OR/16/006 Conclusions
| Colm J Jordan, Tom Dijkstra and Stephen Grebby. 2016. Risk information services for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) in the Caribbean: mainstreaming opportunities. British Geological Survey Internal Report, OR/16/006. |
This project successfully demonstrates how information derived from EO data can contribute directly to flood and landslide disaster risk management in the Caribbean by providing fundamental geospatial information on land use/land cover, landslides and DEMs. The users appreciated the ability to produce this information from EO data with a higher degree of detail and accuracy than already available, in a more time- and cost-effective manner. Another major strength of the EO approach is the ability to produce consistent information, both historical and in the future (as soon as imagery is acquired). This provides users with the means to undertake various monitoring activities that are not possible or viable using current practices. The main limitations of the EO approaches in the Services were perceived to be the cloud cover and the validation of the EO products. Cloud cover and associated shadows in the imagery made it challenging to achieve complete coverage of the areas of interest during the hurricane season. Although unavoidable here, this issue can be mitigated in the future by either extending the tasking window or planning the acquisition of new imagery around the hurricane season. All the EO products delivered by the Services were validated using conventional practices where possible. However, some users felt that it was necessary to further validate the products through their own additional ground-truthing. This may be partly due to the relative unfamiliarity of these users to EO based products and conventional validation procedures. Accordingly, in future additional interaction with the local users may be required to increase their level of confidence in the reliability of the EO products. Nonetheless, in summary, all users expressed acceptance of the Services, with the delivered EO products appearing to either meet or exceed their expectations.
This project focussed on interaction with stakeholders in the Caribbean, possibly to the detriment of interaction with a wider group of staff (beyond the WB TTL) in the WBG in Washington DC. A list of suggested actions to potentially increase exploitation and additional opportunities in further WB operations, programmes and initiatives were proposed:
- Hold an EO workshop at the WB offices in Washington DC to promote appropriate use of EO-derived products and services to the widest range of WB staff possible;
- Invite organisations such as BGS to contribute to future ESA/WB reviews of EO;
- Promote long term and wider dissemination of the results of initiatives such as eoworld2 and other appropriate ESA and/or WB projects that utilized EO data. This should include projects where EO was used successfully, as well as a review of projects where EO may not have been successful.