Disaster risk reduction — Availability of radio communications services at the time of space weather events

Independently of the disasters observed on Earth, more than 600 space weather events are observed per solar cycle (11 years). When they occur during the response phase of a disaster (the first two weeks) they may seriously affect: satellite orientation, communication systems and navigation systems. Alert systems allow identifying in near real-time (Δt≤ 15 minutes) corrupted or missing communications. For the sake of convenience the space weather events discussed here are mainly those generated by “geomagnetic storms” characterized by Kp or K indexes. Applications are made: (i) during the response phase of the 26th December 2004 earthquake and its subsequent tsunami, and (ii) for near real time observations.