Why 2020 was a year of geospatial thinking for WFP
How the World Food Programme’s geospatial support unit stepped up in a year of challenges, complexity and creative vision
For well over a decade, geospatial technology has sustained informed decision-making in WFP, helping stakeholders develop insight into complex dynamics during major emergencies.
Geographic information systems (GIS) provide actionable information that improves disaster management strategies and programme planning. Annually, the geospatial unit produces an average of 2,000 maps — 80 percent for immediate emergency support.
Currently, WFP has integrated geospatial applications into several functional areas, and its activities have grown in complexity.
“I see a paradigm shift in how WFP consumes GIS technology compared to a decade ago,” says Lara Prades, head of the geospatial unit. “The focus was initially on data editing and mapping. At present, the needs have grown to automated systems, near-real-time advanced analytics, interactive online dashboards with business intelligence, to name a few”.
The geospatial unit won the 2020 Special Achievement in GIS award from ESRI, for its innovation in problem-solving and its impact on reaching vulnerable people — well-deserved recognition for the unit’s support to informed decision-making and data-driven response.
Geospatial information is crucial for WFP operations. In Mozambique, a WFP team in collaboration with partners developed a flood-hazard model that calculates where water damage can occur and the number of people affected.
“Investing more time and effort in preparedness is critical. Now that this flood hazard model is up and running, we can implement it in other flood-prone areas where WFP operates to help communities prepare for flooding and prevent disaster,” says Michael Manalili, a geospatial officer for WFP.
In Afghanistan, WFP has developed mapping that facilitates humanitarian access to areas once considered too risky.
“The tool has been instrumental in supporting operations and access negotiations in Afghanistan,” says Robert Kasca, acting Country Director for WFP in Afghanistan. “In today’s highly complex operations theatre, we cannot imagine working without modern mapping tools anymore.”
In 2020, the unit also launched the Humanitarian Topographic Atlas (HTA), a platform funded by the WFP Innovation Accelerator that allows anyone to create high-resolution maps covering all WFP operational areas automatically.
The team identified the project’s need based on their operational expertise and their close contact with WFP emergency responders on the ground.
“We’ve worked in all kinds of global emergencies over the past ten years, from earthquakes to cyclones and conflicts. It is challenging for first responders to get a complete overview of the situation and have a clear picture of the impact’s extent,” says Amparore, project management and development lead for the HTA platform.
The HTA is not a one-way interaction. It is a living product, fed by real-time information from our geospatial officers and logisticians on the ground who have firsthand access to the country’s infrastructure conditions.
Dimitris Karakostis, head of the geospatial team in Damascus, Syria, immediately embraced the project. “Having access to such detailed maps for the whole of Syria saves us a lot of time. In some cases, it would be even impossible, given the limited access to data,” says Karakostis.
In Syria, where WFP truck convoys cross borders to deliver food assistance, the geospatial team provides maps to drivers who gather and report information about changing conditions. The HTA global team then consolidates the data so that the entire humanitarian community has access to the latest specialized mapping products and can identify safe routes to reach vulnerable people.
In Nepal, the geospatial team implemented trail and community infrastructure mapping in Karnali and Sudurpaschim provinces’ remotest districts. Updating and uploading the data collected to the HTA open-source database.
“Nepal is vulnerable to frequent disasters like floods, landslides, drought, and earthquakes,” says Biplob Rakhal, geospatial programme associate for WFP Nepal. “A detailed map gives us an idea of the terrain and topography of an area and critical regions, settlements, the logistic infrastructure and major transport networks.”
The climate crisis has joined conflict as one of the main drivers of hunger in the world. Due to the increasing occurrence of climate shocks such as drought, storms, and floods, the geospatial unit has received an unprecedented number of mapping and analysis requests.
To meet the growing needs, the team developed the Automated Disaster Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) platform to provide pre and post-disaster contextualized impact analysis to emergency responders immediately after a disaster.
Follow @WFP_ADAM on Twitter for real-time earthquake and tropical storm analysis and alerts.
Throughout 2020, the team has developed ADAM Floods — an extension of the ADAM system covering flood impacts to WFP operations. ADAM Floods processes satellite imagery of the event using sophisticated geoprocessing operations to create automatic analysis and map flood impacts from its partner organizations’ data.
ADAM Floods is under a meticulous testing phase with selected WFP country offices to obtain feedback on system reliability, timeliness and content validity. The team plans to officially launch the platform by the second quarter of 2021.
As the geospatial information and technology owner, the unit has a critical role in WFP’s data governance. The team is compiling a centralized dataset based on standard locations, points of interest and naming conventions that will link all WFP corporate platforms.
They are also leveraging internal and external expertise to take the organization’s technological landscape further.
As part of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management, the unit contributes to foster the global development of geospatial information as well as to the United Nations Second Level Administrative Boundaries project, providing reliable data to identify those most in need of food assistance.
The geospatial unit keeps pushing WFP’s technological boundaries benefitting from several external collaborations with academia, such as the University of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to leading specialized institutions such as Sentinel Asia, Cloud2Street and NASA Disasters programme.
In 2020, WFP joined Sentinel Asia, an initiative led by the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) to share disaster information across the Asia-Pacific region using GIS technology. It is a vital resource that allows WFP to extend its geospatial capabilities in providing support to the area. Read more here.
In addition, the unit also officialized its collaboration with Cloud to Street, which will ultimately ease the access of their services to country offices. In the Republic of the Congo, WFP’s collaboration with Cloud2Street allowed for implementing a remote flood monitoring system designed to alert the government and the humanitarian community of an emergency within a few days.
The next step for the unit is a joint venture across the division and the overall organisation with the University of Washington to analyse and extract crucial trends and patterns relating to hunger, geography and conflict, which will improve WFP’s anticipatory risk accuracy.
The Emergency Operations division geospatial support unit uses cutting-edge technology and innovation to visualise and analyse emergencies through maps and tools that guide WFP operations and staff.
