2022 Conference Resources

This presentation examines how an open-source geospatial platform has the potential to improve the analysis, visualization and collection of gender-related information and approaches in supporting agricultural and climate-related policy in the Pacific. The incorporation of gender into a Pacific geospatial project is examined, with a focus on our ACIAR funded project titled Climate-smart landscapes for promoting sustainability of Pacific Island agricultural systems. In recent decades there has been increased recognition of the importance of gender in public policy initiatives related to environmental management, disaster risk reduction and climate change resilience. While geospatial technologies have increasingly contributed to these initiatives, the potential role that gender considerations can play in the design and implementation of geospatial applications is to date limited. Despite growing recognition of the power of spatial analysis in contributing to development programs, there needs to be greater focus on the potential support of GIS for mapping gender inequalities and incorporating gendered knowledge in development programs within the Pacific region. Alongside the numerous other gender mainstreaming approaches, geospatial data, spatial methods and software applications can contribute to decisions that address gender inequality for improved sustainable development.

Keywords: gender, GIS, geospatial technologies, Pacific, Climate-smart, landscapes, agriculture, climate change, environmental management, ICT4D, mapping, disaster risk, policy.

In this session, Ueakeia Martin Tofinga, founder and former Chairperson of the Kiribati Women in Mapping will share the story of a women-led non-government organization, the Kiribati Women in Mapping, and their journey with Open Mapping Hub – Asia Pacific to help promote the importance of mapping, open street mapping while empowering women in local communities to get involve in mapping.

CartoMobil’ite (carto.mobilite.xyz), a collaborative map for active and inclusive mobility originally set up for Tahiti and Moorea, in French Polynesia, is now available worldwide. 100 % based on OpenData and OpenSource, this map was set with and for disabled people, and handles mapping place accessibility and obstacles. Easily adaptable to local contexts this presentation aims at empowering other communities to seize the tool.
On top of that, Violaine will present how this tool is used by the local urbanism agency.

The challenge to keep mentally and physically fit during the Melbourne COVID-19 lockdown was difficult with Melbournians permitted to just one hour of recreation within five kilometres of their home. Thus #AllOf5Km commenced and I will take you through the history and tools and how OSM data eventually was the winner and how you can leverage Wandrer.Earth for you local community mapping.

I’ll describe the current state of data compatibility between open source and ESRI software, and describe the various success stories and remaining pain points for mixed ESRI/opensource environments.

Our GIS ecosystems work in both the open source and ESRI habitats. Each brings tools that are chosen based upon operational, financial or personal reasons. Let’s look at the data compatibility offerings between the two and examine what needs to be developed in the future.

A powerful eruption within the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH) volcano (20.64°S, 175.19°W) in the Kingdom of Tonga, occurred on 15 January 2022. The volcanic blast was enormous, leading many scientists to investigate the full impact and magnitude of this event via satellite observations. In this study, we describe a new ocean color signature from a discolored water patch created by the HTHH eruption using NASA and CMEMS products of satellite-derived biological and optical properties. Elevated surface chlorophyll-a concentration (Chl-a) between 0.15 to 2.7 mg.m-3 was not associated with phytoplankton growth, but to basalt-andesitic ash material expelled by the volcano and into the ocean, which resulted in erroneous Chl-a estimates. Distribution of the patch over time was aligned with CMEMS ocean currents for 19 days. The gradual decrease of light attenuation or diffuse attenuation coefficient for downward irradiance at 490 nm, Kd(490), was interpreted as due to the sinking of ash particles with time. It is suggested that due to high porosity of 30-40%, a density close to that of seawater, ash particles stay suspended in the water column for more than 10 days with sustained high values in Chl-a, Kd(490), and particulate backscattering coefficient at 443 nm. The high attenuation of light due to ash, reducing the attenuation depth to less than 10 meters during the first period after the eruption may have had implications on ecological processes and biogeochemical cycles in Tongan waters.

