January 16, 2002

NASA UNVEILS NEW 'NATURAL HAZARDS' WEB SITE

NASA unveiled a new Web site today in which it publishes satellite
images in near real time over natural hazards around the world.  A
new addition to NASA's Earth Observatory, [the Natural Hazards section](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/), 
contains images and information about major environmental events that 
are potentially hazardous to human populations.

Initially, the Earth Observatory team will track five categories of
natural hazards: wildfires, severe storms, floods, volcanic
eruptions, and major air pollution events (dust storms, smog, and
smoke).  The images-acquired by NASA Earth Science Enterprise and
Earth Observing System (EOS) satellite missions-are freely available
to the public as well as news media.

"We are pleased to be able to share these spectacular new images with
the world in a timely manner," said Michael King, EOS senior project
scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.  "We are often able
to publish these images within a matter of hours after they are
acquired by the satellite sensors."

"We believe the combination of high quality and moderate to high
resolution of the scenes we publish demonstrates the significant
technological advancements NASA has made in the design of satellite
remote sensors," King continued.  "We hope the public finds the
images informative as well as useful for educational purposes."

Earth scientists around the world use NASA satellite imagery to
better understand the causes and effects of natural hazards. The goal
in sharing these new images in the Earth Observatory is to help
people visualize where and when natural hazards occur, and to
possibly help mitigate their effects.

There are plans to expand the section's scope to include other types
of natural hazards information, such as earthquakes, coastal erosion,
and landslides.  The Earth Observatory is managed by the EOS Project
Science Office, and funded by NASA's Earth Science Enterprise.

The Earth Science Enterprise is a long-term research program
dedicated to understanding how human-induced and natural changes
affect our global environment.
--

Dave Olsen, EOS Webmaster
Science Systems and Applications, Inc.
Seabrook, MD 20706
Phone: 301-867-2032

 [-- Earth Observatory](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/)
 [-- Visible Earth](http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/)
 [-- NASA's Earth Observing System Project Science Office](http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/)
 [-- GSFC's Web Resource List](http://thelist.gsfc.nasa.gov/)