Images

This part of Florida, Collier County, has received coastal flooding due to hurricanes and we are looking at how this flooding will impact this area in terms of its population. I couldn’t get the labels to work right, but in the legend, after Collier County, a range of population density follows. The darker areas are ones with a low population density, and those in white have a high concentration of people. We can see the areas in white poke out behind the surge water levels. It is in these areas that high concentrations of people are living. Compare those areas in white with the surge levels (in blue and purple) and we can see that some of these areas could be flooded if the storm surge reached more than 5 feet.

This part of Flordia, Collier County, has received coastal flooding due to hurricanes and we are looking at how this flooding will impact this area in terms of population. I couldnt get the labels to work right, but in the legend, after Collier County, a range of population density follows. The darker areas are ones with a low population density, and those in white have a high concentration. We can see the areas in white poke out behind the surge water levels. It is in theses areas that high concentrations of poeple are vulnerable to flooding.

This here is a map that shows the relationship between tsunamis and the areas that it affected. The yellow, green, and red dots represent facilities like medical, emergency, and schools respectively. The blue area is the result of a tsunami and the flooding that follows. Many of these facilities fall within the flood zone, which can turn a natural hazard into a disaster.

So what we have here is the same data as the bottom three maps of flood levels for areas around the University. The above map was created in ArcScence which allows for us to create a 3D representation of the same info. So here we see the buildings of the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire in orange, and blue of course is the water. The water is at an elevation of 790 feet, and as you can see if waters reach these levels then parts of lower campus will be flooded. What was really awesome is that we can give the buildings a height which better helps us see how high the water reaches.

This is a map of all three layers combined to show the the diferrent extent each scenario would have.

You guessed it, more flood maps! This map shows the range that a flood would encompass at 800 feet.

This map shows the range of a potential flood at 790 feet in elevation.

Todays lab was a good one! We got to see that most of us live in a flood plain and one day we may be floating down Water Street. The purple areas are areas in which a 100 year flood would reach. The area above the river is, as i mentioed, home to a large student population. The red lines mark where the latest 100 year flood zone have been established by FEMA.

The areas in purple represent areas that have a slope angle of more than 35 degrees. You can see that in this area the purple areas are adjacent to white areas or, high to low areas of elevation respectively.

 Before and After DEM photo of Mount Saint Helens

For this TIN, I added the Lahar layer, showing the Mount Rainer Lahar. The brown paths are the routes take by the volcanic mud flows. 

This is a TIN (Triangular Irregulated Network) that is in the beginning process of helping display the height of Mount Rainer.

This is a DEM (Digital Elevation Model) which uses contrasting colors in this instance to show the elevation differences. The brighter image towards the center correlates to a higher elevation than the surronding darker areas. The top photo is without using a base height. The bottom pictures incorporates a base height, giving it a 3D image.

Again same area of Northridge, CA. But the focus of this map is on the Peak Ground Velocity. Again showing that high areas are located in the same areas that have high building damage.

This is a map of the same location as the map below. The above map shows the peak ground acceleration and the monitoring stations around the area. The highest PGA values are the lightest shades of red. The dark blue shades underneath relate to the building damage density, better displayed in the map below. There is a correlation between high damage density and PGA.

Building damage density is the product of building damage, soil liquefaction, and the area in which the disaster happened. Soil liquefaction increases the risk of damage to buildings which would raise the overall building damage density.  This map shows liquefaction levels, and building damage density caused by the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake.  Areas that have high building damage also have high to very high soil liquefaction. This increases the building damage density.

The ACC_Values show the level of ground motion that has a 10% probability of shaking in the next 50 years. The higher the number means the more shaking you will have. These shaking values also go in hand with the Quaternary Deposits (Q & QV). These deposits (shown in pink) are areas of soil that haverecently formed. One property of these types of soil deposits are that they are unstable. This ground shaking, plus the unstable ground, and then add in frequent earthquakes, makes these areas high in risk. Urban areas with large concentrations of population are also labeled on the map to show where we live in relations to these areas. California is an area of high interest in terms of this map. It has a large population but also a high probability of ground shaking, increasing it's risk.

The map on the left shows soil types, while the right shows the drought conditions of recent. The drought that happened this year is occuring in places where we grow much of our grains such as corn. We grow much of our food in this area (the midwest) because of the soil types (mollisols) found in that region.

This is a map of past (2001-2010) as well as current wildfires in the western portion of the United States. Different colors denote different years in which fires have occurred.

 

I used the engineering paradigm approach for this assignment. This paradigm focuses on creating protection for the most damaging hazards and uses science and technology to defend against these natural disasters. The data I am using, the U.S wildfire data, looks at the frequency of natural fires in the western U.S. This data could be used by construction companies who are going to develop a fire prone area. They would hopefully decide to build buildings that are fire resistant, like brick, instead of log cabins.

To make this a complexity paradigm approach we would need more information regarding other countries around the world, the LDC’s in particular, so we can reduce natural disasters in a sustainable way. Also if this data set had information on where societies are located relative to the wildfires and how they affect the natural environment, then this would become a complexity paradigm approach.

Using ArcMap I constructed a map of earthquakes that happened over a 23 year period. Most of the earthquakes occur on or near fault lines. This happens to also be where large concentrations of people are located (look at Southeast Asia)

Todays assignment focused on what we can do to decrease the damage of natural disasters, like hurricanes and tsunamis.

My main strategy for this tsunami scenario was to build houses as far inland as possible. Putting up defenses like sand dunes and trees along the coast was a way to reduce damage done by the tsunami. Educating my population with evacuation plans and disaster courses, as well as having an early warning system, was a major part in preventing death. Also building structures out of concrete as opposed to wood helped reduce damage.

Part 2

Q. What's more fun than trying to minimize natural disater destruction?

A. Maximizing the destruction!

In this scenario I built the majority of my houses along the coast and provided no additional modifications to the structures. No early warning system or no evacuation plans made this disaster more devastating than it should have been.