The government plans to modernize climate and environment data collection as the relevant stakeholders can be considered as a facilitator in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of the development plan.
As part of the government move, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) has taken a project titled “Strengthening Environment, Climate Change and Disaster Statistics (ECDS)” to produce climate and environment data for strengthening knowledge and considering the requirements actions.
ECDS project, BBS intends to accumulate and integrate all the produced environmental data and statistics and share with knowledge seekers.
The objectives of the project is to develop a well-designed sustainable WebGIS application and integration of all the data and information with a purpose to assist the policy makers in project planning and decision making.
Besides, it will collect geospatial data and information regarding environment, climate change, and natural disaster so on from the respective agencies, integrate in the web platform and generate statistical information.
On the other hand, it will empower the government officials, academia, researchers and potential clients to securely host, manage, share, visualize and analyze geospatial data.
This information was given in the workshop on the finalization of “Integration of GIS data and information on environment, climate change, natural resources and disaster for the development of web application” on Tuesday.
The workshop was organized with the support of CEGIS under the Project at BBS auditorium in the capital.
Director General of BBS, Matiar Rahman presided over the event.
Dr Shahnaz Arefin, Secretary of the BBS said as the chief guest, “BBS is preparing statistics on new issues. They are trying to formulate statistics in a scientific manner with the views of stakeholders. ECDS Project' has been undertaken based on environmental framework. Through this project it is possible to generate statistics related to environment, climate change, natural resources, biodiversity, disaster and disaster management.”
Shahnaz Arefin said Bangladesh was the first country in the world to formulate the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) in 2009.
In this plan, a master plan has been adopted to increase the capacity and resilience of the country to deal with climate change, she said, adding that this is part of it.
Under the ECDS project, BBS has developed mobile responsive web application for the first time integrating Geospatial (GIS) data with 'Eco-Social, Demographic and Environmental Statistics' data with CGIS technical support.
This web application will legally be able to provide data on environmental and climate related indicators of BBS SDGs as a data repository.
Speaking as a special guest on the occasion, Additional Secretary Farooq Ahmed said that the government has taken environmental sustainable development into consideration.
“Special attention is being paid to environmental and environmental regulations in setting up new economic zones and industrial establishments. GIS based information technology services are very necessary in these monitoring,” he added.
Through the ECDS project of BBS, all activities are being implemented at the field level in a fully digital (e-system) manner.
BBS has taken initiative to develop 'web application integrating geospatial data with socio-economic, demographic and environmental data' for the first time in Bangladesh.
There is no single GIS database of this kind in Bangladesh.
If the program is implemented, the relevant stakeholders can be considered as a facilitator in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of the development plan.
