NEWS
as indicators of important challenges
being faced by South Africa. Upcoming
examples include a review of the
socio-economic impact of natural disasters.
SARVA relies on infrastructure already
developed by SAEON for the rapid
development of decision-support systems
based on properly published,
standardised global change datasets.
The platform combines multidisciplinary
datasets from a range of organisations
in a single point of access (demography,
health, climate and global
change drivers, among others).
Datasets published through SAEON’s
Open Data Platform can be given a
Digital Object Identifier which allows
data providers to track downloads
and citations through DataCite.
SARVA is an open
science portal that
provides access to
a growing collection
of decision-ready
data, dashboards,
infographics and
maps. The team is
continually working
on providing access
to spatial and
non-spatial data
on global change
hazards facing
South Africa.
Features
The features of SARVA 3 include:
consistent set of key messages on
the vulnerability of communities.
• Value-added products and tools
including indicator dashboards
that are organised according to
the 17 Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs).
• A District Municipality Risk Profiler
that showcases exposure and vulnerability
to a range of different
hazards beyond that of climate
change. This tool aims to assist in
the implementation of the District
Coordination Model.
• The development of a federated
data-processing platform to assist
in coping with sensitive data and
ensuring the protection of privacy.
• The provision of data infrastructure
and ICT services (e.g. SAEON
has 300 TB of mirrored storage in
three locations) for the storage,
distribution, monitoring and curation
of global change datasets.
User groups
SARVA serves different user groups
requiring access to data. These range
from decision-makers to domain experts
and the research community.
SARVA can also serve technical software
development teams who would
like to reuse components developed
by SAEON.
The content is driven by the data that
SAEON has access to and which is
openly provided by data providers
and custodians.
The ability to highlight key gaps in
data as well as data access and availability
will be vitally important to the
users.
The SARVA portal is a living atlas and
will be updated as new data are made
available and as new tools and services
are developed by SAEON.
* SAEON is the lead agency and implementer
of the South African Risk
and Vulnerability Atlas, an initiative of
the Department of Science and Innovation.
Figure 2: Discover collections of curated
data, interactive visualisations and
dashboards on the major challenges
facing South Africa
Figure 3: Facts and figures related to
SDG 3: Good health and well-being
• An online searchable database
that holds more than 500 different
geospatial datasets at national,
provincial, district and local study
site scale.
• Interactive infographics linked to
curated data collections to assist
in the translation of data from a
variety of different sources into a
SAEON’s
repository
is available at
https://bit.ly/3lMmvYi
Figure 4: Co-Development
37
Grassroots Vol 20 No 3 September 2020