The Center for Satellite based Crisis Information (ZKI) is an institution of the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen.
At ZKI Earth Observation data such as satellite or aerial imagery as well as geo data is acquired and analysed in order to generate up-to-date situational awareness information before, during or after a disaster situation or in case of major events. All crisis information is produced according to the ZKI users’ requirements and provided for instance as maps, geo-pdf, web services or text dossiers. Main national and international user groups are political decision makers, situation centers and relief organisations. Many ZKI products are published at the website. In addition, consultancy, technology transfer as well as trainings and exercises are provided. The close interlocking between research, development and service is an enormous strength of the ZKI.
At national and international level ZKI cooperates with different partners from research and industry. It is closely networked with administrative partners as well as non-governmental organisations and consists mainly of the three services ZKI-DE, Copernicus EMS and the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters”.