Severe flooding in Bolivia which began in December 2007 has so far resulted in more than 240,000 people being affected, and more than 40 deaths. MapAction volunteers Emese Csete and Chris Ewing, deployed to Bolivia on 26 January 2008 in response to a request from UN OCHA for emergency mapping support. The mission was later extended by Hamish Pritchard and Naomi Morris. Extracts from their reports during the mission are posted on this page. Rather than focusing on operational technicalities, these entries give a flavour for the impact of the flood events, and of the practical challenges of map production in an emergency environment.

Sunday 27 January

Dawn was just breaking as we approached La Paz this morning, and we were able to already see some of the extent of the flooding from the air. There were several overflowing rivers coming down from the mountains, and the extent of the mud indicated that this had already receded significantly. In the distance we could see large pools of muddy water in many areas. And that´s just in the La Paz area.

We landed at 7-ish Bolivian time, to find that our baggage didn't make it (sigh). We met two members of the UNDAC team who were heading out for a briefing, where they themselves hoped to find out more. We´ve managed to borrow a power adapter (should have put one in our hand baggage). Also wishing we´d pocketed a change of underwear!
    
Chris´s good Spanish is proving invaluable. There´s internet at the hotel but not reliable: the UNDAC team say that the UNICEF offices where we'll be working are well equipped. Our first situation map, produced from the OCHA situation report, was ready to issue by 6.30pm.

Getting used to the 3,600 metre altitude, feeling a bit dazed but that´s probably also some tiredness from a 26-hour journey. Chris has learnt the hard way that he can´t run up stairs here (he felt afterwards like he´d run for half an hour)!

Monday 28 January

We have been given space in the UNICEF offices in La Paz for the time being. Great facilities including good internet and lots of plug adapters (phew!). The UN team is very organised and has given us local phones and SIM cards, taxi vouchers and so on. Max, the UNDAC team leader, has travelled down country to assess the situation there. The rains have caused relatively few deaths and have already receded somewhat. However they have caused wide ranging problems: displaced people, contaminated water supplies, destroyed crops. And on top of it all many roads have been affected, making delivery of aid much more difficult.

The worry is that the rainy season is not yet over. So the aim now is to help to get a good picture of the situation, as an aid to planning for further flooding if it happens. An on-site ops coordination centre (OSOCC) may be set up in one of the worst affected areas, but we await developments.

Meanwhile back at the ranch we are grappling with GIS data as a preliminary to producing large-scale situation maps. The topographic base map data we have been offered is fiddly to re-format so that our GIS software can read it: a quite typical problem that we will find a way around with some help from our UK-based team. Another vital ‘layer’ of GIS data comprises the boundaries of the administrative districts and communities, so that we can code and map the situation information (like numbers of people affected in each place) as it comes in from the field. Andrew, the OCHA information manager, is hard at work on this set of data.

As an aside, Chris and I went out to grab a bite to eat and were trapped in the cafe whilst a torrential downpour descended. I’ve never seen it rain so hard in my life: a glimpse of how suddenly floods could occur.

Tuesday 29 January

We have had a busy day! We started by mapping the affected families data from the National Emergencies Department, for each district. We also prepared some maps for a briefing by the UNDAC team leader to the chiefs of the ministries.

The decision was taken this morning for Emese to travel to Santa Cruz (about 500km east of La Paz, where the Bolivian altiplano descends into the Amazonian basin) with three of the UNDAC team, and work from there until Friday. Meanwhile, Chris will continue to work from La Paz.

Mid-morning we learned that our missing luggage, including the vital A3 printer, was at the airport. After two hours at the customs office, Chris left Emese in the airport for her 6.30pm flight to Santa Cruz.

On reaching Santa Cruz, some insights were gained on the challenges of information management on the ground. There is apparently some good situation data in terms of affected areas, needs assessments and relief activities under way. But we don’t have map data of the community boundaries.

It seems likely that the rains - and flooding - will continue until March. Apparently the weather models forecast two further 'waves' of flooding in the coming weeks. Floods in Bolivia are becoming a more common occurrence, it is claimed, because the La Niña climatic phenomenon is becoming more frequent.

On a lighter note, it's from one extreme to another here. After wafer-thin clear air up at La Paz airport (4,000 metres), surrounded by the Andes, I'm now down at 400 metres, surrounded by lush greenery, banging music from clubs near the hotel (thank heavens for earplugs!) and air so humid and dense that you can cut it with a knife. Just glad that we finally got back our luggage - and spare clothes. I changed my socks at the airport as soon as I got my rucksack. After 4 days in them they were so vibrant that they leapt off my feet and started running around on their own.

