From 5-11 November 2022 a Dutch Risk Reduction Team (DRR-Team) Mission to the Maldives took place. Two of our colleagues Freek Huthoff and Carolien Wegman were the experts in this mission. This mission was conducted in the context of the climate and water-related challenges that the Government of the Maldives (GoM) is facing. The GoM states that there is a need for development projects to accommodate (water-related) climate threats, increasing population and need for facilities. The request to the DRR-Team is to support the GoM in its decision making, spatial planning and disaster management by offering help in analyzing, mapping and understanding historical data of physical coastal processes. Specifically, the use of remote sensing and other geographical analysis tactics are highlighted as necessary to understand and anticipate the urgent climate and water-related challenges that the GoM is facing.
In response to the request from the GoM the objectives of the mission were:
- To understand the local governance and decision-making process for coastal protection
- Include Disaster Risk Reduction initiatives active in the Maldives.
- Include use of Geo-datasets within local governance.
- To showcase benefits of GIS/Remote sensing datasets to the local governance.
- To provide advice on how to incorporate such datasets in local decision-making processes.
