Connecting Space to Village in Southeast Asia

SERVIR Southeast Asia (2023 – 2025)

The SERVIR Southeast Asia (SERVIR SEA) project, implemented from January 2023 to 2025, was a geospatial data-for-development initiative designed to meet the evolving needs of countries across Southeast Asia. Funded by USAID and NASA and implemented by ADPC, the project expanded on the successes of the earlier SERVIR-Mekong program by broadening the geographic coverage and deepening regional impact. Although the project has officially concluded, ADPC is continuing to build on its achievements to advance the use of earth observation and geospatial technologies in support of climate resilience, disaster risk reduction, and sustainable development.

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The SERVIR SEA Project

The Earth has been witnessing an unprecedented warming of the climate system over recent decades. This warming led to rising sea levels, more frequent floods and droughts, and dramatic changes in ecosystems — all threatening lives and livelihoods across the globe. In the face of these challenges, one critical question emerged: How do we monitor the health of an entire planet, and how can we act to improve it?

The first step was to observe the changes — from changing temperatures to shifting weather patterns. However, Earth is a far more complex system, requiring high-tech tools to fully understand its condition.

For over 50 years, since the launch of the first weather satellite, humankind has relied on the vantage point of space to gather vital information. Earth-orbiting satellites and technological innovations enabled scientists to observe the planet on a global scale, providing the data necessary to address climate-related challenges more effectively.

From January 2023 to 2025, the SERVIR Southeast Asia (SERVIR SEA) project played a vital role in translating this space-based information into action. Through a unique collaboration between the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), SERVIR SEA harnessed Earth observation technologies and open data to support sustainable development and climate resilience across the region.

Working with national and regional partners in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, SERVIR SEA focused on using satellite data and geospatial tools to manage and reduce climate risks. Its activities were aimed at four key objectives:

Strengthening and institutionalizing the technical capacity of government decision-makers and civil society to use geospatial data in planning and communication;
Improving the sharing and accessibility of tailored geospatial data and services;
Developing high-quality, user-focused tools, models, and applications to address pressing development needs; and
Establishing the SERVIR SEA hub as a recognized regional provider of geospatial information, analyses, and capacity building.

The project was funded by USAID and implemented by the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), in close collaboration with NASA. USAID’s support made it possible to combine development goals with cutting-edge Earth science, ensuring that countries in Southeast Asia could use satellite-based data to better prepare for climate impacts, conserve natural resources, and support evidence- based policymaking.

While the SERVIR SEA project concluded in May 2025, its impact continues. ADPC is committed to building on the achievements of the project, sustaining and expanding the use of geospatial technologies to strengthen climate resilience, promote regional collaboration, and empower local communities. The legacy of SERVIR SEA lives on — in the tools developed, the capacities built, and the partnerships forged across Southeast Asia.

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What We Do

In a changing environment, people often lack information needed to understand and solve local, national, and regional challenges. In order to address these challenges, we look to science and technology. Extraordinary work is being done in space to collect information about the Earth. SERVIR works to streamline access to data and imagery from satellites so analysts can integrate this information into tools and models that are accessible to those who need it most.

SERVIR SEA empowers decision-makers with tools, products, and services to act locally on climate-sensitive issues such as disasters, agriculture, water, ecosystems and land use. Leveraging advanced technology platforms and prioritizing a demand-driven approach to activities, the program is breaking new ground in using innovative approaches to help decision makers in the Southeast ASIA region better respond to a changing climate.

