Funded by the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG-ECHO) and lasting two years (April 2021-March 2023), the REDE-EDUCAMA project was carried on by CIMA Research Foundation and WW-GVC.The project aimed to strengthen educational services and risk governance in Mozambique, particularly in rural and urban contexts where high exposure and vulnerability to hydro-meteorological hazards can become an exacerbating factor of conflict conditions. REDE-EDUCAMA focused on the city of Pemba, capital of Cabo Delgado province, whose northern part has been the scene of an armed insurgency by terrorist gangs since 2017, and in Manica province, where a delicate pacification and disarmament process is underway.
The project
The project aims to consolidate national and local capacities to respond to rapid-onset disasters in the provinces of Cabo Delgado and Manica, working on emergency management and risk reduction starting with school services. The action focuses on two main aspects. The first is the improvement of access to educational services and the maintenance of a safe and continuous learning environment for internally displaced girls and boys, combined with training and awareness activities on hydro-meteorological risks. The second area of activity relates to enhancing the emergency preparedness and response capacity of vulnerable communities in the two provinces, along with national, provincial and local institutions involved in disaster risk management.
Results
- High-resolution mapping of 14 sq. km of urban areas in Pemba city
- Development of an innovative urban flooding operational model, presented at EGU 2023
- Installation of a network of 6 hydrometeorological monitoring stations on the Buzi River, including 4 self-installed by local institutes downstream of the training
- Development of an operational tropical cyclone monitoring tool, integrated into the Dewetra platform
- Continuous and fruitful collaboration with local partners, especially INGD with whom we designed the country configuration of the platform and followed the evolution of Cyclone FREDDY
- With the support of the Italian Embassy in Maputo, the project allowed to strengthen ties between Italian DPC and INGD, leading to the signing of an MoU
CIMA Research Foundation’s contribution
Within the project, we were dedicated to activities related to capacity building in hydro-meteorological risk forecasting and management. We organized training activities, mainly addressed to the Instituto Nacional de Gestão e Redução do Risco de Desastres (INGD), for the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, or drones) in support of both planning and search and rescue activities in the event of an adverse event. CIMA has also developed an operational model for urban flood forecasting (ponding) in the coastal city of Pemba (Cabo Delgado). The ponding model, which also makes use of maps created based on data provided by drones, enables flood risk analysis, guiding the definition of the local warning system and emergency management plan for cyclones and heavy rains.
In Manica Province (Central Mozambique), CIMA Research Foundation have strengthened the flood forecasting system on the Buzi River by installing a monitoring network of weather variables, based on the open hardware technology of ACRONET stations. The first two stations were installed by our experts together with local operators, creating an opportunity for operational training that enabled the provincial institutes (INAM-Manica and ARA-Centro) to install the remaining 4 stations independently, demonstrating the sustainability of the approach based not only on supply but also on the transfer of expertise.
At the country level, working closely with INGD, we developed a country configuration of the myDewetra.world platform for data visualization and sharing. The platform collects the results of models developed during the project, real-time data from ACRONET stations, and risk information collected by INGD. Using the platform we monitored together with INGD the progress and impacts of Cyclone FREDDY, the longest in history with two passes over Mozambique, informing ECHO-SAIO about the evolution of the event.
The platform also includes a tool for compiling and disseminating alert bulletins, linking forecast models on the Buzi River and Pemba to early warning and response actions. These activities help create synergy with the results of the project Building inclusive resilient communities and schools to face rapid-onset hazards in risk-prone areas in Mozambique affected by cyclone Idai, strengthening “linking early warning to early action”, carried out by WeWorld-GVC together with CIMA Research Foundation from 2020 to 2022.
