In late November, experts will gather in Beijing for the United Nations International Conference on Space-based Technologies for Disaster Risk Management. Shirish Ravan is playing a key role in organizing this upcoming session. He is in charge of the Beijing office of the UN Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER)which is part of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA).
"The recent Japanese tsunami has alerted us to the fact that even the most prepared country can also be heavily impacted. Therefore, we have decided to focus more on space-based information preparedness and the challenges in providing rapid mapping products," said Ravan. "We are in discussions with our regional support office, the Asian Disaster Reduction Centre, to plan a joint workshop in order to share the lessons learned by Japan in terms of preparing and distributing various information products quickly. We hope this will be useful for all Asian countries that are exposed to the risk of tsunamis and earthquakes."
Ravan hails from India's Maharashtra State, and after he earned his Masters degree in Environmental Sciences, he completed his Doctorate
at ISRO's Institute of Remote Sensing. Prior to arriving in Beijing, Ravan coordinated the UN opium monitoring project in Afghanistan, a job that involved oversight of massive amounts of remote sensing data.
The UN-SPIDER Beijing office is a global office which is attempting to promote and vastly increase the use of space-based information in disaster
management throughout Asia. Besides Ravan, the Government of China has assigned two experienced operational staff to this small office, and one other staff member handles program support.
Because Asia and the Pacific region are so prone to all kinds of disaster -related risks, and because many countries in the region have limited access to space-based information - or no space capabilities whatsoever - with the exception of China, India, Japan, Korea and Thailand, all efforts to enhance the use of satellite technology in this regard are important.
"Due to this peculiar nature of this region, there are many initiatives for disaster reduction and emergency response by the UN and other organizations. Our presence in the region allows us to collaborate well with these organizations," said Ravan. "Institutions in China
possess excellent capabilities in using space technology for disaster
management and they are ready to offer their services to developing
countries. UN-SPIDER is building partnership with these institutions
to roll out these benefits to our member states."
The UN-SPIDER's major initiatives in Asia and other regions are well-funded. These include various technical advisory missions.
"We will go to a country upon their invitation. Typically, these are 5 days missions where our expert group visits the country under UN-SPIDER leadership. We meet heads of all stakeholder organizations involved in disaster management and look into issues related to disaster management plans, policies, data, coordination, institutional arrangements etc," said Ravan. "We conduct one-day workshops involving all stakeholders. The host government can then act on the recommendations provided by the mission experts to boost disaster management efforts involving space technology."
Recent missions visited Bangladesh, and Sudan (part of a Horn of Africa initiative)- and one to Sri Lanka is planned. A partnership developed with National Disaster Reduction Centre of China (NDRCC) is yielding positive results.
"We are also working closely with the Centre for Space Science Technology for Asia and the Pacific which is based in Dehrdaun,India. This is one of the five regional centres affiliated with the UN for capacity building in space technology. We have planned a one-month course (9 April to 4 May 2012) on Space Technology Applications in Disaster Risk Reduction. The course is designed based on the needs we identified through our technical advisory missions," said Ravan.
UN-SPIDER will sponsor officers from the countries that are working
closely with UN-SPIDER to attend this course. Many more such capacity
building programme will be planned with different partners in the
region. Ravan and his team are expecting 200 disaster risk management and
space-technology experts to participate in the upcoming session in Beijing.
More information on the United Nations International Conference on
Space-based Technologies for Disaster Risk Management -
“Best Practices for Risk Reduction and Rapid Response Mapping” is available at -
http://www.un-spider.org/conference-beijing-2011
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