GIS and geomatics for disaster management and emergency relief: a proactive response to natural hazards

Abstract

Geo-information and remote sensing are proper tools to enhance functional strategies for increasing awareness on natural hazard prevention and for supporting research and operational activities devoted to disaster reduction. An improved earth sciences knowledge coupled with geomatics advanced technologies is here proposed with the goal of reducing human, social, economic, and environmental losses due to natural hazards and related disasters. Research activities lead to the collection and evaluation of data from: global and national literature for the definition of predisposing/triggering factors and evolutionary processes of natural instability phenomena (landslides, floods, storms…) and for the analysis of statistical methods for the prediction of natural disasters; local and regional historical, geological, geomorphological studies of mountain territories of Europe and Developing Countries. Geodatabases, remote sensing, and mobile geographic information systems (GIS) applications were developed to perform analysis of: (1) large, climate-related disaster (Hurricane Mitch, Central America; Zambesi Flood, Mozambique), either for early warning or mitigation measures at the national and international scale; (2) distribution on slope instabilities at the regional scale (Landslide Inventory in the Aosta Valley, NW Italy), to activate prevention and recovering measures; (3) geological and geomorphological controlling factors of seismicity, to provide microzonation maps and scenarios for coseismic response of instable zones (Dronero, NW Italian Alps); (4) earthquake effects on ground and infrastructures, in order to register early assessment for awareness situations and for compile damage inventories (2000, 2001, and 2003 AstiAlessandria seismic events). The research results has been able to substantiate early impact models by structuring geodatabases on natural disasters and to support humanitarian relief and disaster management activities by creating and testing SRG2, a mobile GIS application for field-data collection on natural hazards and risks.

Assessing OpenStreetMap Completeness for Management of Natural Disaster by Means of Remote Sensing: A Case Study of Three Small Island States

“…Accurate and easily accessible geospatial information is key for an effective disaster risk management cycle and for informed decision-making during humanitarian response [63]. The increasing availability of geospatial information is revolutionizing disaster research and emergency management.…”

An Analysis of Geospatial Technologies for Risk and Natural Disaster Management

“…All of this information facilitates the compilation of databases on natural disasters and supports humanitarian relief and disaster management activities [41]. Although these are good examples of the applicability of GIS, remote-sensing and GNSS techniques, it is important to demonstrate that the methodologies and information can be shared to achieve results.…”

Web3DGIS-Based System for Reservoir Landslide Monitoring and Early Warning

“…By integrating the above techniques with landslide early warning models, real-time early warning of landslides becomes possible [20][21][22][23][24][25], as does the design and development of practical monitoring systems [26][27][28] and disaster handling decision-making and support systems [29][30][31][32]. Some progress has been made on the development of an early warning system; however, there are issues that remain to be resolved: (1) expression and analysis of three-dimensional spatial information; (2) real-time collection, transfers, storage, analysis and integration of multi-spot and multi-type sensor statistics; and (3) connecting the landslide early warning modal with a decision-making model and with information publishing functions, so as to effectively achieve the functional integration of the system.…”