The Mesoamerican Territorial Information System for Reducing Disaster Risk (in Spanish SMIT) has now a free accessible web platform. The Central Executive Unit (CEU) of the project is the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (Cathalac), located in Panama.
The Mesoamerican region, including Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic, is continuously exposed to different types of natural hazards and has a high degree of vulnerability. These events negatively affect the development and not only the people but the physical infrastructure, mainly related to sectors such as education, health, transport, telecommunications and electricity generation and distribution, taking countries to reorient their scarce public and private resources to investments towards relief and reconstruction activities, whenever disaster strikes.
The SMIT has created this website as a knowledge management tool that will enable territorial planning and implement development actions considering threats or hazards in the Mesoamerican region. This site offers the following online tools:
• GeoPortal: A tool for recording, monitoring, spatial data metadata management, and Web Map Services (WMS).
• Online Maps: A system that provides the ability to visualize, combine, select and query layers of cartographic information and data.
• Forum: Section for discussion between the system users as to optimize data and information exchange in more efficient ways.
• Documentation: Tools to share manuals, guides, pictures, animations and videos that are structured in reference directories for proper monitoring of tasks and activities of member countries.
Source: SDI-LAC
