Postgraduate Course: Remote Sensing for Disaster Management and Risk Mitigation (PGGE11307)
Course Outline
| School | School of Geosciences |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course aims to give students the practical skills of generating a range of remote sensing products for disaster response and management and a critical understanding of the effectiveness of earth observation and geoinformation data in disaster risk reduction. |
| Course description |
This course will provide an introduction to disaster management and risk mitigation efforts and explore, practise and evaluate how active and passive remote sensing data can be used to support disaster response and risk mitigation. The course consists of 10 weeks of four hours of contact time each. The topics covered include, wk1: Disaster Risk Reduction, wk2: Disaster Management Workflow, wk3: Remote Sensing Products for Disasters, wk4: Active Remote Sensing in Disaster Response, wk5: Passive Remote Sensing in Disaster Response, wk6: From Response to Risk Reduction; wk7: Driving Mechanisms of Natural Disasters I, wk8: Driving Mechanisms of Natural Disasters II, wk9: Group Project Prep, wk10: Student-led Seminars. The first week and the week after the reading week will adopt the format of flipped classrooms where the students are required to complete reading in advance to prepare for a downward counterfactuals workshop and a stakeholder role play, respectively. All the other practicals involve students working with remote sensing data to generate different products in response to different types of disasters. The last two weeks are dedicated to the preparation and presentation of student-led seminars which will be assessed. This course will invite a couple of internal and external guest lecturers to provide content on industrial practices and scientific research of multi-hazard. During the course, the students will (1) Recognize the range of natural hazards faced by different communities and the future trend of risk, (2) Identify stakeholders involved in disaster response and risk management across different time frames, (3) Understand the use of remote sensing data in different hazard management workflows, (4) Identify sources, availability and accessibility of relevant earth observation data and analysis tools, (5) Produce, analyse and interpret remote sensing products for disaster management, (6) Produce maps for disaster response to industrial standards, (7) Identify gaps in existing practices where remote sensing could be made more useful, (8) Evaluate the effectiveness and project future trend of remote sensing in disaster response and management in view of future missions.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 40 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 8,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 24,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 4,
Summative Assessment Hours 4,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
156 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Individual summative assessment: Response briefing note and reflection (60%). «br /»
Group summative assessment: Student-led seminars (40%). |
| Feedback |
The practicals will be interactive where the students can ask for help and clarify concepts.
The individual event briefing and reflection assignment will be submitted by the end of the reading week, and be formatively peer-evaluated and discussed in groups in the first lecture after the reading week.
The second last week will be dedicated to the preparation of the group project where the students can bounce off ideas and seek feedback before the final seminar and the submission of group reports.
Feedback will also be provided to their group reports. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate knowledge of most natural hazards and their impacts, as well as a critical awareness of the current status and future trends of disaster response and risk reduction across developing and developed countries.
- Apply a range of remote sensing skills to generate earth observation products in support of disaster response, relief, and risk reduction efforts.
- Critically evaluate the effectiveness and limitations of earth observation in disaster management and risk reduction practices in terms of data availability, accessibility, quality, timeliness, and equality.
- Communicate remote sensing techniques and research findings to a range of stakeholders in the disaster management and risk reduction sector with different levels of knowledge and expertise.
- Work professionally and collaboratively to promote and apply remote sensing techniques for disaster management and risk mitigation locally and globally.
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Reading List
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. (2015). Woo, G. (2019). Downward Counterfactual Search for Extreme Events. Frontiers in Earth Science, 7. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/earth-science/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00340
Fleming, K., Abad, J., Booth, L., Schueller, L., Baills, A., Scolobig, A., Petrovic, B., Zuccaro, G., & Leone, M. F. (2020). The use of serious games in engaging stakeholders for disaster risk reduction, management and climate change adaption information elicitation. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 49, 101669. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101669
Briceño, S. (2015). Looking Back and Beyond Sendai: 25 Years of International Policy Experience on Disaster Risk Reduction. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 6(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-015-0040-y
The International Charter Space and Major Disasters. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The graduates will have (1) the knowledge of a wide range of natural hazards faced by different communities, how disaster management and risk reduction approaches have evolved, and will evolve in the future in view of the increasing earth observation capabilities; (2) the technical skills to acquire and process active and passive remote sensing data to generate a range of earth observation products useful in time of disaster response, (3) the critical analysis skills to reflect on the effectiveness and limitations of remote sensing applications in disaster response and risk reduction; (4) the communication skills to explain technical information to non-specialists and present research findings to peers, and (5) the personal skills to work effectively both individually and as a group, and to comprehend perspectives and constraints from stakeholders from different backgrounds. |
| Keywords | remote sensing,earth observation,disaster response,risk reduction,natural hazard management |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Qi Ou
Tel:
Email: qou@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Katherine Ingram
Tel:
Email: Katherine.Ingram@ed.ac.uk |
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