Tuesday, May 22 - The United Nations Development Programme for Barbados and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), through its Regional Risk Reductive Initiative (R3i), is hosting a three-day capacity building workshop to train participants in the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for disaster management, land use planning and development.

GIS Officers Kahrim Skelton of the Town and Country Planning Department and Dillon Robin from the Water and Sewerage Department are participating in the workshop which commenced on Monday in the Cayman Islands.

This fourth regional workshop will focus on introducing officials from throughout the Caribbean, including the Virgin Islands, to the field of remote sensing and digital image processing and its importance to disaster risk management. The workshop facilitators will demonstrate approaches, tools and methodologies for extracting and analysing data remotely. It is envisaged that by the end of the training, participating countries will have better national capacity to:

• Understand electromagnetic spectrum, and how it applies to remote sensing;

• Interpret the basic features and characteristics of earth surfaces on satellite imagery; and

• Know how to extract and interpret information from remotely sensed data.

Messers Skelton and Robin will benefit from shared experiences on the initiatives undertaken to improve their disaster preparedness and response, through a knowledge sharing event which takes place on Thursday, 24 May at the Grand Cayman Marriot Beach Resort. The presentations will focus on results achieved so far through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Risk Reduction Initiative (R3I) project and good practices that can be built on. International development partner organisations and experts will also participate, bringing together their knowledge and expertise on disaster management issues.

Since 2009, the Virgin Islands has been involved in discussions and projects under the R3i initiative to reduce the risk and exposure to disasters through intra-regional learning and sharing of tools, knowledge and best practices to enhance capacities to predict and prepare for natural hazards.

The European Union is providing €4.932 million over four years to achieve the project objectives. The project is expected to conclude in December 2012.