Lab Data

Lab 1: Stop Disasters Game!

The purpose of this lab was to look at certain environmental hazards and try to mitigate death and destruction in the event of a disaster. This game was developed by the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction organization to help individuals (not just children!) to simulate disasters and preparedness techniques.

The game can be found here: http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/home.html

In the first playthrough I simulated a tsunami event. My strategy was to build homes, apartments, hospitals and schools on sturdy higher ground. Then to mitigate the effect of the tsunami, I planted many trees and mangroves along the beaches and shallow water. My theory behind using the trees was that it was cost friendly and a natural way to mitigate the tsunami. Trees also look nice and add to the eco-tourism aspect of the location. Then I purchased some breakwaters and put them into the deeper water. The houses I chose were concrete and offered the most protection. I didn't know about upgrading homes and community centers on my first play through, so there was some loss of life as the community was not properly warned of the tsunami. Below are some pictures:

Community with defenses in place, breakwaters in ocean, trees along sand, and buildings on high ground.

Same community with no defenses, an effort to demonstrate how devastating a tsunami can be.

I also chose to do a wildfire scenario. To mitigate a wildfire I chose to plant fire retardant trees and chop down the dry trees creating fire breaks. I also improved as many houses as possible with metal roofs, metal shutters, protective wiring, sprinklers and hoses.

 

 

Lab 2: Geospatial Techniques Intro

 

The purpose of this lab is to familiarize ourselves with ArcMap and Google earth as tools to facilitate data gathering and research. Using ArcGIS Online, we looked up basemaps and added hazard data to a map.

 

 

 

Lab 3: Earthquakes in ArcGIS

 

The purpose of this lab was to acquaint ourselves with ArcGIS software and look at earthquake hazards as well.

 

 



Lab 5: Earthquakes

 

The purpose of this lab was to look at earthquake hazard in the United States. Using ArcMap software we looked beyond the tectonic factors and focused on the geologic and human vulnerability.



This map shows the amount of historic earthquakes in the United States and their magnitude. Also, USPGA050 indicates the probability of shaking, together we can see how the two relate.

This image shows the probability for shaking under an overlay of quaternary geology. Quarternary geology is an indicator of weak or unstable soil conditions that can lead to conditions such as liquifaction in areas of high shaking. This map could be a good indicator of where high building damage may occur.

Focusing in on the West coast we will look at Quaternary geology along side urban areas. This map is simple but great because it shows areas of high risk to populations. Basically quaternary geology indicates unstable ground, therefore, if we indicate what areas are near urban populations, we can predict and prepare those populations for the occurance of landslides or liquifaction in the event of an earthquake.

This image shows the area of Northridge in California, which experienced an earthquake in 1989. The image has a lot going on, but basically combines building damage information, with building status and liquefaction risk. Building damage density shows the amount of buildings damaged per square kilometer. Building Status layer symbolizes building damage by indicating which buildings are safe, unsafe etc. The liquefaction layer indicates ares affected by liquefaction, or in other words where soil liquified due to intense shaking.

Peak ground acceleration indicates how hard the ground is shaking in a certain area. Unlike the richter scale, which measures the waves, or the mercalli scale which measures how much a quake is felt. This image shows the PGA as well as the monitoring stations in the Northridge Area. This shows to us that the hardest ground shaking occured in the darkes area, or Northridge.

Lab 6 Volcanoes

This lab focuses on world volcanoes and the risk associated with this natural hazard.


This image shows the top 5 countries with high amounts of eruptions. Most of these countries lie along subduction plates, such as the Pacific plate in the Pacific Ocean (Ring of Fire). Subduction plates occur along converging plate boundaries which cause one plate to subduct beneath another one and the resulting pressure creates large magma buildup and results in volcanic activity.

Mt. Rainier opened in ArcScene. This image is a DEM or Digital Elevation Model, used to depict elevation. White represents higher elevation, black lower.
 

The same DEM in ArcScene of Mt. Rainier, however it has been rendered into 3D.



Land cover classes shown on a 3D Model of Mt. Rainier. The feature was made 3D using the Mt. Rainier DEM.

Mount Rainier with a landcover 3D Model with an accompanying lahar in brown. You can see the path of the lahar follows the mountain's drainage pattern, flowing along the current stream system that descends the mountain.