The present work focuses on biological and optical properties extracted by Sea Data Analysis Software (SeaDAS) applied to a time series of NASA satellite images acquired pre- and post-eruption (15 January – 2 February 2022). Importantly, the study aims at explaining the apparently high Chl-a concentrations occurring post-eruption. We hypothesize that the origin of the material expelled by the volcano and the elevated chlorophyll concentrations are related to the ash itself deposited in the upper ocean and, consequently, is the result of an erroneous calculation due to a specific optical signature confounded with the Chl-a signature. We further discuss the influence of ocean currents on dispersal patterns of the ash patch and of the gradual decrease of the attenuation signal, which is interpreted as due to the sinking of particles with time.

Synthetic Aperture Radar, or SAR, is rapidly becoming a go-to method for remote observation. The use of SAR is advantageous over other remote sensing methods, such as optical data, for several reasons. Some of the most cited are the ability to see through cloud cover and smoke, and the fact that SAR may image an area regardless of illumination conditions, so it may be used both day and night. One other key benefit is increased rate of revisit as more and more SAR sensor continue to be launched. In addition to these, SAR scenes may also cover very large areas – some are over 200 km across. SAR Imagery is therefore extremely versatile and may be used across a wide variety of applications – anything from hazard monitoring and disaster response (such as fire and flood), oceanographic monitoring for oil spills or ship detection, agricultural monitoring, change detection, subsidence, and displacement mapping through to estimation of forest biomass/carbon.
This presentation will discuss how one can make an operational use of SAR Imaging for managing natural hazards that are caused by geo-physical or climatic events, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts, storm events such as cyclones, and fire that threaten people’s lives or property. The presentation will demystify some of the jargons used in SAR Image Analysis and discuss how Geospatial Analysts can exploit the benefits that SAR imagery provides.

In Bhutan, more than 70% of the population and infrastructures are located along the main river basins, making them particularly exposed to floods and landslides caused by more frequent extreme weather events.
Geoneon, in partnership with Terranum and the Department of Disaster Management (Bhutan), implemented a solution for the Climate Innovation Challenge (CIC) of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) to assess the vulnerability of infrastructures to slope instabilities and floods in Bhutan to support the development of strategies for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
The aim of the solution is to identify hot spots where critical infrastructures are the most vulnerable to climatic disaster, so to support decision-makers to develop appropriate mitigation and monitoring measures to reduce the number of affected people, direct economic loss, damage to critical infrastructure, and disruption of critical services to the community.
This pilot delivered, for both Phuentsholing – Pasakha and Gelephu watersheds in Bhutan – about 400km2 –, the following outputs, which achieved the agreed scope of work:
• Very-high resolution and multi-band satellite data covering the pilot area of interest.
• An infrastructure model based on replacement value metric.
• An inventory of existing sudden shallow landslides or other erosional processes, and of permanent large deep-seated slow-moving earth- and rock- slides.
• Rockfall, debris flow, large torrent, and flood susceptibility maps.
• A vulnerability model of buildings, roads, and power lines to rockfall, debris flow, and flood at a grid resolution of 30-by-30 meters.
• Recommendations about mitigation measures.
In addition, a webpage (ADPC (geoneon.com)) containing web-maps of all the results of the pilot was prepared and made available online, so to improve the communication of the results. The web-maps presenting the different hazard susceptibility and vulnerability are a valuable resource for the Department of Disaster Management to promote awareness and communicate with local governments about disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. Especially in areas where limited information is available.
The pilot has demonstrated that it is possible to have a methodology using mainly satellite data and advanced algorithms, including machine learning, as a fast and scalable way to identify infrastructure vulnerability hotspots. Therefore, the solution is highly scalable, fast, and can be applied anywhere in the world.

The Southwest Tropical Pacific oceanic waters are mostly blue. Still, these large ocean areas are subject to phytoplankton blooms, developing within archipelagos, sometimes in connection with lagoons surrounding islands. Results of studies for discriminating phytoplankton species in the ocean or validating regional algorithms for chlorophyll in enclosed lagoons will be shown. Perspectives will be given for future ocean color works at all scales as an aid for surveying coastal areas and lagoons of Pacific Islands States, from a climate change standpoint

