On June 23rd, ITC had the pleasure to host a distinguished delegation from the Republic of Mozambique led by H.E. Minister Carlos Mesquita. This event was part of a series of exploratory visits to different Dutch water-related institutions organized by the Dutch Embassy in Maputo in collaboration with the Netherlands Water Partnership, NWP. Mozambique and the Netherlands have a long-term collaboration, and Mozambique has been included in the Dutch Government’s Delta Countries Approach.
After a warm welcome from the ITC Dean Prof van der Meer, ITC was introduced to the delegation by Tom Loran. He explained our mission and shared some examples of our capacity development activities. In a more technical session, Christiaan van der Tol, head of the Water Resources department, presented the primary research, education and capacity building undertakings of the department, in which Earth observations, field data, and modeling play a fundamental role.
After that, Diana Chavarro-Rincon presented the EO AFRICA R&D Facility, one of the flagships of the department’s capacity development in Africa. To conclude the session, Ben Maathuis and Bas Retsios presented a demo on the use of GEONETCast for disaster mapping based on the reconstruction of cyclone Idai that hit the city of Beira in 2019.
