PGA GIS Course V: GIS in Disaster Risk Management

Perk Group Africa Explore the world of spatial analysis and cartography with GIS

Target Audience

The course is designed for professionals who require knowledge and skills on the use of GIS and RS in their organization in the field of disaster management. Participants are welcome from a broad range of organizations including physical planning, institutions, professionals, and private GIS and RS related firms.

No GIS experience required. Participants should know how to use Windows-based software for basic file management and browsing, and reasonably proficient in English.

Description

Disaster risk information is spatial in nature and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) play an important role in disaster risk management. Rapid population growth and urbanization combined with extreme climatic events are causing a rapid increase in the vulnerability of communities exposed to hazardous events. Natural disasters inflict severe damage on almost the entire spectrum of social and natural habitats, ranging from housing and shelter, water, food, health, sanitation, and waste management to information and communication networks, a supply of power and energy, and transportation infrastructure.

There is a great need to utilize disaster risk information in planning for effective coping mechanisms of disaster risk reduction. For this, there is a significant need to create awareness among disaster management professionals regarding the importance of GIS and Remote Sensing.

This course is job oriented and aims to impact practical skills on how to use GIS and RS, to overcome the major challenges faced in,pre-disasters during disaster and post-disaster management such as during early warning, hazard, vulnerability, and risk assessment, damage assessment, as well as in the design of risk reduction measures.

Course Outline

  • Introduction to GIS for Disaster Risk Management
  • GIS data sources, data collection, and integration techniques for DRM
  • Hazard, vulnerability, and Risk assessment with GIS and RS (Pre-Disaster)
  • Application of Risk Information for Risk Reduction Planning (Pre-Disaster)
  • Introduction to Early warning systems and Information Networks (Pre-Disaster)
  • Public Participatory GIS and Disaster Risk Management (Pre and Post Disaster)

Learning Objectives

On completion of this course, the participants will be able to:

  • Describe and utilize spatial data, GIS, and remote sensing in disaster risk assessment and management;
  • Utilize existing sources of historical disaster information and elements of at-risk data;
  • Apply GIS/remote sensing in hazard, vulnerability, and risk assessment;
  • Employ risk information in emergency preparedness planning;
  • Visualize hazard and risk information;
  • Apply GIS/remote sensing to post-disaster damage assessment.