Observing the Caribbean from the top
Enhancing disaster response and community resilience through hands-on assignments in St. Lucia and Dominica
Satellites fly past our globe every day, every hour. The amount of information they collect is incredible, but how can one apply this in their daily work? Cambisol, together with UNIPD and WUR, prepared relevant use cases together with 40 participants in the Caribbean region, giving them hands-on instructions how to utilize Earth Observation data. Tailored trainings, co-designed by the participants themselves.
In the past months we have developed and given a training program of 5 days on the Earth Observation Fundamentals, meaning: using remotely sensed information like satellite and drone data. The training programme was initiated by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) that runs 2022-2025.
“With the right tools and available data, a lot can be done remotely, and in an effective manner!”
Anonymous Training participant from St. Lucia
The training is given in St. Lucia and Dominica in the Caribbean region to GIS experts of various governmental agencies and departments, as also published on the national news.
To make the classes manageable, limited spots available for St. Lucia and Dominica. The various organisations on the island could nominate participants, which in the end led to a final list of participants who were invited to the trainings. And eager they were!
The group of participants cover a wide range of organisations like the Water and Sewage Company (WASCO), National Integrated Planning and Programme (NIPP) Unit, and the Ministries of Physical Planning, Agriculture (including the division of forestry), the statistics division, Agricultural Engineering Services Division, and the St. Lucia Fire Brigade Service. Imagine the diversity of participants and their professions, all dedicated to learn more about using EO data in their work.
In creating the assignments for the participants, the consultants from Cambisol, UNIPD and WUR have intensively checked in with the participants, the various organisations, and the responsible people from the World Bank Group. Through stakeholder discussions and questionnaires the existing knowledge was mapped, and room to grow was defined. This has led to five concrete, hands-on assignments that will help the participants to use in their daily work, and to solve the challenges they face. This means the training programme is based on a directional learning, giving the participants the room to steer the assignment in such a way it increases their learning.
The five use cases that were covered are (text continues below):
Use Case 1: The World in 3D
Often data is gathered from satellite or plane but is complicated to process, to visualize or to analyse. This first use case is about moving from raw LiDAR data to 3D point clouds and to the classification of the point clouds until developing a Data Elevation Model (DEM). It forms the basis of understanding Earth Observation data and how to handle these. The participants analysed a prepared dataset in Cloudcompare and visualized it in QGIS to understand how you can classify land use types from raw data.
Use Case 2: Floods come and go
Rain water on the islands comes in massive amounts and goes very quickly, leaving a devastating effect on infrastructure, housing and environment. Where does the water come from, and where does it flow to? In this use case, the participant learns to use an elevation model (DEM), transform it into a water flow map and to come up with action points.
“The discipline of the training is complex, but what I like is how the trainers are able to provide the training to the participants with ease, making it really enjoyable for them and allowing us the opportunity to follow this training”
Andrina Abraham – World Bank Group
Use Case 3: Impact of land use changes
This use case was brought up by some of the divisions who wanted to learn to analyse land use change over time, especially in the urban context. The assignment shows them how to use EO data for the spatial planning and the analysis of Land Use and Land Cover change (LULC).
Use Case 4: Danger: Hurricane Season
If a hurricane arrives, organisations need to take swift action. Open Street Mapping helps a lot with that, but automizing this can help a lot. In this use case, we put ourselves in the position of the control room after a hurricane, trying to quickly map Disaster and Hazard Risk and Response. Other potential risks are flooding or sea level rise.
Use Case 5: Monitoring the tropical rain forests
As a last concrete example, the participants learn to map and monitor resources on their island, as for example the precious forests St. Lucia and Dominica have. How can these forests be mapped and monitored over time, protecting them against invasive species, logging or landslides?
Giant mood board with results
As a result of the training program, all participants were adding their findings, worries and ideas to a giant mood board using the tool Miro, leading to an inspiring overview of action. During the training days, participants could ask questions, share their thoughts, which was moderated continuously by merging ideas and visualizing them in an appealing way.
Even though the training program consisted of multiple prepared assignments, the focus was on adjusting the training content to the daily work of the participant. Significant time was reserved for discussing: So what does this mean to you? How could you apply this in your own work? What would be challenges, and how could you tackle these?
“I see this training as being very useful for us. Using the training, we can advise farmers better and we can advise with the development of roads to prevent excess drainage. It is a very good training and I hope we have plenty more”
Joel Ramine – Ministry of Agriculture
Like with other projects in which we develop training material, manuals or guidelines, like for example in Suriname and Chad, the results are published on the Open Source training platform Restoring.earth, powered by Cambisol. The participants also received an official Restoring.earth certificate for completing the intensive course, as can be seen in the group picture. In addition, the training materials are published on Github.
Even though the training program is complete and has been implemented by all participants successfully, making Earth Observation data really work requires a tailor made approach: Restoring.Earth gives the opportunity to work towards a tailored training programme, and the team is happy to help.
(last update: December 2024)