DigitalGlobe, the leading American provider of high-resolution satellite imagery, announced on its blog the launch of the Open Data Program, which aims to provide satellite data for selected large-scale natural disasters.

On the morning of January 18th an earthquake of magnitude greater than 5 occurred in central Italy. This event caused activation of Copernicus Emergency Management Service for the first time in 2017.

Launching of the Sentinel-2B optical satellite is planned for 7th March. New satellite will join its twin Sentinel-2A satellite which is already in the orbit since June 2015. All of the operational tests that were conducted from 2016, ended up successfully, thanks to which Sentinel-2B has been transported to the spaceport in French Guiana.

The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters has been activated for the first time this year, as a result of fires in Argentina. Fires started in late December 2016 and in only two weeks destroyed millions of hectares of forest in the area of the Buenos Aires Province, in the southern part of the Rio Negro Province and in the central part of La Pampa.

Today's "Geoinformation Guide" series concerns the global OpenStreetMap project, which allows us to view and retrieve free vector data.

Year 2016 abounded in terrorist events, which invariably shock the whole world. Information about the attacks in Brussels, Paris or about the latest attack in Berlin, in which many innocent people were killed, were circulated by the Western media. The Middle East remains the most inflammable spot in terms of terrorist attacks, in particular Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. In addition, the alarming increase in terrorist attacks in Europe has been reported in 2016.

On 15 December, NASA has launched a constellation of 8 microsatellites – Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS). The launch took place from the US Air Force Base at Cape Canaveral. Microsatellites were carried to low-Earth orbit 500 km above the Earth. CYGNSS is funded by NASA and its main developers are the University of Michigan and the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI).

On 8 December 2016, III Scientific Conference "Selected Aspects of Use of Combat Aviation" took place at the Polish Air Force Academy in Dęblin. The focus of the conference was on the use of aviation in times of peace, crisis and during war.

On 9 November 2016, the final results of the project "A comprehensive protection system for logistics of multi-entity rescue operations", financed by the National Centre for Research and Development, were presented at the training ground of the Main School of Fire Service in Kazuń.

Taking a break from issues related to satellite imagery, in today's article from "Geoinformation Guide" series we want to present you free vecor and raster data regarding land cover for the area of Europe. Have you heard about the Corine Land Cover project?

On 26-27.10.2016 r. CIK representative participated in the cross-seminar organized by the Group of the Polish Society for Support of Entrepreneurship JSC in cooperation with among others 3M, Asseco, PolMed, Philips, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Bank of National Economy.

In today's article from the "Geoinformation Guide" series we will take a closer look at the LandsatLook Viewer web application, which allows for quick view and access to archives of images from the Landsat satellite.

On 29-30.09.2016 r. at the Polish Air Force Academy in Dęblin a scientific conference held place, organized in cooperation with i. a. the Land Forces Academy in Wrocław and the Strategic Planning College in Dąbrowa Górnicza.

In today's article from the "Geoinformation Guide" series we will explain what a file in the Shapefile format is.

We begin the publication of a series of guides with practical advice related to the use of geoinformation technologies, particularly in crisis management.