This Day (Lagos)
Ben Nwabuwe
4 October 2001
Lagos — The National Emergencv Management Agency (NEMA) has been designated as the Nigerian contact on Disaster Management by the Vienna based office for Outer Space Affairs, an affiliate of the United Nations(UN).
This was revealed by the Director-General of NEMA, Chief Mrs. Remi Olowu, while delivering a lecture at a workshop organised by the African Regional Centre for Space, Science and Technology Education - English, an affiliate of the UN.
With this development, the D.G. said that a staff of the agency is one of the 20-member nations of Expert Group on Disaster Management.
"Thus,we have high expectation of what remote sensing will contribute to our work". She equally told participants that the body recently became a member of the COSPAS-SARSAT participating countries.
According to her, COSPASS-SARSAT is a satellite system designed to provide distress alert and location data to assist Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, using spacecraft and ground facilities to detect and locate the signals of distress beacons, operating on 406MHz or 121 MHz.
Remote sensing, she said, is the science and art of acquiring information about the earth's surface without actually being in contact with it. This, she further explained, can be done by sensing and recording reflected or emitted energy and thereafter process, analyse and apply such information to address the day to day events of planning and sustainable development.
Reeling off a long list of foreign countries and continents, which have suffered one natural disaster or the other, Mrs Olowu said: "Africa is by no means immune to these disasters. Though Nigeria is not located within the zones of the world that are known to be highly prone to natural disasters such as typhoons, hurricanes, cyclones, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, cases of flood, landslides, tidal waves, coastal erosion, sand storms, dust storms, locust/insect infestations, oil spillage and other man-made disasters have claimed many lives in Nigeria and rendered many homeless", she emphasised.
NEMA ,being a co-sponsor of the workshop, she said, is poised to identify potential disasters in the country, where they occur and their magnitude and destructive potential and to outline the nation's preparedness to prevent and mitigate them. The agency will also establish a comprehensive information system, which identifies and assesses the risks involved in disasterprone areas and integrate these with human settlement planning and design amongst others.
According to her, remote sensing can help in locating and tracking of hurricanes and oil spillages, weather forecasting for civil aviation, early warning against flood and drought.
Others include fire fighting and monitoring of forest fires and location of air and sea disasters. "Satellites remote sensing is indispensable for disaster mitigation work. Information provided by satellite is critical for decision making",she added.
Speaking further, she said that remote sensing and GIS have been applied in other parts of the world to manage disasters. She therefore challenged participants at the week long workshop to set in motion the application of this modern technology for the benefit of the country.
Delivering the keynote address on the use of Satellite Meteorology in Disaster Management, Alhaji Yusuff Salahu, Director of Meteorology, Permanent Representative of Nigeria with the WMO and third Vice-President of WMO, Geneva, said that Satellite application plays considerable role in the detection of natural hazards from space by supporting its forecast. It also assists in the monitoring of the event and assessment of damage after the event. "Hence they play a very vital role in natural disaster management",he pointed out.
While welcoming participants and resource persons to the workshop at the OAU Conference Centre, Abuja, the Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Professor Roger Makanjuola, urged participants to use the occasion to device technology applications that would aid disaster management in the country. Others at the occasion included Professor R. A. Boroffice, Professor J. A. Adedokun, Professor E. E. Balogun, Director, ARCSSTE-E, Conveners of the programme and a host of participants from institutions and government agencies.
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