SOPAC - Applied Geoscience and Technology Division - SPC

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SOPAC PROGRAMMES

The SOPAC Division’s work focuses on providing assistance to Members in three technical programme areas: Ocean and Islands, Water and Sanitation and Disaster Reduction.

  • Ocean and Islands Programme provides applied ocean, island and coastal geoscience services to support countries to govern and develop their natural resources, increase their resilience to hazards and facilitates data-based approaches to adaption. These vital technical services will be strategically deployed in response to specific Member requests to assist in the development, management and monitoring of natural resources and unique island environmental systems and processes.
  • Water and Sanitation Programme provides technical support to Members through capacity building, awareness and advocacy related to the management of water resources and the provision of water supply and sanitation services.
  • Disaster Reduction (formerly Community Risk) Programme provides Members with technical and policy advice and support to strengthen disaster risk management practices. The programme carries out this responsibility in coordination and collaboration with other technical programme areas within the Division and also with a range of regional and international development partners and donors.

Technical Support Services that cross cut the work of the three technical work programmes of the SOPAC Division are: natural resource economics; GIS and remote sensing; technical equipment and services; data management; and publications and library.

Corporate Services Support to the technical work programmes and technical support services of the Division are through ensuring effective policies and practices are in place for the orderly and efficient delivery of work. Corporate Services Support consists of finance, administration and IT support facilities, all of which would progressively integrate within the SPC beginning 1 January 2011.


 

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Tuesday 3 June 2013, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) Suva, Fiji – Local pilots play an important role in the safe passage of container ships and other large vessels into and out of Pacific ports. Foreign shipmasters rely on pilots for their local knowledge of depths, currents, locations of wrecks, reefs, navigation aids, and other potential obstacles. And now, updated oceanographic studies of Suva Harbour’s sea floor and currents are being used to localise and improve a computer-simulated training for ships’ pilots in the Pacific region.

A recent collaboration between two divisions – the Economic Development Division (EDD) and the Applied Geoscience and Technology (SOPAC) Division – of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has produced the first simulation of a Pacific Island port.

According to SPC Shipping Advisor John Rounds, the computerised simulator is a critical training tool because it can test a pilot’s ship-handling competence under a variety of challenging wind and sea conditions without the expenditure and risk of practising on actual vessels. ‘It’s like a blown up computer game,’ he says.