The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) in collaboration with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) invites you to a Webinar to introduce the open geospatial standards and why they matter. The purpose of this webinar is to cover the development, implementation, and the benefits of using open standards. Bringing in requirements on the evolvement of standards, having a forum to learn about existing and upcoming work, and network with other OGC members and experts.
What rapid-response spatial intelligence knew before the Garden Route flooded again South Africa's Garden Route was hit by two cutoff low storms within a month, the second in early June 2026 bringing up to 200mm of rain across an already-satur…South Africa's Garden Route was hit by two cutoff low storms within a month, the second in early June 2026 bringing up to 200mm of rain across an already-saturated region with dams at full capacity, May's temporary road repairs still in place, and the N1 at Leeu Gamka eventually closing. Before that second storm peaked, AfriGIS had already used just four rapidly integrated spatial data layers roads, rivers, informal settlement locations, and storm warning data to identify 22 of the Garden Route's 209 informal settlements at extreme risk of losing all physical access, with Kannaland and George carrying 16 of those, enabling disaster management teams to pre-position resources and plan evacuation routes before conditions peaked. The deeper argument is that the same four-layer foundation becomes substantially more powerful with each additional dataset layered onto it: add deeds and cadastre data and an insurer can move to parcel-level flood underwriting; add CIPC business data and you can quantify revenue disruption, not just building damage; layer in infrastructure assets and Transnet, Sanral, and Eskom can each see where their balance-sheet exposure becomes critical. AfriGIS positions this building-block quality backed by 28 years of authoritative, never-crowdsourced verified data as the foundation for what national-scale spatial preparedness could deliver as SA's rainfall season runs through November.
What rapid-response spatial intelligence knew before the Garden Route flooded again South Africa's Garden Route was hit by two cutoff low storms within a month, the second in early June 2026 bringing up to 200mm of rain across an already-satur…South Africa's Garden Route was hit by two cutoff low storms within a month, the second in early June 2026 bringing up to 200mm of rain across an already-saturated region with dams at full capacity, May's temporary road repairs still in place, and the N1 at Leeu Gamka eventually closing. Before that second storm peaked, AfriGIS had already used just four rapidly integrated spatial data layers roads, rivers, informal settlement locations, and storm warning data to identify 22 of the Garden Route's 209 informal settlements at extreme risk of losing all physical access, with Kannaland and George carrying 16 of those, enabling disaster management teams to pre-position resources and plan evacuation routes before conditions peaked. The deeper argument is that the same four-layer foundation becomes substantially more powerful with each additional dataset layered onto it: add deeds and cadastre data and an insurer can move to parcel-level flood underwriting; add CIPC business data and you can quantify revenue disruption, not just building damage; layer in infrastructure assets and Transnet, Sanral, and Eskom can each see where their balance-sheet exposure becomes critical. AfriGIS positions this building-block quality backed by 28 years of authoritative, never-crowdsourced verified data as the foundation for what national-scale spatial preparedness could deliver as SA's rainfall season runs through November.
