An event is not the same as an alert
Core event feeds tell you that something happened. GDACS helps tell you whether that something is big enough to matter for disaster coordination, humanitarian impact, or cross-border attention. This difference matters because the world produces many events every day, but only some rise to the level of coordinated international concern.
By keeping GDACS as its own overlay, PlanetSentry preserves that distinction. Users can compare the base event catalog with the alert layer instead of assuming every wildfire, storm, or earthquake carries the same operational weight.
Why this helps journalists and researchers
If you are scanning for stories or conducting situational monitoring, alert context helps prioritize attention. A red or orange GDACS signal gives a faster clue that a hazard may have broader downstream consequences for people, infrastructure, logistics, or civil protection.
That does not replace reading the official source. It simply shortens the path from seeing a marker on the globe to deciding which incidents deserve deeper verification.