Thursday, August 1, 2013

UN-SPIDER goes to Beijing

The United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) has announced that its 2013 international conference is holding in the city of Beijing, China in October, to deliberate on "Disaster risk identification and response."

DigitalSENSE Business News gathered that the International Conference on Space-based Technologies for Disaster Management would hold between 23 and 25 October 2013, just as the international training programme “Flood Risk Mapping, Modelling and Assessment using Space technologywill be organised for 25 participants during the conference.

The UN-SPIDER Beijing office noted it has organised two successful conferences in the past two years, which offered a forum for disaster management communities and experts to strengthen their capabilities in using space based information to identify, assess, monitor and respond to disaster risks and integrate space technology into long-term disaster risk management efforts.

 

According to UN-SPIDER, the rationale is that despite technological advances in the earth observation and the existence of ground-based systems for disaster prediction and monitoring, several countries face challenges to assess and reduce disaster risks. They noted that these challenges could be addressed by setting up a mechanism for identifying, assessing, monitoring and responding to disaster risks.


“With advances in the earth observation technology and increasing access to the space based information, several opportunities are available for disaster managers to use space technology effectively for disaster management. The conference is an opportunity to share information on latest methods, approaches and models used for identifying, assessing and reducing disaster risks,” the official statement made available to DigitalSENSE Business News read.


Also, the conference is expected to focus on how to operationalize technological developments to address challenges at the national level by the national disaster management authorities.



“The sole purpose of this conference is to bring together the technologists and end users on a single platform to ensure that space-based information is effectively employed in decision making that saves life and prevents economic losses.” UN said.



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