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NPA supports the relief effort with Expertise. NPA expert Nicola Capes has returned from Sri Lanka where she has been working with MapAction providing GIS and MAPPING services and advice to NGO's on the ground. MapAction have circulated their maps to a range of NGO's and also to UN officials including Kofi Annan and his team on their visit to the MapAction HQ in Sri Lanka. Nicola's First hand account. I returned last week from helping with the relief operation in Sri Lanka with MapAction, a charity I have trained with for the past two years. What follows is a summary of our activites. Immediately following the tsunami disaster, an eleven-person team of trained and skilled volunteers from the charity MapAction deployed to Sri Lanka, arriving in the early hours of December 28th. Our role was to provide help for the Government of Sri Lanka and the international aid agencies in supporting the logistical organisation of the humanitarian operations, with real time mapping of the area affected and it's population. I formed part of the second team to deploy to relieve some of the initial team members. MapAction is a humanitarian aid organisation dedicated to assisting the relief operations of NGO's in times of natural disaster with the provision of maps. Ideally we would incorporate satellite images but, in this instance, it was largely vector maps based on GPS data and statistical information that were produced in real time. Field information gathered by MapAction teams using GPS is integrated to the GIS to create quality maps, which clearly show Government agencies, UN, and NGOs operating in the area, where the problems lie, what relief aid is needed and how to get it there. We produced maps showing information on displaced people, damage to buildings, bridges down, road and rail disruption also where new overland routes could be found, food depots established and field hospitals built. MapAction operated out of the Government of Sri Lanka's Presidential Secretariat alongside local Government teams and aid agencies. Daily briefings were held and on request, MapAction developed, updated and distributed high grade maps, electronically and in print. We still have two of our team in Sri Lanka as they are handing over to the Sri Lankan National Survey Department. We have left them with several computers and trained some of their members in GPS acquisition and map generation so that the new techniques we have developed will remain. This has been surprisingly successful and met with great enthusiasm. Despite the horrific circumstances, it was a great honour for me to be part of such a worthwhile and necessary dimension of the relief operation. I saw a lot of sights that I could have quite happily gone through my life without seeing while collecting GPS field data but while exhausting and distressing, it was so rewarding that our work was so immensely appreciated by all involved in the relief effort who found themselves using our maps. If you're interested in MapAction, check out our website: www.mapaction.org I'd like to thank NPA and Ren for the support they've given myself and MapAction over the last couple of weeks. Nicola Capes
Some example MapAction Maps
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