The Department of Economic Development, Transport, and Civil Aviation through the Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project (DVRP), in April, hosted a World Bank mission
comprising a Geographic Information System (GIS) Expert and a Drone Expert.
The team was in Saint Lucia to undertake a rooftop inventory. Team member Sarah Antos, a Geographer stationed at the World Bank, revealed that the general assessment of roofs in the country is of paramount importance, given the forecast for stronger hurricanes due in large measure to a change in the global climate.
“We’re here in Saint Lucia to collect data both from the street view as well as drones and combine this kind of imagery to determine the integrity and the quality of structures against strong winds. In particular, we will be looking at the integrity of the roofs-the vulnerability of the roofs. We will be collecting characteristics such as age of the roof, height of the roof, slant of the roof—all these types of attributes we gather to predict how vulnerable the structure is to strong wind events like hurricanes. Once we collect all this data, we will be using it and comparing it to some of the data that has been collected in Dominica, which is a pre and post disaster damage assessment. So we will be learning from their experience and trying to predict the vulnerability and strength of the roof tops here in Saint Lucia.”
The rooftop and street view inventory allows for synergies and collaboration. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Specialist, with the World Bank, Joseph Mulhausen, explained the data processing procedure.
“Once we gather all the data, it will be processed on a pretty powerful computer. The first steps are automated. A map will be generated for each area. Once we get the maps, we’re going to begin to analyze them. It will probably take a couple of weeks before we get any significant results,” he said.
The data collected during the mission will be uploaded to an Open Data Portal.
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