GIS and Data Specialist

Background

Since its creation in 2012, the ARC Agency has been working towards establishing and mainstreaming its operational procedures and in-country work programme with ARC Member States. At the country-level the ARC Secretariat of the ARC Agency supports ARC in-country technical working groups on several technical and political work-streams as they progress towards making an informed decision on participating in the ARC Ltd insurance pool. The ARC Secretariat Technical Team supports the technical aspects of this interaction, including working with countries to customise and validate Africa RiskView and select risk transfer parameters for their insurance products. The Research & Development (R&D) department maintains and improves, where possible, the Africa RiskView software and underlying risk models, develops new insurance products for ARC Member States and provides technical and software-related support to internal and external users.

One of the core elements of the ARC Agency’s technical programme is now to expand the insurance products offered by ARC Ltd to include flood, tropical cyclone and outbreak and epidemic risk, in addition to its on-going work to improve Africa RiskView (ARV) and to lead the software’s customisation and validation in participating ARC countries. Within this context the GIS & Data Specialist will assist in the validation of the ARC River Flood Model (AFM-R) which will be used to underpin the new river flood insurance product. In addition, he/she will provide GIS and risk analysis support to other projects where required, including to ARC’s flagship drought insurance product.

Responsibilities

Reporting to the ARC Director of Research & Development and working closely with the R&D and Technical Teams, in close collaboration and under guidance of the Flood Model Development Manager, the GIS & Data Specialist’s responsibilities will include the following:

1. Understand ARC and the Africa RiskView software and its underlying methodology;
2. Maintain the boundary layers for the Africa RiskView software;
3. Validate the temporal and spatial accuracy of AFM-R and underlying model components (flood depiction, flood index) by correlating model results with information from sources such as river gauge data, land use and emergency response operations, amongst others;
4. Contribute to the flood model development at the technical level, helping to define the underlying indices that will be used for flood insurance contracts;
5. Work with the ARV Development Team to ensure the flood module is successfully tested and incorporated into the tool;
6. Together with the Flood Development Manager and the Technical Team, ensure technical country- level inputs to and feedback on the flood model are gathered and incorporated into the model and insurance product;
7. Prepare training material on the flood model, validation and customisation work where required and guide ARC Secretariat Technical Team staff in the same;
8. Develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the validation and, where possible, customisation of the flood model by in-country Technical Working Groups and the ARC Secretariat Technical Team;
9. Manage the documentation and data generated and gathered during the flood model and insurance phase and ensure all final work is documented and stored on Teamworks and related SOPs are updated and maintained;
10. Contribute to the testing of the Africa RiskView software and refinement of its current products;
11. Reporting of bugs and possible improvements of the Africa RiskView software and other tools to the R&D team;
12. Providing GIS and data preparation and analysis support for the ARC Technical Team staff and R&D team, as necessary;
13. Duty travel representing the ARC at workshops and trainings as necessary;
14. Provide other technical support as required by the R&D and Technical Teams.

Other specific job requirements

In addition to timely and high-quality technical input and assistance to the ARC Flood Model Development Manager, R&D and Technical Teams, to ensure quality assurance, quality control and business continuity for AFM-R and other ARC models, software products and in-country work, all output of this work will be fully documented and accessible on ARC’s in-house knowledge management system Teamworks. The GIS & Data Specialist will also produce AFM-R validation SOPs and training material as required for ARC’s training courses.

Qualifications and experience

Minimum qualifications

Advanced university degree in Geography, Hydrology, Natural Resources or related discipline with a strong component of GIS, Remote Sensing and data analysis; or Advanced university degree in GIS, Remote Sensing, Geomatics or related discipline with a strong environmental background.

Desired Experience

Minimum of 4 years of experience in data analysis and/or GIS & Remote Sensing, preferably related to environmental resources and related fields. Experience in automating simple GIS processing tasks with e.g. Python or ArcGIS’s ModelBuilder. Experience in standardisation and developing procedures. Some experience in flood risk mapping and flood early warning would be an asset.

Knowledge

Expert user of GIS software (ArcGIS, QGIS) for analysis purposes. Expert user of Excel. Knowledge of Python and GDAL for simple scripting. Strong problem-solving capabilities. Strong analytical skills. Precise, with attention to detail. Ability to work under minimum supervision and under tight deadlines. Information-sharing minded. Strong writing and communication skills, with the ability to translate complex, technical information into clear and simple language.

Language

International Professional: Fluency (level C) in English. Capable of reviewing French translations of technical documentation. Working knowledge of Portuguese is an asset.

Applicants must be South African nationals.