Historical background Space Technology for Disaster Management in Sri Lanka:

Space Technology for Disaster Management
in Sri Lanka:
Country profile, national perspectives &
vision….
Professor Ranjith Premalal De Silva
Vice Chancellor
Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
October 20, 2011
Historical background
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Use of space technology prior to 2005
Academic interest and curiosity
No collaboration/ coordination
Poor investments and returns
Constrained to mandated tasks
No training opportunities locally
Historical background
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Use of space technology after 2005
Government patronage
Establishment of DMC
Inter-agency collaborations
Data sharing and exchange
Academic curricula & setting training agenda
Institution profile
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About 88 institutions in state, commercial, nonprofit, NGO, Academia, Development partners
Initial screening through available expert
knowledge base
29 institutions chosen for profiling
21 institutions participated
DMC,ICTA, Arthur C.C.C., UNDP not included
Profiling approach
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Two sets of questionnaire – person to person and
telephone interviews
Developed and administered by panelist
Dr. Dhammika Dayawansa – UOP
Dr. Chitrangani Ratnayake – UWU
Dr. S. Premachandra – CGR
Prof. Ranjith Premalal De Silva
Questionnaire
Type of organizations
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.
Num ber
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18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
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S tate E ntities
P rivate/
C ommerc ial
NG O /ING O
T ype of the org a niz a tion
Univers ities
Mandated tasks
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Data user = 10
Data users and provider = 11
Data provider only = 0
Education and training in handling spatial
data
Level of education/ training
1%
9%
15%
Undergraduate level
P os tgraduate level
Diploma level
S hort term training
50%
No formal training
25%
99% have received some training
Involvement in training by institutions
Institutional Involvement in training related to
spatial data
No involvement
53%
For internal
staff only
29%
Training for
outsiders
18%
Lack of knowledge sharing initiatives
Availability of core spatial data sets
Digital data availability
Type of data Number of organization
n Topographic
9
6
n Satellite
n Air Photos
8
3
n LiDAR
Few have all & some others donot have any
Availability of core spatial data sets
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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.
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.
Data from following satellite sensors are
available
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IRS LISS data
Landsat TM and ETM+
MODIS SeaWiFS
ASTER
QuickBird
WorldView
GeoEye
NOAA
SPOT
ALOS
INSAT
Meteo 5
Constraints to acquire/ use space data
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
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Software usage
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Use licensed software but number is limited
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.
Special software used by some for special work
n Marine Explorer
n SatAID
Use of open source software is not common, only one
institution has experimented with open source
software.
Metadata availability
6
No. of institutions
5
4
3
Institution
2
1
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High
Low
Very low
No
Not relevant
Metadata availability
Data standards and interoperability
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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.
Data interoperability is facilitated by the use of same software
for 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 sharing
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Out of the 21, 13 share data.
No format for data sharing/ policies available
Majority of the institutions sharing is limited to selling of data
Only one institution (IWMI) has made their data available for
download from the internet through www.waterdataportal.com.
Data sharing is done with the following categories of institutions/
individuals
Project collaborators
Students/ researchers
Development agencies
Relevant stakeholders
Institutions within the same ministry
Area/ Discipline of Contribution
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Disaster Management
Environmental
conservation and
management
Meteorology
Climate change
Habitat management
Land use analysis
Other
Hydrological modeling and network analysis
Utility management
Defence activities
Agriculture
Bathymetric studies
Wave monitoring
Low enforcement
Institutional restructuring
Operational activities (to demarcate the
administrative areas for different officer levels)
Health related applications
Surveying
Eco-geographic survey – germplasm exploration
Yield forecasting
Agro-ecological zone mapping
Land suitability assessment
Rainfall mapping
Germplasm distribution mapping
Area/ Discipline of Contribution
No. of institutions
Area of contribution
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
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Subject area
Disaster Mgt related work
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Weather forecasting
Flood forecasting and mapping
Drought assessment
Monitoring Human/ Elephant conflict
Costal zone monitoring for coastal hazard
prevention
Forest fire management
Nature of contribution
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Provision of spatial data
Analysis/ value addition to spatial data
Provision of technology and services
Research activities
Education and training
Data security and copyright issues
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Data is stored in a central database and the access for
data is only through a LAN
Password protection for the computers
Restrictions of using mobile storage devices on
computers
Collaborations
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Out of the 21, 16 institutions have collaborations with other
institutions.
Of these 16, six institutions have collaborations with the Disaster
Management Centre.
Constraints to develop collaborations
Need to get the government approval – takes time
n Lack of interest in some organizations for collaborations
n 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.
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Educational background
Thank You
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