Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1487971
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 11 DECEMBER 2022 12 COMMERCIAL THE Planning Authority (PA) hosted the closing seminar of the SpatialTrain Scholarship Scheme, which is part-financed by the European Union through the European Social Fund. The project provided 70 scholarships in the field of geospatial tech- nology (Geomatics) for persons employed within the public ser- vice. In his opening address Minis- ter for Public Works and Plan- ning, Dr. Stefan Zrinzo Azzo- pardi, stated, "I am satisfied that the PA has taken this initiative to provide more training on spa- tial data. In this era dominated by informatics and communica- tion, it is essential to have spa- tial information and data more widespread and available to the public so that it can be main- tained and analyzed better." Parliamentary Secretary for EU funds, Chris Bonett said, "This project is an investment of more than €900,000 financed by Eu- ropean funds. These funds con- tinued to help improve the skills people who work in various sectors within the public sector including tourism and the envi- ronment." In her presentation, Dr Elaine Sciberras, Spatial Train pro- ject leader highlighted how the PA's Scholarship Scheme, ena- bled participants from various government entities to obtain specialised skills in the acquisi- tion and analysis of spatial da- ta in the physical, natural and social environments, through 3D modelling and simulations. This enabled the enhancement of knowledge in an array of fields such as planning, public health, transport, aviation, cul- tural heritage, crime spatial dy- namics, ecosystem monitoring, water and marine applications, amongst others. These topics aimed to provide the tuition on the principle of geomatics, the use of GIS as well as its applica- tions to the various fields which complement the roles of various government entities. Therefore, this enabled a more efficient use and understanding of the im- portance of spatial science and information, across all govern- ment entities. Overall, the value-added knowledge being acquired by these trainees contributed to upscale existing skills of these public officers for the analysis and interpretation of spatial da- ta and aims to improve decisions based on informed results. The seminar included a num- ber of presentations by partici- pants from Diploma and Masters level. In the field of communica- tions, Ing David Scerri outlined how through his course he em- barked on a nationwide Elec- tromagnetic field (EMF) moni- toring exercise along paths and carriageways across the Maltese Islands. The extensive data set collected was then interpolated producing a raster image of the EMF exposure levels. This was later cropped down to public recreation parks in Malta. All parks were found to have an ex- posure level below the 5% mark of the established EMF safe lev- els. Another interesting study was presented by Inspector Shawn Pawney about different methods of measuring crime and under- standing the best way to present data on different scales. Since not all crimes are equal, using a Crime Severity/Harm index can give a more realistic view of crime and its socio-econom- ic impact. Using such an index also proved effective into under- standing changes in crime pat- terns through time and helped identify local changes which in- fluenced the national scale. The ESF.04.071 SpatialTRAIN Scholarships Scheme project was part-financed by the Euro- pean Union – European Social Fund (ESF) under Operation- al Programme II – Cohesion Policy 2014-2020, "Investing in human capital to create more opportunities and promote the well-being of society". The Spatial Train Scholarships Scheme