CSSTE, one of the twelve consortia under the GMES and Africa program is creating a data repository that will include historical and real-time data for individual, company and government use across West Africa.
The CSSTE program is called Multi-scale Flood Monitoring and Assessment Services for West Africa (MiFMASS) and has seven partners from five West African countries working on it. The partners are across Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Cote D’Ivoire.
The MIFMASS project will develop a flood monitoring and forecasting system for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The Consortium has identified the recurring and noticeable gap in the availability of data on flood disasters and has developed an Updatable Flood Event Database.
According to CSSTI, “The Updatable Flood Event Database developed under MIFMASS is one of the Products and Services to be provided by the Consortium to enable mitigation of effects of flood disasters as well as enhance the capacity of DMOs in fulfilling their mandates using Earth Observation data”.
“Therefore, the existence of a record database that captures the quantitative and qualitative extent of a flood event is a great tool for Disaster Management Organizations (DMOs), governments and international organizations in providing impactful support to affected areas in the event of a disaster. The records could range from the geographical location, the type of disaster (e.g., riverine or flash flood), casualties and the damage in physical and economic terms”.
“This database can aid in the identification of hotspots and (the) implementation of targeted interventions across the countries of interest. It can also assist in developing flood vulnerability maps using spatial layers of factors that may contribute to the occurrence of floods. This product will be handed over to the National DMOs across West Africa by the end of the GMES & Africa programme to ensure sustainability”.
The database is currently undergoing assessment and will soon be available for public use.
The GMES & Africa is an action plan initiated for long-term structured dialogue between Africa and Europe on EO systems to respond to global needs, to manage the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security by providing information to policymakers, scientists, businesses and the public on a real-time basis. GMES & Africa will promote the development of local capacities, institutional, human and technical resources for access to and exploitation of EO-based services on an operational basis for sustainable development in Africa.
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