Source: CIGIDEN
Having an interactive platform for the management of free access, collaborative and participatory geospatial data, which gathers relevant information on the coastal geography, is part of the project’s objectives. GeoHUB Litora l. An initiative of the Observatorio de la Costa, the Center for Integrated Disaster Risk Management, CIGIDEN, and the Institute of Geography of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
It is a virtual space for the management of geospatial data around the coast of central Chile, which promotes sustainable development in the coastal area, seeks to improve decision-making in territorial planning, in Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and coastal environmental management in general.
“ GeoHUB It is a platform that uses certain information elements of interest to decision makers, but also to communities that have protection objectives in their coastal zone ”, explains Carolina Martínez, CIGIDEN researcher, director of the La Costa Observatory and academic of Geography UC. In the expert’s opinion, the most relevant aspect of the initiative is that it provides the user with orderly and systematized information, deployable through territorial viewers and mobile applications, whose function is to enhance the collaborative work of the organized community of the coast.
Coastal metadata
“Users simply download content from the site – citing the author or institution that owns the corresponding data – and the information available in the metadata of each file”, complements Nikole Guerrero, CIGIDEN researcher and member of the GeoHUB Litoral group, together with Simón Simón Inzunza, CIGIDEN researcher and Jorge Quense, from the UC Institute of Geography.
For Simón Inzunza, the display, visualization and download of geographic information is from the Chilean coastal zone, but with emphasis on the coastal communes of the Valparaíso Region. “There you will find a compilation of geographic information from public databases and information developed under the wing of CIGIDEN, then what it does GeoHUB Litoral it is to categorize in themes such as socio-environmental conflicts, natural hazards, infrastructure that can be exposed by extreme events, social vulnerability, economy, culture and heritage, among others ”, says the geographer UC.
According to the researchers, the platform will have viewers so that users can view the content in a dynamic and accessible way. For example, adds Inzulza, they can mix territorial information with natural hazards, and / or socio-environmental conflicts with a biodiversity conservation area. .
Story maps and other tools
“ They can be downloaded through an IDE-type catalog and viewed on thematic maps. The platform has ArcGIS collector, a tool that allows data capture from the territory. In addition, applications for cell phones and Story Maps are integrated on specific themes of the coastal territory that allow a dynamic and fast way to visualize the information ”, says Nikole Guerrero from CIGIDEN.
Finally, Simón Inzunza explains that the potential of this platform is that later on it will be possible to collect information from communities and people, so that the population “will be able to do science”, uploading information on swells or socio-environmental conflicts, etc. , because the main objective of this project is to contribute to the work of the coastal community environmental committees and create guidelines for the creation of public policies and territorial planning. All of this is a fundamental pillar in the new Coastal Law promoted by the Chilean Coastal Observatory ”, concludes the expert.
