From visual comparison to robust satellite techniques: 30 years of thermal infrared satellite data analyses for the study of earthquake preparation phases

This review paper reports the main contributions and results achieved after more than 30 years of studies on the possible relationships among space-time variation of Earth’s thermally emitted radiation, measured by satellite sensors operating in the Thermal InfraRed (TIR) spectral range (8-14 m), and earthquake occurrence. Focus will be given on the different existing methods/models to: 1) discriminate a possible pre-seismic TIR anomaly from all the other TIR signal fluctuations; 2) correlate such anomalies with space, time and magnitude of earthquakes; 3) physically justify such a correlation

Identification of dust outbreaks on infrared msg-seviri data by using a Robust Satellite Technique (RST)

Dust storms are meteorological phenomena of great interest for scientific community because of their potential impact on climate changes, for the risk that may pose to human health and due to other issues as desertification processes and reduction of the agricultural production. Satellite remote sensing, thanks to global coverage, high frequency of observation and low cost data, may highly contribute in monitoring these phenomena, provided that proper detection methods are used. In this work, the known Robust Satellite Techniques (RST) multitemporal approach, used for studying and monitoring several natural/environmental hazards, is tested on some important dust events affecting Mediterranean region in May 2004 and Arabian Peninsula in February 2008. To perform this study, data provided by the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) have been processed, comparing the generated dust maps to some independent satellite-based aerosol products. Outcomes of this work show that the RST technique can be profitably used for detecting dust outbreaks from space, providing information also about areas characterized by a different probability of dust presence. They encourage further improvements of this technique in view of its possible implementation in the framework of operational warning systems

RST analysis of MSG-SEVIRI TIR radiances at the time of the Abruzzo 6 April 2009 earthquake

Space-time fluctuations of Earth's emitted Thermal Infrared (TIR) radiation have been observed from satellite months to weeks before earthquakes occurrence. The general RST approach has been proposed in order to discriminate normal (i.e. related to the change of natural factor and/or observation conditions) TIR signal fluctuations from anomalous signal transient possibly associated to earthquake occurrence. In this work RST approach is applied to the Abruzzo 6 April 2009 event (M(L)=5.8) by using for the first time MSG-SEVIRI (Meteosat Second Generation -Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager) thermal infrared observations. A validation/confutation analysis has been performed in order to verify the presence/absence of anomalous space-time TIR transients in the presence/absence of significant seismic activity. March-April 2009 has been analyzed for validation purposes. Relatively unperturbed periods (no earthquakes with M(L)>= 5) have been taken for confutation. A specific TIR anomalies space-time persistence analysis as well as a cloud coverage distribution test have been introduced in order to eliminate artifacts and outliers both in the validation and confutation phases. Preliminary results show clear differences in TIR anomalies occurrence during the periods used for validation and confutation purposes. Quite clear TIR anomalies appear also to mark main tectonic lines related to the preparatory phases of others, low magnitude (M(L)similar to 4) earthquakes, occurred in the area

Willingness to Pay for Environmental Goods in East Malaysia

This research has been conducted to investigate consumers’ willingness to pay for environmental goods in East Malaysia, and specifically in Sabah and Sarawak. The data were collected from 250 respondents. The respondents’ environmental awareness has been linked to their perceived behavioural control and willingness to pay for environmental goods. The key findings of this study indicate that attitude, and perceived behavioural have positive influence on the willingness to pay for environmental goods. It is anticipated that the findings of this research should lead to the introduction of widespread awareness programmes that highlight the benefits and the implications of green product towards environment. To encourage the consumption of environmental goods its recommended to introduce environmental education at an early age. In addition, social media also stands out as the best platform to reach the heaviest green consumers

How to Achieve High-Quality Oocytes? The Key Role of Myo-Inositol and Melatonin

Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have experienced growing interest from infertile patients seeking to become pregnant. The quality of oocytes plays a pivotal role in determining ART outcomes. Although many authors have studied how supplementation therapy may affect this important parameter for both in vivo and in vitro models, data are not yet robust enough to support firm conclusions. Regarding this last point, in this review our objective has been to evaluate the state of the art regarding supplementation with melatonin and myo-inositol in order to improve oocyte quality during ART. On the one hand, the antioxidant effect of melatonin is well known as being useful during ovulation and oocyte incubation, two occasions with a high level of oxidative stress. On the other hand, myo-inositol is important in cellular structure and in cellular signaling pathways. Our analysis suggests that the use of these two molecules may significantly improve the quality of oocytes and the quality of embryos: melatonin seems to raise the fertilization rate, and myo-inositol improves the pregnancy rate, although all published studies do not fully agree with these conclusions. However, previous studies have demonstrated that cotreatment improves these results compared with melatonin alone or myo-inositol alone. We recommend that further studies be performed in order to confirm these positive outcomes in routine ART treatment

