Indonesia Needs Disaster Mitigation Technology : Expert

Denpasar, Bali (Antara) - As an island nation vulnerable to disasters, Indonesia needs remote sensing technology to assist in its national disaster mitigation efforts, according to Geospatial Information Agency (GIB) Chief Asep Karsidi. "Our country is vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, landslides, and volcanic eruptions, so it needs a technology providing evacuation maps for it's population when a disaster strikes," Karsidi said after attending the 34th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing (ACRS) here on Friday. He noted that Indonesia should have a reliable remote sensing technology of three-dimension maps to map out the details of disaster potential areas and disaster mitigation planning. Indonesia has more than 17,000 islands and is adjacent to ten countries, so it needs detailed spatial plans, officials said. According to Karsidi, various advanced technologies related to remote sensing from European and Asian countries, such as Germany, Japan, and Taiwan, were displayed during the Asian Conference on Remote Sensing from October 20-24, 2013. He said the technologies included satellites, photogrammetry, radar, space-based satellite navigation Global Positioning System (GPS) including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), LSU-02 and LSU-3 aircraft made by the National Aeronautics and Space Institute (Lapan), and Lapan A-2 satellite, which is to be launched in 2014. (*)