NEREIDS is an EU-funded project which brings together Civil Defence agencies and NGOs from Greece and Cyprus to work on improving the response to Maritime Incidents such as Oil Pollution.  The context is the high volume of shipping in the eastern Mediterranean and the exploitation of newly-found deposits.

This project has selected Sahana Eden as being the most suitable tool to bring together disparate data sources and to visualise them in the same place for enhanced situational awareness.

Martin Thomsen, Vice Chair of the Board of the Sahana Software Foundation, and Fran Boon, Chair of Products Development Committee, attended a Scenario workshop in Nicosia, Cyprus that brought together a multidisciplinary group of people to share their ideas. The meeting was well attended including by a Minister and an EU commissioner.

The Sahana presentation was well-received as a suitable tool to allow the diverse stakeholders involved to collaborate more easily through strong support for data integration and controlled sharing of data. The visualisations allow for easier analysis by pressured decision makers.

The next step is a tabletop exercise in July in Greece at which Sahana is planned to be used to visualise the evolving situation. There is also interest in doing a SahanaCamp to bring stakeholders together to learn how to maximise the value that this tool can deliver.