UN-SPIDER inaugurates international training course in India

On 9 April 2012 UN-SPIDER inaugurated the international training course “Space technology applications in Disaster Risk Reduction” organised at the Centre for Space Science Technology Education for Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP), the UN affiliated regional centre based in Dehradun, India. The Course will be conducted until 4 May 2012. During the first two days of the course, UN-SPIDER provided a brief overview on relevance of space technology for implementing priorities of Hyogo Framework for Action and addressed the topic related to effective use of space technology for disaster risk reduction.

The course is jointly conducted by the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing of ISRO, UN-SPIDER, UNESCAP and UNU. UN-SPIDER sponsored 5 officials from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Solomon Island. This was the follow-up action after the recent technical advisory missions carried out by the UN-SPIDER in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. A total of 27 participants from 17 countries are participating in the course.

Overall objectives of this course is to strengthen the capacity of participants in understanding how space-based information, services and solutions can be used to reduce disaster risks and losses. The participants will be exposed to relevant space-based geoinformation (remote sensing, GIS, satellite positioning systems) and communication technologies and their synergies with modelling techniques that can be used in different phases of disaster risk reduction (DRR) for a variety of hazards. The course has following modules Module 1: Overview of DRR, Module 2: Overview of space technology in the context of DRR, Module 3 and 4: Application of space technology for DRR and case studies, Module 5: Short project and evaluation of the course.