Earthquake damage assessment based on remote sensing data. The Haiti case study

Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake on 12 January 2010. Timely triggering of the Earth Observation satellites, and absence of cloud cover, allowed to acquire very high-resolution satellite imagery over the main affected areas within a few hours of the disaster. ITHACA performed a first damage assessment based on remotely sensed data, to support the emergency response activities carried out by the humanitarian agencies. This paper aims to highlight not only the adopted methodology and the main cartographic outputs, but also the operational procedures required to make well known analysis techniques effective in an application context.