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”.

ZKI visits the Bavarian Red Cross (BRK) regional office in Munich 12 July 2019 A very productive working meeting took place on 10.07.2019 between the representatives of the department rescue service/safety research in the Bavarian Red Cross (BRK) and the colleagues of the ZKI. More

Government Commission "More Security for North Rhine-Westphalia" visits ZKI 12 July 2019 The Government Commission "More Security for North Rhine-Westphalia" headed by Wolfgang Bosbach visited the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen on 8 July 2019 to find out about the security-related technology developed at DLR. The DLR programme coordinator for security research, Dr Dennis Göge, welcomed the representatives of the Commission. More

DLR at the "Innovation for Crisis Management (I4CM)" 11 July 2019 This year's "Innovation for Crisis Management (I4CM)" event was held on 12 and 13 June 2019 in Copenhagen. The ZKI presented itself at the "Marketplace of Innovative Solutions" and results and innovative products of the Trial “The Netherlands”, which was organized and conducted in May 2019 with the participation of DLR as part of the DRIVER+ project. More

Vegetation fires in Germany - ZKI supports with current situation maps based on satellite and aerial data 02 July 2019 Also the DLR supports the action force in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. With the help of ZKI-maps the estimation of the recent situation is assisted. Therefore different data sources are used. In addition to several satellite based sensors the Institute of Optical Sensor Systems made aerial photographs of the wild fires near Lübtheen with a special version of an „Modular Aerial Camera System“ (MACS) based on a research aircraft of the Freie Universität Berlin. Additionally, data of the DLR-research satellite mission FireBIRD/TET is used. More

Another ZKI-DE-user training at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin 06 June 2019 The Federal Office for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) and the Center of Satellite based Crisis Information (ZKI) at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) organized together for the third time a user-training on the ZKI-DE Remote Sensing Service for Federal Authorities in Berlin at the 4. and 5. June 2019. More