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 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 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 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 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 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 S tate E ntities Private/ C ommercial NGO/ING O Universities Type of the organization
Mandated tasks 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 Postgraduate level Diploma level 50% S hort term training 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 Topographic 9 Satellite 6 Air Photos 8 LiDAR 3 Few have all & some others donot have any
Availability of core spatial data sets 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 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 Lack of trained persons to handle satellite data Technological limitations for updating/ maintenance, screen shot pictures Related info: Use of google earth data, google earth pro to downlaod multi-temporal data Software usage 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 Marine Explorer SatAID Use of open source software is not common, only one institution has experimented with open source software.
Metadata availability 6 5 No. of institutions 4 3 2 1 Institution 0 High Low Very low No Not relevant Metadata availability Data standards and interoperability 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 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 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 Area of contribution No. of institutions 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Subject area Disaster Mgt related work 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 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 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 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 Lack of interest in some organizations for collaborations No compatible institutions to develop collaborations (compatibility in terms of same interest on activities carried out) Due to some restrictions, some government institutions prefer to have collaborations with the institutions within the same ministry. Educational background Thank You vc@uwu.ac.lk