Disaster Assessment

¾ Types of natural disasters

¾ Landslides
¾ Earthquakes
¾ Tsunami
¾ Cyclones
¾ Floods
¾ Snow avalanche
¾ Case studies for disaster
assessment using Geospatial
techniques
¾ Use of Remote Sensing & GIS
software for disaster assessment.
The natural disasters have become fast recurring
phenomena all over the world causing huge loss of
human lives and crumbling impact on the economy of
a country.

Natural disasters are inevitable and Indian subcontinent

is prone to all type of natural disaster, e.g., earthquake,
flood, drought, cyclone, Tsunami, landslides,
avalanche, forest fires, etc.

The natural disasters can not be prevented fully but

their impact can be minimized with sound disaster
management strategy aided by the latest technological
advancements in the field of Geoinformatics.
The disaster management is a multi-
disciplinary endeavour, requiring many types
of data with spatial and temporal attributes
that should be available to district
administrators in the right format for
decision-making.

Geographic Information System (GIS) is a

powerful tool which can be used to create
integrated geo-database, visualize scenarios,
develop advanced spatial models and
effective solutions, prepare disaster zonation
maps, and the management plans.
Landslides
Landslides occur when stability of slope changes from a stable to
an unstable condition.
A change in the stability of a slope can be due to :
Natural causes :
† Ground water pressure
† Loss of vegetative structure and soil nutrients
(after forest fire)
† Erosion of a slope by rivers or ocean waves
† Slope saturation by snowmelt or heavy rains
† Earthquakes
† Volcanic eruptions

Human causes :
† Deforestation,
† Cultivation and construction,
† Vibrations from machinery or traffic
Global zones of landslide risk
Landslide classification

1. Debris flow
Slope material that becomes saturated with water
develop into a slurry of rock and mud that pick up
trees, houses and cars, thus blocking bridges and
tributaries causing flooding along its path.

2. Earth flow
Downslope, viscous flows of saturated, fine-
grained materials, moving at speeds from 0.17 to
20 km/h.
3. Debris avalanche
Chaotic movement of rocks soil and debris
mixed with water or ice (or both). Here the
movement is much more rapid.

4. Movement
Debris slides begin with large blocks that break
apart as they move towards the toe. This
process is much slower than that of a debris
avalanche.
5. Sturzstrom
Mobile, flowing very far over a low angle, flat, or even slightly uphill
terrain.
6. Causing tsunamis
Landslides that occur undersea, or have impact into water, can generate
tsunamis.

7. Deep-seated landslide
Landslides in which the sliding surface is
mostly deeply located below the maximum
rooting depth of trees (depth > 10 m)

8. Shallow landslide
Landslide in which the sliding surface is
located within the soil mantle or weathered
bedrock (depth < 1 m)
Landslide hazard analysis and mapping provides useful information for
catastrophic loss reduction and for development of guidelines for
sustainable land use planning.
The analysis is mainly done for

• Identify factors related to landslides,

• Estimate relative contribution each factor,
• Establish a relation between factors and landslides,
• Predict the landslide hazard of future

The factors used for landslide hazard analysis are

• Geomorphology
• Geology
• Land use/land cover
• Hydrogeology
Since many factors are considered for landslide
hazard mapping, GIS is an appropriate tool
because it has functions of collection, storage,
manipulation, display, and analysis of large
amounts of spatially referenced data which can
be handled fast and effectively.

Remote sensing techniques are also highly

useful, before and after satellite imagery are
used to gather landslide characteristics,
distribution and classification to reveal how the
landscape changed after an event, what may
have triggered the landslide, and process of
regeneration and recovery.
Using satellite imagery in combination with GIS and on-
the-ground studies, it is possible to generate extremely
detailed maps of past events and likely future landslides.

Such maps have the potential to save lives, property, and

money.
 CASE STUDY
Landslides is one of the major natural catastrophes of the Nilgiris
District, which account for a considerable loss of life and damage to
communication routes, human settlements, agricultural and
forestland.

The problem of landslides becomes more aggravated, especially during

the rainy season.

Data used :
• A watershed has been taken for landslide hazard
zonation (LHZ)
• mapping is done using 10-meter contour interval
Survey Of India toposheets
• 6-meter spatial resolution IRS LISS-III + PAN
is used to give broad and qualitative ideas for
landslide risk Management.
Further needs :
For effective zonation and management, Contour
interval of 2 meters is necessary and spatial
resolution of 1 meter is needed.

Though optical resolution data is increasing day-by-

day (Quick bird, Cartosat, etc.), getting vertical
resolution is still challenging in passive remote
sensing.

Interferometric techniques can be effectively

employed to improve the existing Digital Elevation
Model to monitor minor changes in terrain.

The RISAT mission of government of India,

RADARSAT of Canada, ENVISAT of ESA
(European Space Agency) will provide necessary
spatial data for such analysis.
Methodology
The study has demonstrated the application of
various remote sensing techniques in order to obtain
the model for the effective mitigation.

We can classify the hazard zones into very low, low,

moderate, high and very high.

This highly depends on the slope of the place. In this

paper, we have analyzed the usage of the
conventional methods such as photogrammetry
along with the modern techniques of remote sensing
using satellite images.

We also discussed the use of advanced technology,

which has been planned to be used in the future such
as space borne SAR and high-resolution optical data.
Earthquakes
There are around 500,000 earthquakes each year.

About 100,000 of these can actually be felt as Minor earthquakes

occuring nearly all around the world in places like California, Alaska,
Guatemala, Chile, Peru, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Portugal, Turkey, New
Zealand, Greece, Italy, and Japan.

Larger earthquakes occur less frequently.

e.g. In a particular time period roughly ten times as

many earthquakes larger than magnitude 4 occur
than earthquakes larger than magnitude 5.
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the
Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. by rupture of geological
faults, volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts, and nuclear tests.

The frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a

period of time is referred as seismicity or seismic activity of an
area .

When a large earthquake occurs at seabed it

causes tsunami.

The earthquakes can also trigger landslides and

volcanic activity.
An earthquake's point of initial rupture is called its focus or hypocenter.

The point at ground level directly above hypocenter is called epicenter.

Earthquakes are measured with a seismometer

Records of a seismometer are known as a seismograph.

The magnitude of an earthquake is reported with

magnitude 3 : imperceptible lower earthquakes and
magnitude 7 : causing serious damage over large areas.

Intensity of shaking is measured on the modified

Mercalli scale.
Impacts of Shaking and ground rupture
earthquakes Severe damage to buildings and other structures.
Landslides and avalanches
Slope instability leading to landslides.
Fires
Damaging electrical power or gas lines.
Soil liquefaction
Saturated granular material like sand temporarily
loses its strength and transforms from a solid to
liquid because of shaking.
Tsunami & Floods
Long-wavelength, long-period sea waves produced
by the sudden movement of sea water. Overflow of
large amount of water reaches land causing flood.
Human impacts
Earthquakes may lead to disease, lack of basic
necessities causing loss of life.
CASE STUDY

Allahabad has now got the status of Metro-city

with a population of over 10 lakhs.

The volume of information needed for natural

disasters far exceeds the capacity to deal with
them manually and thus there is a need for a GIS
based Decision Support System (DSS).

A GIS based DSS for disaster management can be

developed consisting of three modules
1. integrated geo-database module;
2. module consisting of disaster management
models;
3. user-interface module.
The information required for decision making during any disaster is
diverse, spatial and temporal in nature.

Remote sensing technology can be advantageously used for detailed near

real-time monitoring, damage assessment and long-term relief
management.

The various stages involved in the preparation of GIS

based DSS for disaster management for Allahabad
include

¾ development of an integrated geo-database

consisting of various thematic maps,
¾ demographic data,
¾ socio-economic data
¾ infrastructural facilities at village level under GIS
environment.
The various thematic maps include
road network map,
water supply network map,
Fire control office map, urban sprawl map,
drainage map and
land use map
The various utilities like
education facilities,
medical facilities, electricity, etc.
and other information from Census 2001
available for the district have been
represented spatially using GIS.

A menu driven Graphical User Interface (GUI) has

also been developed so that the GIS based DSS for
disaster management can be used by administrators
who may not have in-depth knowledge of working in
GIS.
By navigating through GUI, planners with basic
knowledge of computers can work on this system
and this is expected to increase the acceptability
of the present system among planners and
decision-makers.

The ArcGIS software and Erdas Imagine

software have been used for carrying out the
work in the present study.

The GIS based DSS for disaster management

proposed for Allahabad district may be adopted
for further implementation by district
administrators.
Tsunami
• A tsunami is a series of water waves caused
by the displacement of a large volume of a
body of water, usually an ocean, but can occur
in large lakes.

• Due to the immense volumes of water and

energy involved, tsunamis can devastate
coastal regions.

• Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other

underwater explosions, landslides and other
mass movements, meteorite ocean impacts and
other disturbances above or below water can
generate a tsunami.
Tsunami in the deep ocean has a wavelength of
about 200 km traveling at about 800 km/h

Due to long wavelength the wave oscillation at any

given point takes 20 or 30 min to complete a cycle
and has an amplitude of only about 1 m.

This makes tsunamis difficult to detect over deep

water.

Ships rarely notice the passage of tsunami wave.

As the tsunami approaches the coast and the waters

become shallow, wave shoaling compresses the
wave and its velocity slows below 80 km/h.

Its wavelength diminishes to less than 20 km and its

amplitude grows enormously, producing a distinctly
visible wave.
Since the wave still has a long wavelength, the
tsunami may take minutes to reach full height.

When the tsunami's wave peak reaches the shore,

the resulting temporary rise in sea level is termed
'run up'.

Run up is measured in metres above a reference sea

level.

A large tsunami may feature multiple waves

arriving over a period of hours, with significant
time between the wave crests.

About 80% of tsunamis occur in the Pacific Ocean,

but are possible wherever there are large bodies of
water, including lakes. They are caused by
earthquakes, landslides, volcanic explosions, and
bolides.
CASE STUDY
The Nicobar Islands was one of the several islands
which were severally damaged by the Great
Tsunami on 26 December 2004.

The origin of tsunami was series on undersea

earthquakes, the largest being measured 9.3 M.

The direct consequence of Great Earthquake, that

ruptured the sea floor up to 100 km in places, was
displacement of a huge volume of water that
translated into tsunami of colossal proportion.

The great tsunami event caused the devastation and

a loss of life in south and south East Asia including
the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Materials Used:

Software :
ArcView,
ERDAS IMAGINE etc.

Data :

Survey of India (SOI) topographic Maps,

Satellite imageries- IRS-IC LISS III (24 Feb. 1999),

IRS-P6 (16 Feb. 2005 & 01 Feb. 2005),

GPS-Garmin etrex & Garmin vista,

High precision Oregon scientific Altimeter

Methodology:

The digital analysis of the P6 digital satellite data was

done by using the image processing software.
Image enhancement techniques with brightness
contrast and break points is used in delineating
inundation of tsunami water on islands by acquiring
actual reflectance values from satellite data.
The coastal mapping was made by on screen
digitization
The wave height, run up elevation, coastal erosion
delineation and impact of damages was made by using
the DEM/DTM.
The field data of the various locations that were
collected with the help of handheld GPS to verify the
tsunami wave height as well as the distance from sea.
The tsunami wave height are measured based on
the satellite imageries and the DEM generated
using SOI contour and 1m SRTM data with a
vertical resolution of +/-1m.

Inundation distances in the island were so large that

they were most easily measured from satellite
images, where sediment deposited by the waves
and vegetation killed by the saltwater are clearly
visible

The flow direction of the tsunami water was from

all sides of the island

The pre and post tsunami images have been studied

for the observation of subsidence.
In order to assess the damages the pre and post
tsunami satellite data are critically analysed in the
GIS domain.
For this a base map is generated from the SOI
topographic map of the region.
Based on this map the coastal area of the two
scenes (pre and post) have been classified and
vectorised using the ERDAS vector and ArcView
software.
Overlay analysis of these classified vector data is
performed to find out the changes in the coastal
corridor of the Island and ultimate the assessment
of the damages is done form this analysis.

The application of High resolution Remote Sensing

data and GIS techniques are used to assess the
tsunami hazards in the Car Nicobar Island.
THANK YOU

sources : www.wikipedia.com
case studies from :
www.gisdevelopment.com