Iceland volcano: how SAR satellites predict and assist first response

As news breaks of a volcano erupting in southwest Iceland this week, the nation can take comfort in the fact that, so far, there have been no reports of injuries or deaths, as 4,000 people were evacuated from the nearest villages last month in anticipation of the event.

With aid from satellite firm ICEYE, the Icelandic Met Office was able to predict the eruption using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology and warn nearby residents.

SAR technology beams radar waves to Earth’s surface, capturing data much more in-depth than the typical satellite light cameras. Through monitoring ground deformation, the Icelandic Met Office can determine and illustrate the accumulation of magma underground, determine its elevation, and help predict the eruption.

During the research earlier this month, ICEYE’s CEO, Rafal Modrzewski was able to conclude from the SAR data received that this volcano was “probably going to erupt.”

How ICEYE arrives at the forefront

But it’s not just volcanic eruptions that SAR technology can assist with. In early June this year, residents of Ukrainian villages Kherson and Mykolaiv woke up to find many of their homes, shops, and farmland submerged under water.

In another tale that highlights the devastation of the Russia-Ukraine War, the flooding came because of the collapse of a major dam that held a reservoir of 18 cubic km of water.

The reservoir provided communities and agriculture around the Dnipro River and offered cooling water to the nearby nuclear power station.

Both sides blamed each other, Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam and the hydroelectric power station, which is in an area Moscow has controlled for over a year, and Russia blamed Ukrainian bombardment in the area.

Nevertheless, citizens were suffering the consequences, while 230 square miles sat underwater, causing a threat to their drinking water, decimating miles of crops, and 14 now reportedly killed, emergency action remained problematic amid a war.

With Ukraine a no-fly zone, how could relevant support inspect the destruction?

Orbiting the earth, ICEYE satellites contacted the area and with the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology and were able to capture not only images of the visible extent, but the depth of the water too.

“Not only could we see how many houses have really been flooded, but we can discern which ones of them were flooded severely, versus the ones where just the basement is flooded,” explained Modrzewski.

Communicating this data to the relevant aid, within a day the emergency services could then properly distribute support to those affected most severely by the disaster and were continuously given up-to-date data from the hovering satellites.

SAR technology

The Finnish satellite firm, ICEYE, claims to be the first on-site when there is a natural disaster, collecting data more extensive and detailed than the average satellite camera can see.

Founded in 2014, the firm is in Series D funding, having raised $304 million in financing to date, and launched the first of its satellite 32 satellites in 2018: “Which was actually the first time someone has every taken a radar image with a satellite,” says Modrzewski.

With over 500 employees, the design and building of the satellites happen in-house, and are launched all around the world.

Its use cases include maritime safety and oil spill detection, defence and intelligence, infrastructure monitoring, mining and energy, humanitarian relief, and climate change monitoring.

Technology-wise, the SAR satellites radar waves can penetrate obstacles such as clouds, smoke, sandstorms, volcanic ash — even in the dead of night — and successfully collect high-resolution images of what is on the ground up to 50cm.

Typically, if one wants to acquire a satellite image of an area it will take up to a day to collect, but since ICEYE deploys a constellation of satellites for one area, the response time is on average about one to two hours.

The satellites can also dwell over a target to simply add colours (usually black and white with this technology), record a short video, or in the case of an emergency or research, collect extensive data, explains Modrzewski.

They can be bought like a car, although after some vetting processes to ensure safety, or customers can request images of their target from ICEYE themselves.

“Most of our support is for the Ukrainian military in the conflict against Russia,” tells Modrzewski, “and we’ve ultimately ended up selling one of our satellites to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.”

Other customers include the United States Federal Emergency Management Administration, to provide them with data on wildfires and floods.

Within 24 hours of a flood peak, ICEYE’s satellites provide building-level flood measurements, and its ‘Flood Early Warning’ product offers forecasts of what damage is predictable due to a flood with a combination of its SAR technology, machine learning, and data sources — which can also be used for other hazards such as wildfires, too.

During the wildfires in Hawaii in August, for instance, ICEYE’s satellites were able to determine the number of damaged homes and communicate it to the emergency service.

“We were able to go down to a single building level to determine whether that house actually suffered damage or not before anybody managed to get on site,” says Modrzewski.

With its ability, to “dwell” over a target, Modrzewski claims that the satellites allow users to not only to see the first situation, but track it over time, allowing the recipient to deal with a continuous line of real-time information.

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