A filled mark is one open course in the discipline.
03Maps
Build a twin of any place
Search any place or open the world; the layers and generators follow department of Geospatial and Risk Data Science on the planet map, the globe and in 3D.
Risk Science and MethodsAny placeTwin builder
The central Apennines: L'Aquila, Amatrice and Norcia, Italy. Flat plan of the same data: relief, the three reference epicentres with magnitude and depth, and the numbers below; the sampler's figure shows one precomputed field with its parameters. The 3D twin opens on devices that can draw it, once its data and code have been checked.
Terrain 24 to 2,805 m
3 reference earthquakes, M6.2 to M6.6
Earthquakes M4.5 and above, past week: read live when the 3D twin opens
USGS ShakeMap intensity contours: read live when the 3D twin opens
Credits and dates per layer are listed under the stage. Relief in the twin is exaggerated ×1.5 for legibility.
Drag to move, right drag or Shift with a drag to turn and tilt, Ctrl with the wheel to zoom. Keyboard: arrows move, Shift with arrows turn and tilt, + and – zoom, 0 resets, V steps through the views, Escape clears.
Reference earthquakes The three reference main shocks (L'Aquila 2009, Amatrice 2016, Norcia 2016): origin, magnitude, depth, time and review status from the USGS detail record, the hypocentre drawn below the ground. U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program. read 2026-10-17.Estimate: Reported solutions as reviewed by the USGS; magnitudes and depths carry the USGS stated uncertainties, which the event page links rather than restates.
Earthquakes M4.5 and above, past week (live) Reviewed and automatic seismic solutions of the past week inside the box, with magnitude and depth, read from the world feed and filtered to the box in your browser; the distribution fitter reads the same world feed for its sample. U.S. Geological Survey; reported detections, automatic solutions preliminary; never a warning. Live: this page requests earthquake.usgs.gov when the layer is opened; the data date is printed with it.Estimate: Reported detections; automatic solutions are preliminary; never a warning.
USGS ShakeMap intensity contours The ShakeMap MMI contours of each reference event draped on the terrain, read from the cont_mmi.json file the event's detail record names: what one realisation of the sampler's field looked like. U.S. Geological Survey ShakeMap and U.S. Geological Survey PAGER (preliminary, automatically generated; see the USGS disclaimers), with the product version and time. Live: this page requests earthquake.usgs.gov when the layer is opened; the data date is printed with it.Estimate: Preliminary and automatically generated; PAGER levels are USGS estimates with uncertainty, never a warning or a loss figure of the Academy.
Why this place: One box of about 82 by 77 kilometres holds the 2009 L'Aquila (M6.3), 2016 Amatrice (M6.2) and Norcia (M6.6) earthquakes, the Gran Sasso massif and the normal-fault basins between them. It is the reference case for every method the faculty teaches: magnitude-frequency fitting on a dense catalogue, return periods, probabilistic hazard, model validation, and risk communication after the L'Aquila trial of 2012, which turned on how probabilities were communicated. Data quality: Copernicus DEM GLO-30 covers the relief in two tiles, the USGS detail records of the three main shocks are reviewed, and the live feed is open. It connects to the Quantitative risk analysis and statistics, Catastrophe, exposure and vulnerability modelling, Uncertainty and decision making, Risk communication and risk literacy and Geospatial analysis, Earth observation and GeoAI disciplines and to the spatial intelligence pages of the ecosystem sites.
Flat plan of the same data: relief, the three reference epicentres with magnitude and depth, and the numbers below; the sampler's figure shows one precomputed field with its parameters. The 3D twin opens on devices that can draw it, once its data and code have been checked.
The boundaries, names and designations shown do not imply any judgement on the legal status of any territory, or any endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Countries: Natural Earth (public domain).
04Live map
Earth observation in East Asia
True-colour imagery, land cover, vegetation, snow and sea ice, over East Asia.
The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.
Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.
Earth observation, framed on East Asia.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.
We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
MODIS land products (vegetation indices, gross primary production, land cover), NASA LP DAAC and LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
GHRSST Level 4 MUR analyses, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; distributed by the NASA Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
Live: NASA EONET Events are indicative, not authority warnings.
NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
Past year, daily temperature and sunshine (NASA POWER): These data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science/Applied Science Program..
Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Optional layers (10 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.
Layers and dates
True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
Land cover type (IGBP), yearly: MODIS Terra and Aqua land cover (MCD12Q1), NASA LP DAAC · 2024
Enhanced vegetation index, rolling 8 days: MODIS Terra EVI, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
Snow cover: VIIRS NOAA-20 NDSI, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
Sea ice concentration: GHRSST MUR, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
05Console
How the Geospatial and Risk Data Science department teaches, as a process you can run
Press Play to run this process from this page's own data.
06Standards and evidence
Standards and evidence, research and evidence, learning, practice and connections
Nexus Standards it teaches and relies on
The Nexus Standards the department teaches toward, grouped by master standard, with the disciplines that teach each.
Nexus Standards at the AcademyThe Academy proposes how each discipline teaches toward the Nexus Standards; the mapping is open for public review.
Research and tools
Research and preprints as they are published, by discipline, with the faculty's other tools.
The hub lists the newest research and preprints for 3 disciplines, each with its source and date. Open the research hub
Geospatial analysis, Earth observation and GeoAI, Risk data governance, provenance and licensing, Risk information standards and interoperability
Courses of the department
Courses whose primary discipline is in this department, then courses from connected departments that also teach it.
Pathways that run through it
Where the department's subjects are practised
Across the ecosystem
07Take part
Take part in Risk Science and Methods
Start from who you are.
08Questions
Questions, answers and key terms
Is study here free?
Yes. Every course and learning material of Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium, is free to study, self-paced or with a cohort. Ordinary participation has no fee; paid work, internships and fellowships are separate arrangements.
What does completing a course give me?
A completion record: the course, its version, the date and what was assessed, private by default and shared by you. It stacks into discipline, department and programme achievements. A record states what was studied and assessed and does not certify competence; it is not a licence, a professional title or an employment status.
Where do the data and the places come from?
Every faculty teaches on a twin of a real place built from open data; each layer carries its provider, licence and date, and every result on the Academy states its source. Maps and figures are indicators for teaching, never an assessment of a place.
How do I take part beyond the department's courses?
Form a competence cell of three to seven people, study a shared pathway, take a supervised assignment in the National Working Groups, or bring a cohort from your institution. For organisations.
Key terms
Term
Geospatial analysis, Earth observation and GeoAI
This area covers the geospatial methods of risk analysis: GIS foundations, remote sensing and image analysis, radar flood mapping, exposure mapping, GeoAI, spatial statistics and cartography, with accuracy assessment and the critical review of what maps and models can show.
Term
Risk data governance, provenance and licensing
This area covers how risk data are governed so that evidence can be trusted and reused: data quality, provenance and lineage, licensing of data and models, metadata standards, data rights and consent, personal data protection, data-sharing agreements and open data.
Term
Risk information standards and interoperability
This area covers the standards that make risk information findable, citable and checkable across organisations: persistent identifiers, dataset and metadata profiles, naming rules, and how a standard is adopted and its conformance shown.
ReportsContribute
Contribute evidence from this page.
Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.
Risk Academy
Related
Around the Department of Geospatial and Risk Data Science
Department of Geospatial and Risk Data Science
Choose a discipline
Each discipline page sets out its scope, courses, labs, technology and key terms.
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Independence
Editors and the expert reviewers named on each article decide what we publish. Funders and partners do not review or approve articles before publication.
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