Higher Resolution SRTM Data & Flood Modelling Workshop: South Africa

This capacity-building workshop on flood modeling was organized by the Working Group on Capacity Building and Data Democracy (WGCapD) of the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) and hosted by the South African National Space Agency (SANSA).  It was implemented with the support of the following organizations: Group on Earth Observations (GEO), Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE, Brazil), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, USA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, USA), Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), Regional Visualization and Monitoring System (SERVIR) Secure World Foundation (SWF), U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS, USA). 

The workshop supports the objectives of, and is coordinated with, GEO and the EOPOWER project of the European Commission to further develop the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and the capacity to use Earth observation data for development.

Background

In 2014, the White House, Government of the United States, announced the release of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission 30 meter resolution global dataset, also known as SRTM-2. This is the highest quality digital elevation model (DEM) now publicly available. Among its many uses, the higher resolution data enables more accurate modeling of floods, coastal storm surges, mudslides, and volcanic lahar flows.

Following the announcement, the WGCapD set out to make 30m SRTM-2 data available to countries that need it through regionally focused workshops, hosted by respected institutions with expertise in DEMs. The workshops are being organized to help practitioners incorporate SRTM-2 data into their existing processes and projects, teaching them how to actively use 30m DEMs.

This was the this first WGCapD-organized SRTM-2 workshop of 2015, which targeted disaster management practitioners in the southern Africa region, with a particular emphasis on the TerraHidro and CREST flood models. The second SRTM-2 workshop of 2015 will take place in Mexico on May 24 - 29, 2015. Additional information is available here. 

Event Materials

• Workshop Report

 If you have any questions about this event, please contact SWF Project Manager Laura Delgado López.