Wednesday 30 January

Emese (in Santa Cruz): Here the issue is data. But we got some good food needs assessment data from WFP [World Food Programme] yesterday, who are based in the same place where I have set up, in the COED (Departmental Civil Defence) offices.

Last night we got hold of a database of assessments of needs and damage, collected by the military. It's not very comprehensive (it only contains 41 communities in Santa Cruz, which is next to nothing), but I’m hoping it will still be of use.

We were hoping to have collected some “who-what-where” data through a spreadsheet that we helped Andrew to create, which enables us to that tie the data up to our geographic boundaries. Unfortunately he has been rushed off his feet so has not yet had time to circulate it. And tomorrow the carnival starts here, for 4 days. We’re assured that everything will grind to a halt.

A breakthrough however has been that a first coordination meeting between the civil defence and military authorities happened. I am preparing some reference maps for them too.

Chris (in La Paz): I produced some situation maps in the morning and helped Max prepare for a CERF meeting [CERF = UN Central Emergency Relief Fund]. We managed to solve the A3 printing problem and I took a quick nto the north of La Paz city to find a quick-print shop, to produce some of our maps in bulk quantities.

In the afternoon and evening I helped to collate some of the sitrep information from the field (not an easy task!) and started to produce an up-to-date situation overview map. As well as UNDAC team sections in La Paz and Santa Cruz, they have also visited three other cities in the past couple of days.

Leaving the office quite late, I managed to find a pizzeria still open at 11.30pm. I ate with Roger (from Telecoms sans Frontieres) who is also supporting the UNDAC mission. With my bad Spanish and his basic English we manage to communicate pretty well.

Thursday 31 January

Today has been very busy in La Paz with three of us (Max, Roger and me) ploughing through the data that’s coming in, usually as written reports. It is a challenge to extract meaningful data from them.

The situation in some areas appears to be getting worse with the number of affected families rising all the time. Inevitably, numbers vary depending on the source of data. But the departments of Cochabamba and Chuquisaca appear to have been hit especially hard.

A big meeting has been scheduled with government and NGOs tomorrow. This means we need maps. I now have a good deal going with the manager of the print shop up-town. I ring and say I will be emailing the map JPEGs and he gets the printing going. Then a 60-minute round trip by taxi (including two 400 metre changes in altitude) to collect them.

Friday 1 February

Chris (in La Paz): Today the situation figures reaching La Paz have been all over the place. A lot of the reported numbers are unconfirmed and have to be treated cautiously.

In the surreal nature of emergency missions, we were all invited to the lunchtime fiesta. This involved women in masks and men with horns on their heads, and much dancing. Obviously, we made our excuses as decently as we could to get back to work, although the music from outside was a bit distracting.

Having a lack of good roads data for the interior of Bolivia, we tried some map shops down-town. No luck! The IGM (Instituto Geografic Militar) was closed for the fiesta and the road maps available from book shops weren’t up to much.

Emese (in Santa Cruz): I think it rained all last night. Practically all of the roads in Santa Cruz were flooded.

I’m just taking five whilst the printer sweats away... I've been asked by PMA (that’s WFP in Spanish: Programa Mudial d'Alimento) to print them a big multi-sheet reference map. Of course, having seen it, both COED and the military ('Conjunto') want their own copies. Everyone loves having a big map on the wall! I'm working on getting myself to the military headquarters tomorrow. Though they've shown their faces at a couple of meetings at the COED where I'm based, I'd like to go and show them the map that I made of their assessment data, and cajole them into giving me more. As often seems to happen, the military tend to regard any map as “top secret” even if it just shows how to get to the car park.

Saturday 2 February

Emese (in Santa Cruz):  We made a bit of a breakthrough yesterday afternoon, receiving data on evacuations from both the military and COED, which I worked on late into the night to be able to print before I left.

After a frantic morning finishing off the evacuation map and printing off, I flew back to La Paz. This time, the flight was in daylight. From the air, the lush green vegetation below contrasted strongly with sandy-coloured rivers. The rivers didn’t appear to be running high, but the extent of the silt deposits showed the strength that the water must have when it is flowing down from the hills.

The UNDAC team’s plan for next week looks like there will be more of a focus on Beni in the north of Bolivia, where the floods are expected to spread as water works its way down to the lower lying areas.

Chris (in La Paz): I've been busy creating maps of municipal areas for the field teams who left yesterday for Beni and Santa Cruz. Yesterday the office was busy with about 15 people in at one stage. I managed to make a start on a who-what-where map showing where government agencies, UN and NGOs are working in the country.

Emese arrived back early this evening and we set about printing some of the maps from Santa Cruz.

Sunday 3 February

We’re due to fly back to the UK tomorrow. Hamish and Naomi are on their way out to take over from us, although the last we heard they had been stuck on the tarmac at Heathrow with an engine problem and now won’t arrive in La Paz until Tuesday morning.

