The National Emergency Commission of the Dominican Republic (NEC) and the UN-SPIDER Programme are organising a training course in Santo Domingo to increase the knowledge and skills of 27 professionals from 15 Ministries, Government organizations and universities on the generation of space-based information focusing on floods. The course is conducted in the premises of the NEC from 13 to 17 May 2013 and contributes to the official establishment of the Inter-Institutional Team on Geo-Spatial Information for Disaster-Risk Management and Emergency Response (EIGEO) which is being implemented by the NEC as a way to enhance the use of space-based information in efforts including disaster risk management, preparedness and emergency response in case of floods. The EIGEO will contribute to the conduction of tasks contemplated in the National Disaster-Risk Management Plan as well as response efforts in case of disasters through the National Emergency Operations Centre.
Experts from the UN-SPIDER Regional Support Offices in Colombia (IGAC) and Panama (CATHALAC) and from the UN-SPIDER Programme are covering themes such as the access to free data and data products related to flooding; pre-processing and processing of optical and micro-wave (Radar) imagery in case of floods; digital elevation models and their use in case of floods and other relatedapplications. A follow-up trainingcourse focussing on radar data will be conducted by CONAE from Argentina in its role as a UN-SPIDER Regional Support Office.
Mr. Xavier Rodriguez, Coordinator of EIGEO, states that the training course will enhance the links between this team and UN-SPIDER and its Regional Support Offices. In addition, the team will improve the way in which government organizations work together to generate geo-spatial information to reduce the effects of flood and other hazards.
The course was officially inaugurated on Monday 13 May 2013 in the facilities of the NEC by the President of the National Emergency Commission and Executive Director of the Civil Defense, Mr. Luis Antonio Luna Paulino; Ambassador Venecia Alvarez de Vanderhorst from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mr. Juan Carlos Villagran de Leon representing the UN-SPIDER Programme.
The agenda of the training and training material are available on the Knowledge Portal: http://www.un-spider.org/advisory-support/advisory-missions/dominican-republic-2013-training
