Earth Observation: Insights for Floods and Fires

Juan Ossa

Flood Engineer and Data Scientist
Floodmapp

Juan Ossa is a flood risk specialist with over 10 years of experience across research, consulting, and startup environments. He currently drives customer success and business development at FloodMapp, working with government, insurance, and utility sectors across Australia. Juan combines deep technical expertise with a strong focus on stakeholder engagement, helping organisations identify how real time flood intelligence can improve emergency response and reduce disaster impacts.

FloodMapp is an Australian tech company creating a safer future for communities affected by floods, by delivering real time flood intelligence that provides emergency managers with full situational awareness before, during and after events. In this talk, Juan will explain how FloodMapp integrates earth observation data, including satellite and aerial imagery, with water levels from thousands of river gauges across Australia and the US, among other sources, to generate live flood maps showing extents and depths in real time. By combining remote sensing with dynamic modelling and alternative datasets, FloodMapp delivers a unique and innovative solution to support decision making during extreme flood events.

Daniel Field

Managing Director
Stratoship

Daniel Field started out in aviation and aerospace in 1999 as an apprentice aircraft maintenance engineer in Central Australia. After becoming trade qualified, he then studied Engineering at RMIT before working in Germany and Australia across reliability, airworthiness, and air traffic control. Daniel founded Stratoship in Brisbane in 2020 because he couldn’t understand why stratospheric platforms weren’t everywhere already.

Daniel will describe Stratoship’s work to develop a stratospheric fire-spotting capability in collaboration with CSIRO, aiming to provide persistent observation and fill in the gaps left by satellites.