SPC Geoscience Division

Joanne Robbins, a scientist at the Met Office in the UK and working with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has just published a summary of her extensive PhD thesis through SPC.Joanne has been working for the past four years on her thesis which focuses on the temporal and spatial variability of landslides across the whole of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the links between these events and changing rainfall patterns.

The project was jointly supervised between Professor Michael Petterson (formerly of the University of Leicester, UK and now Director of SPC Geoscience Division), Mr Ken Mylne (Met Office, UK), and Dr Joe Espi of the University of Papua New Guinea.  PNG’s Mineral Resources Authority and the Department of Mineral Policy and Geohazards Management were also close collaborators with Joanne and provided support and advise throughout.

PNG’s position within the highly-dynamic Maritime Continent, and the rugged and varied topography across the PNG Highlands and high parts of islands such as Bougainville and New Britain, mean that numerous meteorological and geological processes interact to result in landslides across the country.  

Joanne has documented that landslides occur more regularly at certain times of the year in PNG (e.g. during March April and May) and particularly during the wet La Nina episodes of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).  Landslides are less likely to occur during September and October and particularly during drier El Nino episodes.

Thursday 4 September 2014, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Suva, Fiji – The Pacific will be the first region in the world to fully integrate climate change and disaster risk management in a single regional strategy focused on resilient development.

Regional efforts on integrating climate change and disaster risk management featured at the side event, Building Pacific Resilience – the Strategy for Climate and Disaster Resilient Development in the Pacific, held during the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in Samoa. The Government of Tonga led the event with support from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).

Discussions around resilient development for Pacific Island nations highlighted how countries and organisations have advanced or are planning the integration of strategies for climate change and disasters.

In his keynote address, the Prime Minister of Tonga, Lord Tu'ivakanō, said: ‘The Strategy for Climate and Disaster Resilient Development in the Pacific highlights the importance of partnerships and this is certainly what this SIDS meeting is all about. A new mechanism to bring together climate change and disaster risk management practitioners at the regional level is being advocated.’

Participants from Palau Government departments, Palau Red Cross and the media attended training last week on establishing and managing Emergency Operations Centers.

In 2012, Typhoon Bopha impacted Palau and affected hundreds of people and destroyed 70 homes, displacing 131 people, while in 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan devastated the whole northern-most state of Kayangel, destroying 39 homes and severely damaging dwellings from Babeldaob to Koror.

These two events highlighted a need for Palau to increase the number of personnel trained to manage the response to emergencies and to work in the National Emergency Operations Center. The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), through support from the European Union project, Building Safety and Resilience in the Pacific, is working with Palau to address this need by providing training in Emergency Operations Centers for 17 representatives of government, civil society and the media.

Ms Priscilla Subris, Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Office, opened the week-long training by stressing the importance of all agencies working together and thanking participants for taking the time ‘to learn how to be part of Palau’s response to future emergencies’.

Prof. Christian Heipke during the discussion with GIS&RS users in Suva

The Secretary General of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS), Prof. Christian Heipke, met with the SPC Deputy Director, Fekitamoeloa Utoikamanu and SPC’s Geoscience Division Director Prof. Mike Petterson, last Friday to discuss further enhancement of the link between ISPRS and SPC-GSD.

ISPRS bundles national geospatial societies and through this, ISPRS has the largest network of research and method development in the geospatial area.

SPC-GSD has been the regional member for Pacific Island countries for the last 10 years with the rationale of using this network to benefit its member countries.