In recent decades, Guatemala has been experiencing disasters triggered by geologic and hydro-meteorological hazards that have impacted urban and rural communities. In order to increase the country’s capacity to make use of space-based information to address these hazards, UN-SPIDER, in conjunction with the National Secretariat of the Council of Science and Technology of Guatemala (SENACYT) and the Executive Secretariat of National Coordinating Agency for Disaster Reduction of Guatemala (SE-CONRED) held three-day training for a technical inter-institutional team.
The National Secretariat for Science and Technology of Guatemala (SENACYT) organized a week-long event called CONVERCIENCIA 2017 to showcase the research conducted by Guatemalan researchers living abroad and researchers living in Guatemala. The event, conducted from 24 to 28 July 2017, includes conferences in universities and research centres in Guatemala City, Antigua City, Chiquimula City, and Quetzaltenango City.
El Salvador is exposed to hydro-meteorological and geophysical hazards and has a history of destructive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tropical storms, and droughts. In order to increase the capacity of the inter-institutional technical team headed by the Directorate of Civil Protection of El Salvador (DGPC) on the use remote sensing techniques to generate geospatial information to address these hazards, UN-SPIDER and DGCP conducted a week-long training course.
UN-SPIDER conducted an expert mission to Guatemala from 6 to 11 July 2016 as a way to continue providing technical advisory support to this country. The mission included a meeting with the Executive Director and with staff of Guatemala’s National Coordinating Agency for Disaster Reduction (CONRED) and with representatives of various government organizations as a way to advance with the inter-institutional, technical team that was established by CONRED and other government agencies in 2012.
The International Charter: Space and Major Disasters has been triggered to provide satellite-based emergency maps in response to heavy rains that triggered a massive landslide in the "El Cambray 2" urban settlement in Santa Catarina Pinula, Guatemala. The mechanism was activated on 7 October 2015, at 02:57 (UTC+02:00) by the USGS on behalf of the National Emergency Operations Center of Guatemala.
The Coordination Centre for Natural Disaster Prevention in Central America (CEPREDENAC) in Guatemala launched on 19 November 2012 an online Platform for Information and Communication for Integrated Risk Management: www.info-gir.org. The website offers a range of information and applications that help strengthen mechanisms for coordination and institutional and sectoral communication between the Central American countries.
In recent years Guatemala has been impacted by disasters of various kinds including volcanic eruptions, floods and droughts. In November 2010, UN-SPIDER had conducted a Technical Advisory Mission (TAM) to Guatemala. As a follow-up, this expert mission was carried out to support government institutions in the institutionalization of a technical group focusing on remote sensing applications for disaster risk reduction and emergency response.
The mission aimed at raising awareness of the Directors of various institutions on the benefits of using space-based information on disaster risk and disaster response management. It also addressed the recommendations made during a Technical Advisory Mission (TAM) one year earlier, which included the establishment of an inter-agency group of professionals working in various state institutions on the use of GIS and remote sensing.
The mission included visits to SEGEPLAN, to the National Geographic Institute (IGN), to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the National Coordinating Agency for Disaster Reduction (CONRED) and to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN).
Mission Outcome:
The mission was able to move forward the establishment of an inter-institutional group of professionals from a variety of Government agencies and universities, which will focus its attention on the use of satellite imagery and remote-sensing applications. The Directors of SEGEPLAN and IGN will institutionalize the technical group through a Memorandum of Understanding. The mission also allowed UN-SPIDER to take note of the comments made by the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, who highlighted the importance of remote sensing applications and raised the question concerning how to improve access to space-based information to track vulnerability and to identify ways regarding adaptation to climate change. In addition, the Minister requested UN-SPIDER to explore how the Ministry could interact more effectively with UNOOSA on the topics of environmental management and climate change.
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