Space Technology for Disaster Management

in Sri Lanka:Country profile, national perspectives & vision….

Vice ChancellorUva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka

October 20, 2011

Professor Ranjith Premalal De Silva

Historical background

n Use of space technology prior to 2005

n Academic interest and curiosity

n No collaboration/ coordination

n Poor investments and returns

n Constrained to mandated tasks

n No training opportunities locally

Historical background

n Use of space technology after 2005

n Government patronage

n Establishment of DMC

n Inter-agency collaborations

n Data sharing and exchange

n Academic curricula & setting training agenda

Institution profile

n About 88 institutions in state, commercial, non-profit, NGO, Academia, Development partners

n Initial screening through available expert knowledge base

n 29 institutions chosen for profiling

n 21 institutions participated

n DMC,ICTA, Arthur C.C.C., UNDP not included

Profiling approachn Two sets of questionnaire – person to person and

telephone interviewsn Developed and administered by panelist

Dr. Dhammika Dayawansa – UOPDr. Chitrangani Ratnayake – UWUDr. S. Premachandra – CGRProf. Ranjith Premalal De Silva

Questionnaire

Type of organizationsn Majority of the organizations surveyed are government departments,

authorities, bureaus, etc. Only one INGO and a commercial organization selling GIS, remote sensing and surveying software was involved. There are three universities selected in the sample.

0

2468

10

12141618

S tate E ntities P rivate/

C ommerc ial

NG O /ING O Univers ities

T ype of the org a niz a tion

Nu

mb

er

Mandated tasks

n Data user = 10

n Data users and provider = 11

n Data provider only = 0

Education and training in handling spatial data

Level of education/ training

9%

15%

25%

50%

1%

Undergraduate level

P os tgraduate level

Diploma level

S hort term training

No formal training

99% have received some training

Involvement in training by institutions

For internal staff only

29%

Training for outsiders

18%

No involvement 53%

Institutional Involvement in training related to spatial data

Lack of knowledge sharing initiatives

Availability of core spatial data sets

Type of data Number of organization

n Topographic 9

n Satellite 6

n Air Photos 8

n LiDAR 3

Few have all & some others donot have any

Digital data availability

n Few organizations process special kind of data for their work such as bathymetric data for coastal areas, Colombo city map with all type of roads, special kind of satellite data for meteorological purposes etc.

n The available topographic data sets are relatively old (more than 5 years). Satellite remotely sensed data are available in six organizations and the spatial resolution of these data sets vary according to the use.

Availability of core spatial data sets

Data from following satellite sensors are available

n IRS LISS datan Landsat TM and ETM+n MODIS SeaWiFSn ASTERn QuickBirdn WorldViewn GeoEyen NOAAn SPOTn ALOSn INSATn Meteo 5

Constraints to acquire/ use space data

n Unavailability of software due to high cost

n Lack of trained persons to handle satellite data

n Technological limitations for updating/ maintenance, screen shot pictures

Related info:

n Use of google earth data, google earth pro to downlaod multi-temporal data

Software usagen Use licensed software but number is limited

n ArcGIS is widely used software, available in all institutions. , ARCView, ER Mapper and IDRISI are also used & ERDAS Imagine is the software used in satellite image analysis.

n Special software used by some for special work

n Marine Explorer

n SatAID

n Use of open source software is not common, only one institution has experimented with open source software.

Metadata availability

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

High Low Very low No Not relevant

No

. of

inst

itu

tio

ns

Metadata availability

Institution

Data standards and interoperability

n Data standards are not properly maintained by the institutions which provide spatial data. Only one organization (IWMI) maintains data standards according to ISO 19139 for metadata. They have shifted from Federal Geographic Data Committee - FGDC standards to ISO standards to improve data interoperability.

n Data interoperability is facilitated by the use of same softwarefor data generation (ARCGIS) by almost all the institutions which produce spatial data. One institution mentioned that they are shifting from their present data format to .shp format to improve the data interoperability.

Data sharingn Out of the 21, 13 share data. n No format for data sharing/ policies availablen Majority of the institutions sharing is limited to selling of data n Only one institution (IWMI) has made their data available for

download from the internet through www.waterdataportal.com. n Data sharing is done with the following categories of institutions/

individualsProject collaboratorsStudents/ researchersDevelopment agenciesRelevant stakeholdersInstitutions within the same ministry

Area/ Discipline of Contribution

n Disaster Management n Environmental

conservation and management

n Meteorologyn Climate changen Habitat managementn Land use analysisn Other

Hydrological modeling and network analysisUtility managementDefence activitiesAgricultureBathymetric studiesWave monitoringLow enforcementInstitutional restructuringOperational activities (to demarcate the administrative areas for different officer levels)Health related applicationsSurveying Eco-geographic survey – germplasm explorationYield forecastingAgro-ecological zone mappingLand suitability assessmentRainfall mappingGermplasm distribution mapping

Area/ Discipline of Contribution

02468

10121416

No.

of in

stit

uti

on

s

Subject area

Area of contribution

Disaster Mgt related work

n Weather forecasting

n Flood forecasting and mapping

n Drought assessment

n Monitoring Human/ Elephant conflict

n Costal zone monitoring for coastal hazard prevention

n Forest fire management

Nature of contribution

n Provision of spatial data

n Analysis/ value addition to spatial data

n Provision of technology and services

n Research activities

n Education and training

Data security and copyright issues

n Data is stored in a central database and the access for data is only through a LAN

n Password protection for the computers

n Restrictions of using mobile storage devices on computers

Collaborations

n Out of the 21, 16 institutions have collaborations with other institutions.

n Of these 16, six institutions have collaborations with the Disaster Management Centre.

Constraints to develop collaborationsn Need to get the government approval – takes timen Lack of interest in some organizations for collaborationsn No compatible institutions to develop collaborations (compatibility in

terms of same interest on activities carried out)n Due to some restrictions, some government institutions prefer to

have collaborations with the institutions within the same ministry.

Educational background

Thank You Thank You vc@uwu.ac.lkvc@uwu.ac.lk