Using radar and optical satellite images, the Natural Resources Information Center, CIREN, which is part of the Ministry of Agriculture, is working to identify, quantify and characterize the areas affected by the floods caused by the frontal system that caused damage to the agricultural sector from the Valparaíso Region to Biobío.
From the offices of the National Service for Disaster Prevention and Response (Senapred), Minister Esteban Valenzuela announced preliminary figures for the affected territory based on satellite information. “It is a very concrete and effective instrument, which is a diagnosis of the reality prior to this historic torrent and the situation that exists today. The impact, which has already been measured in 4 regions, of 100 thousand agricultural hectares, corresponds to where the rivers grew and caused direct damage (…) This Tuesday there will be information from the Metropolitan and Valparaíso regions and thus we will complete the 6 regions with the greatest impact.” said the government authority.
Added to these numbers is the damage caused to irrigation systems that require action by the National Irrigation Commission (CNR). “In addition to these 100-120 thousand hectares, which will probably be directly affected according to the data from Valparaíso and the Metropolitan Region, there are another 180 thousand hectares approximately that are indirectly affected by the mud, due to the lack of water for irrigation, which has to be available for agriculture in the month of September,” the authority maintained.
Regarding the usefulness of the information and how it will be worked with, the head of agriculture commented that "eThis data will be shared with INDAP, the Undersecretariat of Agriculture, the SAG, because the registry of forestry and agricultural damage that we have worked on with the Ministry of Economy, headed by Minister Grau, is very important to be transparent and precise with the damages and to ensure that the public resources that are allocated are well used."
Regarding the methodology used to obtain this information, which has involved the work of more than sixty professionals, the executive director of CIREN, Katherine Araya, indicated that this “The agricultural emergency visualizer has allowed us to obtain accurate information on the affected and flooded areas from the Valparaíso Region to Biobío through satellite radar images and, in some cases, optical images. The methodology used was to analyze the river basins and beds. SENAPRED has a CHARTER opening system, which is an international system that allows the entire constellation of satellites in space to be viewed towards the affected territories, which SENAPRED coordinates with different services, in this case MINAGRI.”
Regarding the system that allows this information to be collected, the Minister of Science, Aisén Etcheverry, highlighted the speed and precision with which it is obtained, as well as its usefulness. “CIREN is part of the network of public technological institutes where the State conducts research, and the reason for this is precisely what we see today: science and technology allow us to have much more accurate, precise and faster information. Without satellites and the analytical work of these professionals, it would have taken us several months to gather this information and visualize it. This would not have been possible 10 years ago. It also allows us to make the information available so that those who are researching these issues can help us with recommendations for better prevention measures and associated public policies,” projection.
Finally, the Deputy Director of Disaster Risk Management of SENAPRED, Alicia Cebrian, said that “As SENAPRED, we coordinate a series of institutions and organizations to activate these capacities that are becoming more important every day in information management. The details of this information are essential to be able to measure the damage, to carry out the cadastre surveys and to have the exact information on the people affected and their ways of life affected by the emergency.”
