SPC Geoscience Division

PacSAFE Project

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pacsafe

The PacSAFE project is a response to demand from Pacific Island Countries for tools to better understand disaster impacts. The project will engage with representatives from national disaster management offices and related agencies who are involved in planning, preparing and responding to natural disasters. Geoscience Australia, as Australia’s technical implementing partner, will continue development of the functionality of the PacSAFE software tool. PacSAFE is a desktop tool based on QGIS and InaSAFE, designed and developed for non‑GIS users.

Geoscience Australia, as Australia’s technical implementing partner, will continue development of the functionality of the PacSAFE software tool. PacSAFE is a desktop tool based on QGIS and InaSAFE, designed and developed for non‑GIS users. PacSAFE1 was initially developed by the Pacific Community for urban planners to enable hazard data and asset data, such as the Pacific Catastrophic Risk and Financing Initiative (PCRAFI) asset database. In the current project, the PacSAFE tool will be enabled to produce realistic disaster impact scenarios by combining spatial hazard with exposure data. It will provide a simple tool for users to interrogate hazard and impact scenarios within the context of the local knowledge of their communities. This will support users in making informed decisions for disaster response and to develop evidence-based policies for enhancing disaster resilience

Last Updated on Friday, 30 September 2016 14:52  

Newsflash

As environmental concerns heat up amid growing interest in minerals exploration and mining of the Pacific ocean’s seabed, one scientist is advocating the search for more inactive hydrothermal vents as a way of safely mining the sea.

Dr Sven Peterson, a minerologist at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) in Germany, said inactive vents were less likely to host marine life, so mining them would pose lesser danger to the ocean’s ecosystems.

“At water depths of 500 to 5000 metres which the mining industry will be interested in, there is no light but we still see oases of life there. This, of course, is of concern among biologists who do not want mining to happen at these oases in the deep.