and interdisciplinary ones.</p>

Bilateral cooperation results

Both, the scientists from Poland and Norway, have an excellent background in social and environmental science. The partners have previously not worked together, neither on the interdisciplinary scale as well as on the thematic scale, which means that through the successful project goals finalization, we opened the doors for a long-term international and interdisciplinary cooperation. The strong complementarity between the Polish and Norwegian researchers within Earth Observation methodologies was noticeable. Both research institutes, shared their technical experience and benefited from building new capabilities and competencies. CBK PAN covered the optical remote sensing areas, whereas NORCE complemented it with cloud-penetration and interferometric synthetic aperture radar satellite data. The social science part of the project was conducted in collaboration between researchers from Poland (UW) and Norway (NORCE). They supplemented each other as they have expertise from a high number of national and international studies on forced migrants in Poland, Norway, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Greece (Lesvos), Morocco and Tunisia as well as in many other regions. In addition, the large experience of Polish SME (UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre) in research related to sustainable development and the use of natural resources, was complemented by NORCE, actively participated in climate change field. The support concerned the thematic and technical expertise and wide knowledge on the available informative sources of environmental monitoring initiatives. Implemented holistic approach enabled to develop innovative solutions and provided new insight to the challenging and broad nature problem of refugee/IDP camp areas pressure on the environment. The successful cooperation creates suitable conditions for further development and exploitation of developed results in a form of joint actions and projects.

Project partners

• Norwegian Research Center AS Donor project partner· Norway
• University of Warsaw Project partner· Poland
• National Foundation for Environmental Protection, UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre Project partner· Poland