“GIS helps us identify inundated zones, and spot people living in low-lying areas. We identify how many households are living in those areas, so that we can do accurate mapping and hand over the data to the National Emergency Management Office for timely rescue and evacuation efforts”, says Halalilika Etika, Head, Land and Geospatial Information Management Division, Kingdom of Tonga, in an exclusive interview.
What is the mission of your organization, and what do you think is the importance of geospatial Information and UN-IGIF towards it ?
Our mission is to provide quality life to citizens of Tonga, and to make geospatial information accessible for its people. We want to provide geospatial information management to support informed decision-making at different levels in the society.
In terms of sustainable development goals, geospatial information management can enable the people to visualize SDG parameters, indicators and targets. United Nations’ Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (UN-IGIF) enables people of the world to utilize geospatial information to build their economy, address environmental issues, and upgrade social benefits.
What are the government projects in Tonga where geospatial is being used?
In Tonga, there are so many applications where we utilize GIS. We use remote sensing –like using drone for mapping the surface to create a proper land use map. Also, we use scanners. GIS is used to scan and digitize our cadastral mappings and land records information.
The main source of our economy is fishing and agriculture. We utilize GIS to map the land-use so that we can identify how much land is left for future needs. We use GIS to map land distribution, and find out the way people are living in the communities.
Other than rising sea levels and ecological devastation due to global warming, what are other main challenges that people of Tonga face, and how technology can help them prepare for a better future?
GIS helps us create topographic maps, which is the base data for any country. When we do mapping and capture all the procured data like of the buildings, infrastructure and overlay on top of the topographic map, we identify which area are vulnerable to flooding and other natural disasters.
With the help of GIS, we identify inundated zones, and spot people living in low-lying areas. We identify how many households are living in low lying areas, so that we can engage in mapping and hand over the data to the National Emergency Management Office. This helps them in timely evacuation and rescue operations before the disasters hit.
Islands such as Grenada and Tuvalu are coming up with a national digital twin because they are endangered by the rising sea levels, recurring floods, and natural hazards. So they plan to store all the national information, in a digital format. Is Tonga thinking on similar lines for a national digital twin?
We need to be prepared for climate change. There are some government initiatives to enforce people to do replanting which prevents land erosion. We have also enforced a legislation for the fishermen to be wary of not impacting coral reefs, and also not damaging the natural habitats of fishes.
We also encourage people to come up with sector community plans, and to say no to plastic bags. For this, we encourage them to reuse, recycle, reduce and refuse – the four R’s. With this approach, we encourage people to make best use of policies already in place. Climate change is happening but, it’s not for us to sit on. We need to stand up and do something to address it.
