arXiv Computer Vision

Earth Surface Immune System for Rapid Monitoring of Unknown Anomalies

The paper introduces ESIA, an Earth Surface Immune System that detects and recognizes unknown anomalies in satellite imagery without prior category knowledge. It uses a non‑specific innate stage for rapid localization and a specific adaptive stage that matches image patches to text prompts via a multi‑modal model, achieving high F1 scores. The system adapts to new scenes in seconds and has been validated on a large global dataset, with applications to farmland degradation after the Kakhovka Dam collapse and burn severity assessment from the 2025 Palisades Fire.

arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 4

Obshazard-bench: Benchmarking Multimodal Foundation Models for Real-Time Disaster Intelligence from Raw Earth Observation Streams

arXiv:2608. 00012v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) are increasingly used to interpret Earth observation data, yet their capability to support real-world disaster emergency response remains insufficiently evaluated.

By Fengxiang Wang, Qiuyang Yu, Yueying Li, Mingshuo Chen, Chengchi Fei, Kaiyi Xu, Lixin Gu, Wangxu Wei, Junchao Gong, Lipeng Ma, Jiong Wang, Fenghua Ling, Wenlong Zhang, Xue Yang, Wenjing Yang, Ben Fei, Long Lan
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 5

A Two-Stage Cascade for Near-Real-Time Forest Anomaly Detection from Sentinel-1 SAR Time Series

The paper presents a two‑stage cascade for near‑real‑time detection of forest anomalies using Sentinel‑1 SAR time series. The first stage applies an adaptive robust‑statistics z‑score test on co‑registered VH backscatter against a same‑season historical baseline, while the second stage uses a convolutional autoencoder’s structural similarity metric to confirm disturbances. Alerts are issued only when both stages agree, with confidence scores and risk tiers based on repeat‑occurrence history, and the system outputs area estimates compatible with MRV workflows.

By Pann Thinzar Seint, Subas Chhatkuli, Bryan Atwood
arXiv Computer Vision
Oct 12

Revisiting the Task of Building Damage Assessment by Satellite Imaging

The paper revisits building damage assessment (BDA) from satellite imagery, emphasizing the need for a sensor‑agnostic, instance‑based task definition that can handle missing pre‑event data. It reviews existing datasets by modality, timing, and geography, critiques current single‑score evaluation practices, and proposes a more robust, ranking‑based multi‑score protocol. The authors also survey deep learning methods, highlight challenges in generalizing to new events and regions, and outline how these insights could shape future BDA challenges and data‑sharing practices.

By Anthony Cioppa, Virgile Blua, S\'ebastien Pi\'erard, Pietro Ceccato, Marc Van Droogenbroeck
arXiv AI
Jun 9

Land cover and flood type govern the detection limits of satellite-based flood mapping across diverse global flood events

arXiv:2606. 07780v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Floods are among the most destructive natural hazards, and their increasing frequency under climate change makes satellite-based inundation mapping essential for disaster response.

By Venkatesh Kolluru, Rajat Shinde, Abdelhak Marouane, Caden Helbling, Deepak Shah, Othneil Drew, Iksha Gurung, Manil Maskey, Rahul Ramachandran
arXiv AI
Jun 26

On-board Remote-Sensing Foundation Models for Unsupervised Change Detection of Disaster Events

arXiv:2606. 27018v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Remote Sensing Foundation Models (RSFMs) have emerged as a powerful alternative to supervised models for Earth Observation, allowing satellites to autonomously trigger high-resolution captures or adjust tasking parameters upon detecting an anomaly, thereby maximizing the utility of the mission's limited power and computational resources.

By S. Ram\'irez-Gallego