Sri Lanka - Institutional Strengthening Mission

Following a technical advisory mission in 2011, UN-SPIDER organized training in space technology for improving hazard mapping in Sri Lanka from 15 to 18 August 2012 in cooperation with the Disaster Management Centre of Sri Lanka and with the support of the Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Sri Lanka and NDRCC.

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Sri Lanka Disaster Management Centre (DMC)

The course was conducted by invited experts from some 10 international organizations: UNDP Sri Lanka; UN-SPIDER; ESCAP; the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok; the Institute of Remote Sensing Applications of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Jena Instrument, Russian Federation; the Ministry of Land and Land Development of Sri Lanka; the National University of Singapore; NDRCC; and the Tropical Marine Science Institute. The training course was attended by 25 participants involved in disaster management and hazard mapping in key Sri Lankan services and authorities. During the course, experts conducted sessions on the current state of use of space-based information for disaster management in Sri Lanka; regional cooperation for disaster reduction management and disaster reduction strategy; the Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) digital evaluation model and its applications; flood hazard mapping and training in GIS, metadata, GeoNetwork and water data portals; and coastal hazard mapping, coastal zone management and integrated shoreline management planning. In addition, NDRCC donated to the Disaster Management Centre of Sri Lanka an image covering Sri Lanka and licence-free image-processing software to be used for hazard and natural resource mapping.