Date: 27 January 2025
Location: Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Credit: Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, processed by the CopernicusLAC Panama Centre
Description:
This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, acquired on 27 January 2025, shows Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.
As a consequence of its geographical and climatic characteristics, Haiti is highly susceptible to disasters, with over 93% of its land at risk to multiple hazards such as cyclones, earthquakes, floods, landslides, and droughts.
The CopernicusLAC Panama Centre is working to support Haiti and other Caribbean countries in promoting disaster risk reduction by co-developing a series of within three themes: Hydrometeorological Hazards, Geological Hazards, and Exposure.
For instance, the Centre is developing the Flood Event Mapping for Preparedness service in collaboration with regional institutions, such as the Caribbean Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) and the Caribbean Emergency and Disaster Management Agency (CDEMA). The service will leverage Copernicus Sentinel satellite data to generate a catalogue of detailed maps of past floods, which will serve as a reference for users facing future flooding events with similar characteristics. Local authorities will be able to activate the service in advance upon forecasts of potential threats.
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Background Information
The Copernicus LAC Panama Centre’s activities take place within the overall context of the EU-LAC Digital Alliance, which is a strategic framework for promoting cooperation between the EU and the LAC region on digital and space issues under the EU Global Gateway umbrella. Within this context, the European Space Agency (ESA) is coordinating the Centre’s implementation on the basis of a Contribution Agreement with the Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) of the European Commission, and in close collaboration with Panama’s government, MIRE (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Government Innovation Authority (AIG), and SENACYT (National Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation).
The CopernicusLAC Panama Centre will serve as a hub for innovation in the Latin America and Caribbean region, supporting national and local entities in leveraging Copernicus data and information to boost socio-economic benefits and resilience. In addition to providing engagement opportunities, the Centre is developing geospatial Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Pilot Services (addressing hydrometeorological hazards, geological hazards, and hazard exposure) in close collaboration with local users and stakeholders, to whom they will be handed over to ensure that the unique needs of the region are addressed in the long term.
In addition, knowledge and skills transfer is a key element of the CopernicusLAC Panama Centre, which hosts a Digital Campus with access to training modules and educational resources for technical users and citizens alike. The Centre will also organise community-building events, policy dialogues and industry matchmaking, as well as hackathons and other Earth Observation (EO) data challenges to stimulate user adoption of Copernicus data and innovation. These events will also foster cross-collaboration among EO, disaster risk reduction (DRR) and other relevant ecosystems.
Finally, the Centre will support the development of a high-power computing and data storage cloud infrastructure for the LAC region. One of the final objectives of the Centre is to promote the development of communities of practice and to strengthen the knowledge and use of tools for DRR and other application areas in the public sector, academia, the private sector, and social organisations.
