The territory of Valle d’Aosta is potentially affected by a series of natural extreme events on which it is vital an effective solution for context awareness and extended surveillance. The severe flooding occurred in October 2000 is an example. On 16th od October, after several days of persistent and intense precipitation involving the entire Region, extensive flooding and landslides occurred for more than 500 million euro, thousands of evacuees and several life losses in the population (20 persons died in the Region). In case of emergency generated by one of the different hazards, the integration of the complementary systems and sources strengthens the monitoring of the events. In fact, data collection during natural extreme events can be difficult and it represents a serious hazardous condition for involved personnel. With respect to such scenario, the capability of assessing the situation, in terms of awareness, becomes a hard task to be solved in a very short time to enable possible countermeasures or evacuation actions.

In case of emergency, EUSATfinder system will provide a solution allowing near real time video-streaming in order for a remote operator to extend his / her situational awareness. This shall include automatic detection of hazard phenomena, essential for defining the impact zones of harmful phenomena. Operations can include:

• investigation of remote, inaccessible and uninhabited areas (in the case of Valle d’Aosta Region, the high mountainous environment), with a proper recurrence time in data acquisition;
• prioritization of intervention areas where to orientate the Search and Rescue activities;
• appreciable and positive impact on the safety of the personnel involved in Search and Rescue activities;
• assessing distribution of hazard extension (e.g., mapping material in case of landslide/avalanche);
• mapping areas affected by the event (e.g., flooded areas in case of inundation);
• recognition of residual hazard in the areas close to the collapsed area;
• control and monitoring of evacuated areas with high resolution imagery in wide settings or to operate during day and night;
• recognition of residual hazard in the areas close to mapping the destroyed area;
• provision of a constant stream of data, to be used to control and monitor evacuated areas;
• research and rescue of injured in case of emergency event (e.g., snow avalanche)