Innovative platforms and approaches

Private Sector Partnerships in Technology:
Google Earth Engine (GEE) provides free-access to a large warehouse of over 40 years of satellite imagery and the computational power needed to analyze those images. It also allows for custom algorithms to be written and applied using its warehouse of satellite imagery, thus revolutionizing the way applications of remote sensing are performed. SERVIR SEA continues to expand collaborative activities with GEE that relate to several priority tools, curriculum development and general capacity building. Esri provides SERVIR SEA and its partners with access to industry-standard GIS software and technical support. SERVIR SEA is pursuing a hybrid approach to on-premise and cloud-based GIS database management, provision of geospatial web services, and free-and-open access to geospatial data. Google and Esri are providing SERVIR SEA with expertise from their developers to help our scientists and end users leverage this technology for crucial decision making. To support targeted and on-demand imaging needs, DigitalGlobe augments existing Earth observation data provided for free by NASA and other space agencies. SERVIR SEA employs this relationship for specific and necessary product validation.
Technical Assistance Request Mechanism:
As a demand-driven project, SERVIR SEA has taken great effort to ensure that initiatives meet the ongoing needs of the region in a way that is malleable to and reflective of a changing environment. A key strategic mechanism to meet this demand-driven approach is our technical service-request mechanism. This can be accessed on our website here and allows anyone to submit a request for technical assistance (e.g. for data needs, tool requests, etc.). Our team will align these requests with the mandate of SERVIR SEA and other existing initiatives to prioritize and address these demands on an ongoing basis.
University Partner Network:
SERVIR SEA has set up a network of focal points from universities in the region consisting of senior representatives and geospatial academics. The aim of this network is to strengthen in-country end user engagement, work towards joint research objectives, and help develop relevant curriculum and courses. These will all contribute to the program’s vision for long-term sustainability in the region. Currently, SERVIR SEA engages five key partner universities - Mandalay Technological University, Myanmar; Naresuan University, Thailand; National University of Laos; Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and Vietnam National University-University of Science; however, this network is anticipated to grow as the program secures new partnerships.
Gender:
SERVIR SEA pays close attention to the way gender is considered in the development of tools and program design. We have put together a guidance document, Gender and GIS: Guidance Notes, that details how to undertake a gender analysis that will inform the production of GIS applications. The project is committed to understanding the linkages between gender, environment and development, and ensure gender-responsive programming within climate change initiatives.

Themes

SERVIR-SEA service areas

Agriculture and Food Security

The food security thematic service area includes agriculture, rangeland management and pastoralism, and fisheries and aquaculture, particularly through the lens of increasing climate variability. Key topics include linking agricultural productivity assessments, crop yield models, and use of climate scenarios for assessing the impacts. SERVIR SEA focuses on generating seasonal predictions of crop yield, assessments of interannual to decadal climate change on crop yields, and potential adaptation tools to monitor and/or mitigate the climate change impacts on agriculture, rangeland management and pastoralism, and/or fisheries and aquaculture.

Land Cover, Land Use Change and Ecosystems

The land cover, land use and ecosystems thematic service area focuses on sustainable landscapes through natural capital accounting and ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are critically dependent on natural capital such as the quality of soils, organic and nutrient contents, topography, rainfall, and land cover among other factors. SERVIR SEA is working on a regional land cover map. Another key consideration in this service area is low carbon impact for resilient agriculture and development. SERVIR SEA aligns closely with SilvaCarbon activities to assist countries to monitor their forest and terrestrial carbon.

Water Resources and Hydro-climatic Disasters

The water resources and hydroclimatic disasters thematic service area includes water quantity (including groundwater), sediment transport, and water quality. SERVIR SEA aims to address improved estimation and predictability of water resources for integrated water management in the Southeast ASIA Region. Key topics include water quantity, including estimations for water allocation; the food-water-energy nexus; and disaster investigations including floods, droughts, and rainfall-induced landslides. SERVIR SEA co-develops tools that empower decision makers to make informed decisions to create and/or implement adaptation strategies.

Weather and Climate

The weather and climate thematic services area spans a continuum of time scales, ranging from short-term prediction of weather, through seasonal forecasts, and to interannual climate scenarios. Integration of these data sets in applications brings the latest science to support the needs of the hub and our end users. SERVIR SEA focuses on building capacity in government ministries to use the latest satellite data to address weather-related needs, as well as to obtain, evaluate, and integrate seasonal and longer-term climate data sets in their decision making. Because weather and climate data sets are generally large, efficient use of internet bandwidth available is crucial, especially with the connectivity challenges in some countries.

Decision Support Tools

These high quality user-tailored decision support tools and applications have been developed to address on-the-ground issues, empowering decision-makers to act locally on climate-sensitive challenges such as disasters, agriculture, water management, ecosystem protection and land use.