Mount St. Helens before and after eruption. You can see how the top and north end of the mountain erupted outward and ejected a pyroclastic flow.

Loss of volume after eruption. The area affected lost volume due to the eruption ejecting pyroclastic flows north as well as air-fall tephra in the form of a massive ash cloud that the text describes as flowing a distance of 400km. (text: Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster by Keith Smith 6th edition.)

 

This image shows Mount St. Helens with a loss-gain coloration. The green indicates no change, the black indicate loss and the white indicates a gain in materials.

 

This lab exercise was beneficial in showing the sheer force of a volcano and the hazards that can occur. Primary hazards, such as pyroclastic flows, air-fall tephra, and lava flows are dangerous immediately following a volcano. Secondary hazards such as lahars, ground deformation, tsunamis, and landslides can occur after the event. As a hazards planner many things are needed to consider the possible affect on human life, such as drainage patterns, wind patterns, and slope etc.

 

 Lab 7 Landslides

 

The focus of this lab was to address mass movement as a hazard risk. Mass movement involves the movement of land such as landslides, rock falls, debris flow, earth flows, and avalanches.

This map shows areas of risk for landslides in the conterminous United States. Five areas are highlighted under specific categories that explain the risk in those areas.

 

This image shows a digital elevation model with a dopplar radar raster image over top. Dopplar radar uses satellite to monitor precipitation. In this image we were looking at how elevation and rainfall can impact the risk of mass wasting to occur.

 This image shows the same image as above, however the digital elevation model has been shaded to indicate high and low areas of elevation. Red indicates a high elevation and green low elevation. This image is then overlaid with a reclassified slope raster, which indicates various slope degrees. The areas of gray and white are over 30 degrees slope and pose a risk for mass wasting. Slopes over 30 degrees in this area are at risk because combined with heavy rainfall will cause the ground to be saturated quickly and cause water to flow causing a debris, mud or earth flow.

 

 For the next part of the lab we looked at the area surrounding the town of Forest Falls, CA, which suffered a dangerous mudslide in 1999. This first image shows the areas of slope that exceed 35 degrees.

This image shows the same study area as above, the parcels of the town can be seen in the center. The slopes, although steep are covered in mass amounts of vegetation, which can stabilize the slopes, preventing mass movement. However, there are a few barren areas, which can be the result of deforestation, forest fires, or mass agriculture. Barren areas increase the risk of mass movement.

 

Finally this map is to highlight the risk that the town poses. The grey area to the south represents the drainage area of the Snow Creek, which runs right into the town. The town diverted the stream to build the parcels of land. As you can see the damage to the parcels is indicated in thier color, red being the most damage. The red parcels lie along the path of the old stream and the drainage area. This map could be used to prove that building the parcels and diverting the stream was a poor choice.

 

 Lab 8 Flooding

The purpose of this lab was to simulate flooding and look at the difference between 100 and 500 year flood plains. By looking at this data we can assess the risks involved to a city or populated area.

 This image shows a 100 year flood plain for the city of Eau Claire, outlined in red is the FEMA flood plain zone, in blue is the flood plain that we simulated based upon an Digital Elevation Model (DEM). As you can see the areas differ slightly, taking into account elevation and areas of risk.

 

This image shows three different elevation flood plain simulations. The lightest area is 800 ft elevation and would cover a 500 year flood, but the lower elevations a 100 year flood. As you can see the lower areas of Eau Claire would be inundated.

 

This information is useful for flood management and risk prevention because it outlines where the significant risk is and highlights the safer areas. Officials can use this information to plan evacuation routes and warning systems.

 

Lab 9 Coastal Flooding

The purpose of this lab was to look at flooding on a coastal scale. The study area we focused on was a historic tsunami in California in 1812 and Collier County in Florida. This data looks at hurricanes and storm surges.

 

This map outlines the inundated areas in red from the tsunami as well as the facilities at risk in green. (Christmas theme map!)

This data is useful to know because it can be used by officials to create evacuation plans and mitigation techniques in the future event of a tsunami.

 

 

This map shows the area in Collier County FL that would be impacted by a category 3 hurricane and its resulting storm surge. The purple indicates the depth of the storm surge. You can see that in less populated areas, ther storm surge is deeper because there is less resistance. In the populated areas the surge dissipates more quickly.