A rst-based cloud mask for fire-related applications

Satellite-based algorithms for fire detection and monitoring are generally applied after a preliminary phase of cloud-affected pixel identification in order to process only clear sky pixels. Performances of cloud masks usually available for satellite data are generally not suitable in fire-related applications because such products have been formerly developed for meteorological and/or climatological purposes. A not suitable cloud mask may be so responsible for omission errors, excluding cloudy contaminated pixels from further analysis, not only in case of opaque clouds, but also in the presence of semi-transparent clouds which, indeed, could permit a signal affected by fires to reach a satellite sensor. Conversely, if a cloud mask let reflective clouds out, false positives may be detected by a fire detection algorithm, due to their effect in the medium infrared (MIR) band. Since the “2nd Workshop on Geostationary Fire Monitoring and Applications”, the importance of a cloud mask tailored to fire-related applications has been clearly highlighted and our experience gained during several real time validation campaigns of the RST-FIRES algorithm (Robust Satellite Technique for Fire detection) confirmed that. In particular, in the first implementation of RST-FIRES on MSGSEVIRI data, the algorithm was applied only to pixels not declared as “cloudy” by the EUMETSAT CLM product. Unfortunately, CLM product showed to be not suitable for fire applications mainly because slipped off reflective clouds. In order to increase the reliability of the cloud detection phase, CLM product was combined with the RST-based OCA (One-channel Cloud-detection Approach) algorithm, only applied to two channels (one in the visible and the other one in the thermal infrared) so that it was indicated as OCA VIS-TIR. The higher reliability of this combined cloud detection scheme, as compared with the exclusive use of CLM product, showed to minimize false positives, while increasing omission errors because additional smoky pixels were flagged as “cloudy” and events under transparent clouds were undetected. This led us to develop a multispectral RST-based cloud detection scheme specifically tailored for fire-related applications. It was developed for discriminating spectral characteristics of different types of clouds, smoke, and clear-sky pixels following the heritage of the RST-based OCA VIS-TIR algorithm. The new cloud mask, named OCA MULTI-SPECTRAL, was preliminarily tested in the case of fire-affected pixels which, despite a strong MIR signal, were not detected because declared “cloudy” by the present scheme of cloud detection within the RST-FIRES system, based, as before mentioned, on the combination of EUMETSAT CLM product and OCA VISTIR. Performances of OCA MULTI-SPECTRAL have been also evaluated in comparison with the ones of the present cloud detection scheme. Some examples will be shown and discussed in this paper

Robust satellite techniques (RST) for seismically active areas monitoring: the case of 21st May, 2003 Boumerdes/Thenia (Algeria) earthquake

In the last decades, several authors have claimed a space-time correlation between increases of Earth's emitted Thermal Infra-Red (TIR) radiation and earthquake activity interpreting such TIR signals as seismic precursors. The main problems of such studies regard data analysis and interpretation, which are often done without a validation/confutation test. In this context, a robust data analysis technique (RST, i.e. Robust Satellite Techniques) was developed which permits a statistically based definition of an "anomaly" and uses a validation/confutation approach. This technique was already applied to satellite TIR surveys in seismic regions for tens of earthquakes occurred in Europe, Asia and America. In this work, the RST approach has been applied for the first time to the African region to assess its potentialities in different geographical and climatic conditions. Eight years of Meteosat TIR observations have been analyzed in order to characterize the TIR signal behaviour in absence of significant seismic activity. Boumerdes/Thenia (Algeria) earthquake (occurred on 21th May 2003, Mb= 6.8) has been considered as test case for validation purpose, while a relatively unperturbed period (no earthquakes with Mbges4) has been analyzed in the confutation phase. The results show in the area of interest positive space-time persistent TIR anomalies about one month before the main shock (validation). Such anomalies generally overlap the principal tectonic lineaments of the region, sometimes focusing in the vicinity of the earthquake epicentre. No significant (in terms of relative intensity and space-time pemstence) TIR anomalies were detected during less seismically perturbed periods (confutation)

Seismically active areas monitoring by robust TIR satellite techniques: a sensitivity analysis on low magnitude earthquakes occurred in Greece and Turkey since 1995.

Space-time TIR anomalies, observed from months to weeks before earthquake occurrence, have been suggested by several authors as pre-seismic signals. Up to now, such a claimed connection of TIR emission with seismic activity has been considered with some caution by scientific community mainly for the insufficiency of the validation data-sets and the scarce importance attached by those authors to other causes (e.g. meteorological) that, rather than seismic activity, could be responsible for the observed TIR signal fluctuations. A robust satellite data analysis technique (RAT) has been recently proposed which, thanks to a well-founded definition of TIR anomaly, seems to be able to identify anomalous spacetime TIR signal transients even in very variable observational (satellite view angle, land topography and coverage, etc.) and natural (e.g. meteorological) conditions. Its possible application to satellite TIR surveys in seismically active regions has been already tested in the case of several earthquakes (Irpinia: 23 November 1980, Athens: 7 September 1999, Izmit: 17 August 1999) of magnitude higher than 5.5 by using a validation/confutation approach, devoted to verify the presence/absence of anomalous spacetime TIR transients in the presence/absence of seismic activity. In these cases, a magnitude threshold (generally M<5) was arbitrarily chosen in order to identify seismically unperturbed periods for confutation purposes. In this work, 9 medium-low magnitude (4<Mb<5.5) earthquakes which occurred in Greece and Turkey have been analyzed in order to verify if, even in these cases, anomalous TIR transients can be observed. The analysis, which was performed using 8 years of Meteosat TIR observations, demonstrated that anomalous TIR transients can be observed even in the presence of mediumlow magnitude earthquakes (4<Mb<5.5). As far as the research (just started) of possible correlation among TIR anomalies and earthquake occurrence is concerned, such a result suggests that: a) in order to identify seismically unperturbed periods for confutation purposes, a magnitude threshold (at least) lower than 4 should be used; b) the proposed validation/confutation approach should be applied in low seismicity areas in order to find suitably long seismically quiescent periods

