FOSS4G 2022 general tracks

Visualizing climate risks for disaster reduction and climate resilience programs – Interactive open-source tools for analysts and decision makers to utilize Earth observation data
08-24, 12:00–12:30 (Europe/Rome), Modulo 0

Climate and vegetation indicators created from Earth observation data provide timely information to analysts and decision makers implementing disaster risk reduction and climate risk mitigation programs. The United Nations World Food Programme’s (WFP) Climate and Earth Observation unit (ClEO) works with a number of Earth observation datasets to measure and monitor climate risks across all of the regions where we work, including 90+ countries globally.

The end users of this information include government institutions such as the meteorological and disaster management agencies, implementers of humanitarian assistance programs, as well as WFP field staff working on programs which build climate resilience through the development of community assets and livelihood support.

To enable the creation and dissemination of monitoring indicators, WFP is in the process of deploying an instance of Open Data Cube with nearly global coverage. Leveraging the power of data cubes to measure key climate and vegetation indicators over space and time, WFP’s Open Data Cube instance will provide free and open access to a wide range of analysis-ready data products. Utilization of this data requires user-facing applications with easy to use and intuitive interfaces. One of the tools developed by WFP to provide more direct access to climate and Earth observation data is PRISM – an open-source software solution which greatly simplifies the integration of geospatial data from various systems. PRISM has been developed to easily integrate data from Open Data Cube deployments using OGC standards – providing a quick tool to display time-series raster data in an interactive dashboard.

During this talk, WFP will present a brief overview of the use cases we address with Earth observation data, the role of our Open Data Cube instance in the organization, and the development of tools and processes to disseminate data for visualization using OGC standards – including the PRISM platform.

Amit's career has included 10+ years in WFP's Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping team (VAM, which is now a division at WFP called Research Assessments and Monitoring - RAM) along with several years of software development and enterprise technology deployments in the private sector.