While coal mining in Australia and most other industrial nations in the world is phasing out in the next few decades, the mining industry must face the current and near future effects of climate change and its impacts on mine operations regardless of their current state in the life-of-mine cycle. Increasing rainfall variability in current climate models and the resulting effects on soil erosion volumes are directly affecting a variety of operational considerations, such as (1) sediment basin design as part of the water management plan on site, (2) ongoing rehabilitation with reestablishment of vegetation cover of previously stripped landscapes, and (3) landform stability as part of the mine closure requirements. Most erosion models provide estimates of annual soil loss and are suitable for short-term assessment of the erosion performance of landforms integrating biophysical data such as soil properties, vegetation cover, topography and rainfall variability and are suitable to provide guidance in operational decisions concerning (1) and (2). The GIS-based Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) provides annual soil loss estimates on an empirical basis and requires a manageable amount of input data that can be directly measured or derived from regional/national databases and/or spatial datasets for most parts of the world. Detailed assessment of soil erosion within mining operations, however, requires some data with spatially high resolution of a few meters especially for topography and vegetation cover to capture the complexity of mine operations. These datasets are regularly acquired by mine operators using aerial surveys and can be integrated with regional dataset to derive a pixel-based, high-resolution annual erosion estimate. In this study we demonstrate the data integration of such a model at mine site scale with a catchment model under consideration of operational domains, and its implications for the design of sediment control structures and performance of rehabilitation efforts.

The IHO S-121 data interchange standard enables an open, international, coordinate-based, representation of maritime boundaries and their associated rights, restrictions, and responsibilities (RRRs) that are authoritative and easy to interpret. The standard has been published by the IHO and is currently informing the development of ISO 19152 Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) — Part 3: Marine Georegulation.
This presentation will provide an overview of how the S-121 and 19152-3 standards have been developed and where Georegulation is going next.

The Shire of Dundas , the Freight and Logistics Council of WA, and Geoneon are partnering on a proof of concept project to assess the exposure and vulnerability of the supply chains to wildfire in the Southern Goldfields region in Western Australia.
The pilot project uses state of the art techniques using machine learning on earth observation data combined with freight flow analysis to evaluate the vulnerability of key supply chain infrastructure to wildfire in the Goldfields region.
The objective of the pilot project is to develop a new approach to identify points of failure in supply chain at the community, local government, and state levels.

Digital platform, datacubes and cloud computing technologies are changing our approach to monitor our environment. This presentation will focuses on these new possibilities applied to the early detection of changes linked with urban uncontrolled growth in the Pacific Islands.

Squats or unregulated settlements are made from recycled materials where settle thousands of inhabitants around the city of Nouméa, New Caledonia. In addition to health and security concerns, unregulated settlements are prone to damages during cyclone and deliver deadly projectiles in high winds. Furthermore, the increase in drought during the dry season leaded the last years in serious water supply problems.
Relocating long-established populations is always a challenge. The solution proposed is to detect early installation in order to propose alternatives solutions to population before they settle.

Disaster risk management associated with increasing climatic stressors are often a central and streamlined area for policies and programs in Pacific Island Countries (PICs). Estimates of average annual direct loss caused by natural disasters have reached US$1.07 billion across all Pacific Small Island Developing States (UNESCAP, 2020). Across PICs, there is a high level of exposure to both seismic and climate-related hazards.

This study documents the results from field data collected from over 10,000 assets across both Tonga and Vanuatu, and possibly Solomon Islands. These fields include the GPS point, description of the building, use and sub-use occupancy class, foundation, bracing, structure, wall, window and roof types, materials and conditions, minimum and maximum floor height above ground, year of construction, number of storeys and understoreys and utilities. Capturing these standardized datasets allows for a general understanding of the exposure to a range of hazards.

In this presentation we will share analyses of the results of the exposure data collected across these PICs. The presentation will also touch on the opportunities that exist in the region to build upon this work. These insights can support an evidence base built on field data inputs for more accurate policy decision-making processes

An overview of the benefits distributed version control offers geospatial data. We are all aware that geospatial is a powerful tool to inform decision-makers, especially in the context of climate change, but is our data stored and managed appropriately given the gravity of these decisions? We will discuss how introducing common practices from the software development community might prevent some industry embarrassment in 10-20 years.

