David RogersSenior Hydrometeorological Expert

Natural Disaster Mitigation and Earth Observations: a GEOSS PerspectiveGeneva, 13 January, 2014

Examples of Earth Observation Needs for World Bank Disaster Risk Management Operations

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Introduction to the World Bank Group

• Financial support and technical assistance for developing countries• Bank financing - country implementation - demand driven• Financing for projects, knowledge and data products, global

advocacy, technical assistance, advisory services, research, and donor/project coordination

• GFDRR is the disaster risk management focal point for the Bank

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Partnering with Governments to develop, share and use risk information to build resilience.

Developing innovative tools and adapting methodologies to promote collaboration, analysis and sharing of risk data and information.

Some achievements (always through partnership, on-going):• Rapidly mapped cities• Collaborative Spatial Assessment (CoSA) for post-disaster impact assessments • Geonode: Sharing and Communicating Risk Information• Risk Assessment for Financial and Social Protection• InaSafe: Intuitive tools for local decision makers• Tools to build risk capacity across sectors

World Bank - European Space Agency (ESA) Collaboration in using EO for Disaster Risk Assessment (part of a broader multi-sectoral partnership)

Future goals (again through partnership):• Open Cities: Community Mapping to Capture Exposure• Increasing functionality of risk tools and increased access to global and local datasets• Promotion of Open Data

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World Bank EO Needs for DRM (1/3)

Exposure Mapping• Baseline exposure (infrastructure, settlements, etc.)• Tracking urbanization patterns• High resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), including

monitoring (land subsidence)

Airborne IFSAR ($) SRTM (free)LIDAR ($$$)

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World Bank EO Needs for DRM (2/3)

Hazard Mapping

Make EO advances available to developing countries:• Rainfall, drought, flood and landslide monitoring• Historical flood footprints• Land cover determination and monitoring• Slope angle determination• Soil moisture monitoring• Geologic strain rate monitoring• Volcano morphology monitoring

In general faster, cheaper and more accurate/reliable risk assessments are needed.

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World Bank EO Needs for DRM (3/3)

Disaster Response and Recovery Planning• Remote damage assessments

– Pre- and post-disaster imagery– Automatic change detection– Crowd-sourced change detection– Visual interpretation for damage level determination– Streamlining of above processes

• Reconstruction planning, monitoring and evaluation– Linking with ground (geo-tagging monitoring)– Verification of commitments/reporting by owners, contractors,

partners, government, etc.

Why exposure and vulnerability mapping is critical

• Tropical Cyclone Fitow – good forecast of the hazard – 18 million people alerted, but….– Orange alert issued for Shanghai at 5:36 am– Red alert issued at 07:38 am

• Problem– warning too late to prevent people from going to

work/school/etc. • Result

– Gridlock and many people exposed to the hazard; flooded cars, buses, etc. 1,240,000 people directly affected

• Public response – why wasn’t the warning issued earlier?

Impact Forecasts versusWeather Forecasts

• Timing and details of the hazard– 156 mm of rain

starting at 2000 hrs and lasting 12 hours

– Yellow alert for tropical cyclone issued at 2100 hrs

• Timing and details of the impact– Extensive Flooding– Severe disruption to

public services expected from 0600 tomorrow

– Recommend schools close and inform families

– Recommend all except emergency services to remain off roads

Impact forecasts

Impact forecast(t) =Hazard forecast (t) X Vulnerability X Exposure (t)

The risk associated with the hydrometeorological hazard depends on knowing how that hazard impacts human beings, their livelihoods, and assets due to their vulnerability and exposure

Risk = Hazard x (Vulnerability x Exposure)

Case Study from UK Met Office

Hazard x Vulnerability x Exposure

Hazard Impact Model: Cornwall Flood 17th Nov 2010

Integration of Vulnerability and Exposure

Relative Risk – after integration with vulnerability & exposure [either via Impact Analysis per time step or individual static/semi-static fields]

Risk Matrix used by UK Met Office

LIKELIHOOD

Risk Matrix – A color is assigned to a warning based on the a combination of potential impact and likelihood

Applied to TC Fitow

• Hazard Warning– Yellow alert issued at

21:52 Oct 7th (take preventative measures - emergency services be prepared)

– No emergency action is taken

• Impact Warning– Red alert issued at

21:52 Oct 7th – due to impact expected during tomorrow’s rush hour

– Take emergency action now to prevent high impact

Summary

World Bank/GFDRR and partner country priority EO needs for disaster risk management:• High resolution exposure information: infrastructure,

settlements and DEMs• Hazard information: hydrometeorological and geological

real-time and past event data • Support to recovery: damage assessments and

monitoring of reconstruction

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Many thanks!

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