Today, we consolidated the data for Hamish and Naomi, and sorted out the new data from Prefectura which we've not completely finished QCing [quality checking]. Carnival has meant that things are very quiet in this part of town luckily, so it gives us time to get organised.

Tuesday 5 February

(Hamish and Naomi pick up the diary entries): Despite the initial hiccup and 24-hour delay, the rest of our journey from the UK was hassle-free. We are presently sitting in the UNDAC office in La Paz with Max [the UNDAC team leader] going through the checklist and data.

The latest update is the flooding has caused 44 deaths and affected 29,000 families (more than 130,000 individuals). The weather conditions in La Paz have improved; however, adverse weather conditions and flooding are forecast to hit Beni [the northern, lowland, part of Bolivia, onto which water flows from the Andean highlands] by Friday the 15th.

Both Hamish and I will fly to Trinidad in south east Beni, about 400km from La Paz, tomorrow. Andrew [the UNDAC team member responsible for information management] is currently situated there.

Wednesday 6 February

We’ve arrived in Trinidad in the Beni department, in the Amazon basin. On the flight the extent of flooding became apparent. Smaller settlements were barely visible and fields were identifiable by the trees that encompassed them only.

UNDAC member Andrew Alspach met us at the airport and briefly updated us before a meeting with El Instituto Geografico Militar (IGN).  We gave them some SRTM [NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topgraphy Mission – a commonly-used source of digital elevation data] datasets and in return tomorrow we hope that they will send a representative with a 1:5,000 of Trinidad and a 1:100,000 coverage of the flooded area.

Trinidad is a smallish town completely surrounded by a dyke – actually a raised roadway. Behind the dyke, tributaries of the Amazon regularly flood, and last year came to within 30 cm of over-topping. The floods are again rising fast and this year the peak is expected to be 50 cm higher, arriving this weekend.

Helicopter evacuation of the more remote communities is under way. Displaced villagers from the area are camped on top of the Trinidad dyke, which is only a little wider than the road that runs along it. The expectation is that the dyke will be breached, the town will flood and the IDPs and town’s population may be forced to relocate once again. We have a small boat just outside our work area, not sure when we’re going to need it!

Friday 9 February

The demand for maps has increased among the growing number of NGOs operating in the area, as the situation deteriorates. Our main clients are now World Food Programme (WFP), Save the Children, UNICEF, the department disaster management authority COED, the military, police and the Prefectura (local government), and of course the UNDAC team who are the main international coordinating organisation.

The flood water surrounding Trinidad is already 50cm higher than when the serious floods happened this time last year, and is increasing at an alarming rate. The dyke which encompasses the settlement is an average of 155cm high. The average water level now stands at 100cm. The flood water is rising at 10-15cm a day and with incoming rain is forecast to over-top the dyke in 3 to 4 days. Most the IDPs (internally displaced persons) from the surrounding area are camped on the top of the dyke.

We were asked to head out of town to the east, to assess possible emergency camp locations for 30,000 people. Seven small areas were identified and mapped on the road east of Trinidad, in the towns of Ivira and Casarabre. However they are not ideal, situated too far apart and having enough space for only about 2,300 people. The new camp sites will need to be supplied with 35,000 litres of fresh water per day, and a lot of latrines need to be dug. Work is ongoing to search for larger areas of high ground (165-170cm high) on which to place the IDPs.

Saturday 10 February

The flood waters qround Trinidad are now within around 20-30cm of the top of the dyke in some places, and are still rising at about 10cm per day. So it looks as though the dyke will be over-topped in a few days, as forecast.

The IDP population taking shelter within the city has risen by 2,200 to 15,500 over the past couple of days. From a walk last night, some shelters on the outer edge of the dyke are now at water level. Our elevation maps show that much of the town is below the level of the dyke and will be under 2 or 3 metres of water. The Bolivian fire service and the UNDAC team are worried that the waste dump will overflow, with flood water or just a heavy rainfall, contaminating large parts of the city and causing a serious disease risk. So a priority at the moment, from a meeting with the UNDAC team last night, is to firm up the evacuation plan for the town.

The main problems come from the number of people involved – potentially as many as 100,000 -- the few roads that will be available, and in particular (from Naomi's assessment trip) the lack of available space in surrounding areas to accommodate them.

At the moment we're still living in come comfort and much of the town away from the camps is going on as normal. Our hotel is filling up with NGOs (World Vision, Red Cross, SRS have been spotted) and helicopter pilots. Piranhas are reportedly being caught from the dyke, and an anaconda was seen in one of the camps. No news of crocodiles yet though apparently they are around somewhere. Hopefully they don't like DEET.