The use of MSG-SEVIRI for rapid detection of security-related events

New fields of application have been discovered for data acquired by geostationary satellite sensors, like MSG-SEVIRI (Meteosat Second Generation-Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager), beyond their original meteorological and climatologic scopes. Unexpected MSG-SEVIRI potentials have been, for instance, revealed in different security-related applications. In fact, several accidents (e.g., pipeline sabotages, bombing, etc.), responsible for injuries to citizens and damages to critical infrastructures, often cannot be avoid or foreseen, but a rapid detection of their effects may allow to timely intervene and prevent more terrible consequences. Meteorological satellites like MSG-SEVIRI, characterized by a high temporal repetition rate, give the possibility to rapidly detect abrupt thermal transients related to dangerous explosions. Anyway, if MSG-SEVIRI data may provide information at an adequate temporal resolution (from 15 to 5 minutes, over areas acquired in Rapid Scanning Service mode), a suitable technique is to be used to identify, in a reliable fashion (i.e., no false alarms), actual accidents. The multi-temporal change detection algorithm, RST (Robust Satellite Techniques), may assure such a reliability because it is based on the characterization (in space and time) of the medium infrared (MIR) satellite signal, so that it is possible, for example, to distinguish “temporary heat sources” (hot spots related to actual accidents) from “permanent heat sources” (e.g., normally hot areas in correspondence of refineries chimneys). A processing chain, based on the RST approach, has been also developed for automatically identifying, on MSG-SEVIRI images, harmful events. Maps of thermal anomalies may be generated every 15 minutes over a selected area, together with *.kml files for a rapid visualization of the accident position on GoogleEarth® environment. RST applied to MSG-SEVIRI in security field has been tested in different contexts and involved infrastructures such as the case of the Moscow gas pipeline explosion (9th May 2009), attacks to civil and military targets in Libya during operation “Odyssey Dawn” and 2011 civil war as well as several cases of Iraqi pipeline sabotages. In detecting such sabotages, RST applied to MSG-SEVIRI data not only demonstrated its capabilities in detecting accidents without false alarms in areas (like Iraq) hosting many refineries, but also in giving “precise information” about event time occurrence and, sometimes, even in “correcting” ground reports. In this paper some examples will be shown

Robust Satellite Technique ( RST-FIRES ) for timely detection of forest fires by geostationary satellite

Usefulness of satellite systems in monitoring fires has been being recognized for years, but satellitebased methods have been originally applied only to polar-orbiting sensor data like NOAA-AVHRR (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer), ERS-(A)ATSR(-2) (European Remote Sensing Satellite - (Advanced) Along Track Scanning Radiometer), and more recently EOS-MODIS (Earth Observing System - Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer). In this context, geostationary sensors, despite their coarser spatial resolution (3-4 km), have been recently taken into account thanks to their very high time repetition rate which may actually give more chance to detect short-lived fires, starting fires or fires with activity which has a strong diurnal cycle. This seems particularly important for European Countries (mainly in the southern part) which often suffer from short-lasting but noxious fires and/or events frequently occurring between 12:00 and 14:00 local time. European Countries may benefit of MSG-SEVIRI (Meteosat Second Generation – Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager) geostationary sensor offering a temporal resolution from 15 to 5 (in case of MSG Rapid Scanning System) minutes. SEVIRI-based fire products may give support to ground surveillance systems and help Civil Protection Services in timely detecting events for rapidly intervening before fire spreading as well as in monitoring ongoing events for optimizing ground and aerial resources. In the last years, many algorithms of fire detection have been adapted to MSG-SEVIRI starting from other geostationary sensors (e.g. GOES - Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites) or have been specifically designed for it. They are generally based on fixed thresholds (single/multiple channels or contextual methods) so that they are often a source of false alarms or show a low sensitivity in detecting small fires. Any case, their performances seem to be not adequate to civil protection requirements, mainly in Southern Europe. In this work, results of RST-FIRES (Robust Satellite Techniques for Fire detection) implemented to MSG-SEVIRI data are shown. Validation of RST-FIRES performances have been evaluated by means of a Total Validation Approach (TVA), based on a systematic check of detected hot spots through a direct ground observation of dedicated light aircrafts or ground voluntary brigades. RST-FIRES performances are presented and discussed in comparison with other SEVIRI-based fire products: two Eumetsat products directly acquired at the EUMETCast station of University of Basilicata (FIR - Active Fire Monitoring - and FD&M - Fire Detection and Monitoring) as well as a product which is freely distributed on the web (SFIDE - System for FIre Detection)