French Polynesia is the largest EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) of France (5 millions of sqkm) in the middle of the South Pacific, in one of the most preserved and sanctuary areas in the world. The government of French Polynesia therefore has the strong will to ensure its development through the blue economy and the preservation of its natural and cultural resources.
In line with the action carried out by the European Union since the adoption in 2007 of the Maritime Integration Policy, French Polynesia aims to acquire a Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) in order to bring together all users of the oceanic and lagoon areas in order to guide public action and coordinate the sustainable use of marine resources.
French Polynesia must overcome the following challenges:
• Protect a unique and still preserved maritime area
• Plan the use of maritime areas by anticipating usage conflicts
• Enable economic development
The TAHATAI project can be summed up in the following credo: See the Past, Present and Future by using the best available, organized and shared data in order to create the necessary corpus of knowledge for effective, accepted marine spatial planning and sustainable.
Concretely, the objectives to be achieved by the TAHATAI project are broken down into four axes: Alert, Manage, Plan, and Collaborate regionally.
The TAHATAI project approach is based on the interoperability and capabilities of new web and cloud technologies in order to bring together all the data and information necessary for marine spatial planning.
The increased responsiveness of public authorities to the challenges of surveillance and protection of maritime areas is notably made possible by the paradigm shift in the method of accessing data. In fact, the customer / supplier relationship constrained by the rules of public procurement are, within the framework of this project, replaced by a public / private / research collaboration upstream from the design of the services.
TAHATAI is labeled by the Space Climate Observatory (SCO) initiative.

We’re drowning in data, but the geospatial world lags badly behind in versioning tools compared to our software counterparts. Kart is solving this with a practical open tool for versioning datasets, enabling you to work more efficiently and collaborate better.

We will introduce you to Kart and demonstrate some of the key features, including our QGIS plugin. And we’ll highlight what’s coming next on our roadmap.

Kart allows you to quickly and easily manage history, branches, data schemas, and synchronisation for large & small datasets between different working copy formats, operating systems, and software ecosystems.

Modern version control unlocks efficient collaboration, both within teams and across organisations meaning everyone stays on the same page, you can review and trace changes easily: ultimately using your time more efficiently.

Traditional agroforestry species provide food security and income across the Pacific Islands, through copra production and other goods. The hardiness and resilience of several traditional species (especially coconut and pandanus) are a bulwark against instability and erosion associated with climate change. Protecting and managing these resources requires detailed and current knowledge of agroforestry inventories and crop conditions. Production losses due to senile trees, disease and pest infestations, and erosion and soil salinization from rising sea levels are just some of the issues facing Pacific Island agroforestry partners and stakeholders. In this talk we will share some results performing agroforestry inventory and monitoring through the collection and analysis of high-resolution imagery using automated artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for a number of atolls within the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Coral reefs host exceptionally diverse marine life. Reef passages connect coasts with the open ocean and provide multiple social and ecological benefits, but are so far neither characterized nor recognized for their multifaceted significance. The presented study was part of the SOCPacific project. Due to COVID-19, we developed this study based on remotely sensed Google Earth imagery. We investigated 113 reef passages across nine Pacific islands in Fiji, New Caledonia and Vanuatu and, in partnership with locally based scientists, developed criteria to define three distinct types, mainly based on distance to coastline and presence/absence of an enclosed water body. The presentation will cover the methodology, the experienced limitations and challenges, and will open further development of this GIS-based study to discussion.

Alexandra Nozik is working as Geodata specialist at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in Bremen, Germany. The interdisciplinary SOCPacific project (co-funded by the French ANR and the German DFG research funding agencies; https://socpacific.net) explores the large web of socio-cultural, geopolitical and policy connections within which fishing practices in the South Pacific islands focusing on Fiji, New Caledonia and Vanuatu. It offers a cross-sectional and multi-level approach to fisheries in Oceania, based largely on empirical social science research. Including remotely sensed data in this interdisciplinary research can possibly give spatial context and deepen the understanding of research on the ground. The potential of available datasets or self-monitored UAV data for methodology development can be investigated in the future.

The RERIPA of OACPS EU innovation Program aims at Strengthening Research and Innovation ecosystem to address the Impact of climate change (CCI) in the Pacific. Create user centred Living Labs, i.e. consortia of public private stakeholders following an open innovation approach, to develop inclusive and sustainable innovative solutions founded on research-based evidence to address the Climate Change Impacts in the Pacific Small Islands Developing States (SIDS), with a special focus on:
– Coastal vulnerability ; – Lagoon and ocean health; – Sea level rise. Remote Sensing will be a useful tool in these projects