Blog with us about the GPDRR13

TANGIBLE EARTH PROJECT PRESENTED BY SHINICHI TAKEMURA

source: tangible-earth.com

Professor Takemura presented at the Global platform for disaster risk reduction 2013 his project called Tangible Earth. It consists of an interactive digital globe that allows users to visualize data about the climatic and natural events such as earthquakes, tsunamis or cyclones.

The Tangible Earth shows the global impact of environment phenomena occurring around world. With the interactive digital globe we can see for instance the spread and trajectory of the waves due to earthquakes. It highlights the effects of local events at a world wide scale by giving a global vision.

With this tool people can understand and have a clearer view on the correlation between environmental phenomena. For example, an earthquake in Chile will have an impact on smaller Pacific Islands according to its magnitude.

The visualization is made possible thanks to a large cross-national collection of sciences data, such as real-time weather, earthquake, tsunami and climate variations. Then the information is output through the digital globe, so the data is understood by everyone from kids to decision-makers.

“Lots of information was out there, but it was not easily accessible”, said the professor about his project. Without information and understanding, people may not realize the importance of such issues and their impact on their lives. So, the Tangible Earth was firstly created as a powerful communication tool to disseminate information and key-messages on environmental challenges.

The project was initiated by Professor Takemura in 2005, when he felt the need to raise awareness on environmental issues. The collaboration between UNISDR and Dr. Takemura started in 2011. He was in charge of designing and promoting the GAR (Global Reduction Risk Report).

This tool can be used in very diverse circumstances. It can be an educational tool for students of all ages. It can support researchers in their work. It helps persuade stakeholders to take into consideration disaster risk management. It can be even a diplomatic instrument to promote inter-regional dialogue on DRR. The main goal of Tangible Earth is to change the mind-set of people on environmental issues as well as disasters risk reduction.

The technology of Tangible Earth has evolved and is available free of charge for tablets, making it even more accessible. It is also proceeding towards a new stage, so the programme can be open source in the future. This step will involve more stakeholders motivated by environmental challenges. Thus, making DRR-related issue more visible and central in the global agenda.

Professor Takemura is the director of Earth Literary program (http://www.elp.or.jp/), but is working on other projects based on the idea of collecting information and making it easily accessible to the public. He is now developing a technology available on smartphone or tablets that explains the history of places. For example, with its smartphone application the user identifies a specific location and receives all the historical events that took place on the location.

reported by Vanessa Esteves