COSMO-SkyMed activation for central Italy's 2016 earthquake

Starting from the first M6.0 disastrous earthquake that hit the Apennine areas in Central Italy on 24th August 2016, COSMO-SkyMed (Constellation of Small Satellites for Mediterranean basin observation) system has been promptly activated in order to acquire high-precision radar images, pointing towards the affected areas both in terms of single build-up area or the entire vast territory hit by the earthquake. This accurate daily monitoring continued for a long time over the next months, in accordance with the requests of the Italian Department of Civil Protection and its pool of expertise: the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) for the seismologic analysis and the Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment (IREA) of the National Research Council (CNR) in Naples for the satellite SAR data processing. In addition, the development of advanced processing techniques enabled the synergic exploitation of SAR data coming not only from X-band sensor, such as COSMO-SkyMed, but also from other satellite missions (the Japanese ALOS-2 operating in L-Band and the C-band Sentinel-1 satellite of the European Copernicus program), so to quickly provide a unique set of information in support of relief. This paper aims to report on the contribution provided by COSMO-SkyMed satellite system for the emergency management related to Central Italy earthquake, highlighting the added value results obtained by COSMO-SkyMed data in the decision-making of national Civil Protection. © 2017 by The Pennsylvania State University.