Blog / October 13, 2021
On the occasion of this year's International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, which focuses on international cooperation for developing countries to reduce disaster risk and loss, we would like to highlight the emerging development of the EO Risk Toolkit by the GEO Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Working Group in collaboration with the UNDRR flagship initiative Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF) and Esri.
The aim of the Toolkit is to provide DRR users with useful and accessible information on a website with access to open source Earth observation tools and services to fill knowledge gaps on hazards, vulnerabilities and exposures at country level. The target audience are emergency response agencies of national and local governments as well as development and humanitarian actors who can use and benefit from GEO products that are suitable for their work.
The development of the toolkit is closely aligned with UNDRR GRAF and the National Risk Information Portal (NRIP) to help UN partners and pilot countries (including their end users) better collect, access and apply multidimensional risk data and analysis. This includes hazards, vulnerabilities and exposures impacted by climate change, e.g. sea level rise due to climate change increasing the risk of flooding/tsunamis in coastal areas and cities; climate change impacts increasing the risk of hot, dry weather favouring wildfires. By working with the UNDRR GRAF team, GEO aims to share readily available EO tools and services in the pilot countries of GRAF. These are Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and some middle-income countries that are vulnerable to repeated loss and damage, which are climate impacts of extreme events and slow onset processes proceeding the adaptive capacity of countries, communities and ecosystems.
The GEO-DRR working group is planning a side event at GEO Week 2021 to inform and solicit feedback from the GEO community regarding ongoing development efforts, including the development of the Toolkit contents developed by the GEO DRR-WG activities such as use cases based on a few GEO Work Programme activities in GRAF pilot countries. Through the side event, GEO hopes to identify complimenting efforts or more tools and services available or under development to be integrated and featured in the Toolkit. Participation of all relevant stakeholders is highly welcome. Please join us at the side event at 18:00-19:00 CET on Thursday 25 November or 11:00-11:50 CET on Friday 26 November!
Follow us on:
