Images & Labs

Lab #1 - The Stop Disasters Game

For this assignment, my first goal was to play the interactive disasters game that is put out by the ISDR. I was to implement a strategy to minimize lives lost and property damage. For my strategy on this run-through, I decided to mainly focus on building defenses like dunes and sea walls along the coast, sturdier concrete buildings, and doing everything I could to educate people and give them early warning. I chose this strategy because it seemed like the most logical choice. A combination of flood defenses and giving people a place to go with well-trained staff should help minimize the overall effects of the disaster. In the end, I was given the "gold medal" from my overall score, so my strategy was rather effective.

My second goal was the play the game again and maximize death and destruction. I decided that the best strategy to cause maximum deaths would be basically the opposite of what I did before. I constructed the cheapest, weakest buildings and demolished what I could of the natural barriers along the coast, leaving the land exposed. I did not educate anyone on how to deal with a disaster and did not include any extra warning devices. I also built my structures as close as I could to the water, increasing the chances of them being destroyed. I received a "fail" from the game at the end, so I would say that I did my job of creating a bad situation.

Lab #2 - Getting Familiar With ArcGIS

For this assignment, my goal was to make a fairly simple map showing a type of hazard data for the United States.

The type of data being used here falls into the behavioural paradigm of hazards. The main issue this paradigm addresses is why natural hazards create deaths and economic damage and how changes in human behavior can minimize the risks. Data like this can be used to improve short-term warning and long-term planning so that people can adapt and avoid area that are more prone to disaster. If you were to use a map like this to analyze risk, you would want to add more data such as population and potential technological hazards like nuclear power plants, just to name a couple possibilities. This would allow you to take a more complexity paradigm based approach. The complexity paradigm puts emphasis on the complex interactions between natural and human hazards, and tends to lead to improving the long-term managements of hazards on the local level.

 

 

Lab #5 - Earthquakes as a Hazard

The first map I made for this assignment is essentially a risk management map on earthquakes in the United States. Using three seperate data layers, I constructed a map of the urban areas at the greatest risk of earthquake-related disaster over the next 50 years.

 

The second map I made for this assignment is designed to show the relationship between liquification, building damage, and damage density. Liquification is what it is called when moisture-rich soils begin to act like a liquid in extreme shaking conditions such as an earthquake. Areas with sand and silt located close to the Earth's surface are at the greateast risk of this. These areas also tend to end up having greater amount building damage, and the density of that damage can be directly related to where the liquification happens.

 

The third map I made for this assignment is designed to show the relationship between peak ground acceleration and building damage. As you can see, there is a direct relationship between areas with high PGA levels and greater building damage. 

 

The final map I made for this lab is dsigned to show the relationship between peak ground velocity and building damage. As with the map above, you can see some patterns between PGV and the amount of damage caused. Greater damage density occurs around and near areas with high PGV ratings.

 

 

Lab #6 - Volcanoes

The first map I made for this lab is rather simple. It is highlighting the top five countries in the world in terms of volcanic eruptions. They are Indonesia, Japan, United States, Russia, and Italy, all of which are in areas where plates are mostly converging.

 

My second image for this lab is a digital elevation model (DEM) of Mt. Rainier.

My third image is a triangular irregular network (TIN) model of Mt. Rainier. These two images are quite different, although they are showing essentially the same thing. With the TIN image, all of the elevations are one color, so you have to look harder to find the high elevations, but it is nice to be able to visualize them. With the DEM, althought you don't get to see the actual differences in height, you can easily pick out which areas are the highest based on color.

My next image in a landcover map, overlayed with a lahar model.









My next two images are Mt. St. Helens before and after the eruption.

 

My final map from this lab shows the total amount of material that was lost during the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. It is on a scale of 0-3.9 billion cubic yards.



Lab #7 - Mass Wasting



The first map I produced for this lab is simply showing what areas of the U.S. are most prone to mass wasting events. I have labeled 5 main areas along with the reasons they are prone.

The next map is a combination of a shaded relief map and a slope steepness map. This is attempting to show which areas would be least prone to slope failures. The green areas are the safest, as they have slopes of 30 degrees or less. The darker the green, the less steep that area is.

 

My final map was made as if it were going to be used to prove that land developers were negligent and at fault during a 1999 landslide event in California. The land parcels are color-coded by damage level, from green to red (green being low and red being high). The purple line shows where the flow accumulation went. You can see that the flow does not follow the stream as it should and would be expected. Instead, it plows right through this developed area. This shows what happened when the developers moved the original stream. The flow followed the correct path (where the stream shoud have been) instead of where the stream actually is. By moving the stream and allowing people to build in this flow path, the developers were negligent and failed to recognize or acknowledge that these people would be in the path of this kind of event.

 

Lab #8 - Simulating a Flood

The first map I made for this lab is a simulation of a 100-year flood and the impact it would have on the UWEC campus and surrounding areas. This was achieved by taking an elevation model of the area and using a raster calculation to pick out the areas of the correct elevations that would be flooded by such an event. According to FEMA, the 100-year flood line in this area is 780 feet. The result appears in the purple color. As you can see, quite a few of the lower campus buildings would be at risk, as well as all of Water Street and some residential areas.

 



 

My second map uses the same steps and examples, but the result was produced to show the affected area if the river flooded to 790 feet instead of 780. The result appears in the green color. As you can see, all of lower campus would now be affected along with much more residential area.

 

 

My third map again uses the same steps and examples, but was designed to show the affected area if the river flooded to 800 feet. The result appears in the pink color. All of lower campus and all of the surrounding residential area is now affected.

 

 

The next image I produced is a 3-D version of the 100-year flood model. By bringing the flood layer and campus building layers into ArcScene, and letting them float on top of the elevation model of the area, I created an image showing the topography of the land in relation to building locations as well as what areas are flood prone. The 100-year flood appears in blue.

 

Lab #9 - Coastal Flooding

The first map I made for this lab is of the risks involved with a Tsunami in the Oxnard and Ventura areas. The shaded area is the area that would be affected by a tsunami, and I have identified the schools, hospitals, and emergency services that would be impacted.



 

The second map I made is of Collier County, Florida. It is showing the water depth of a hurricane storm surge from a category 3 storm in relation to areas of high population. The darker the shading, the deeper the water depth (from black to light green). The population densities go from green (least) to red (greatest). The point of this map is to show that some highly populated areas are affected quite a bit from just a category 3 storm.