A dynamic model for road protection against flooding

This paper focuses on the problem of identifying optimal protection strategies to reduce the impact of flooding on a road network. We propose a dynamic mixed-integer programming model that extends the classic concept of road network protection by shifting away from single-arc fortifications to a more general and realistic approach involving protection plans that cover multiple components. We also consider multiple disruption scenarios of varying magnitude. To efficiently solve large problem instances, we introduce a customised GRASP heuristic. Finally, we provide some analysis and insights from a case study of the Hertfordshire road network in the East of England. Results show that optimal protection strategies mainly involve safeguarding against flooding events that are small and likely to occur, whereas implementing higher protection standards are not considered cost-effective

Flooding through the lens of mobile phone activity

Natural disasters affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide every year. Emergency response efforts depend upon the availability of timely information, such as information concerning the movements of affected populations. The analysis of aggregated and anonymized Call Detail Records (CDR) captured from the mobile phone infrastructure provides new possibilities to characterize human behavior during critical events. In this work, we investigate the viability of using CDR data combined with other sources of information to characterize the floods that occurred in Tabasco, Mexico in 2009. An impact map has been reconstructed using Landsat-7 images to identify the floods. Within this frame, the underlying communication activity signals in the CDR data have been analyzed and compared against rainfall levels extracted from data of the NASA-TRMM project. The variations in the number of active phones connected to each cell tower reveal abnormal activity patterns in the most affected locations during and after the floods that could be used as signatures of the floods - both in terms of infrastructure impact assessment and population information awareness. The representativeness of the analysis has been assessed using census data and civil protection records. While a more extensive validation is required, these early results suggest high potential in using cell tower activity information to improve early warning and emergency management mechanisms.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Global Humanitarian Technologies Conference (GHTC) 201

MobileTrust: Secure Knowledge Integration in VANETs

Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks (VANET) are becoming popular due to the emergence of the Internet of Things and ambient intelligence applications. In such networks, secure resource sharing functionality is accomplished by incorporating trust schemes. Current solutions adopt peer-to-peer technologies that can cover the large operational area. However, these systems fail to capture some inherent properties of VANETs, such as fast and ephemeral interaction, making robust trust evaluation of crowdsourcing challenging. In this article, we propose MobileTrust—a hybrid trust-based system for secure resource sharing in VANETs. The proposal is a breakthrough in centralized trust computing that utilizes cloud and upcoming 5G technologies to provide robust trust establishment with global scalability. The ad hoc communication is energy-efficient and protects the system against threats that are not countered by the current settings. To evaluate its performance and effectiveness, MobileTrust is modelled in the SUMO simulator and tested on the traffic features of the small-size German city of Eichstatt. Similar schemes are implemented in the same platform to provide a fair comparison. Moreover, MobileTrust is deployed on a typical embedded system platform and applied on a real smart car installation for monitoring traffic and road-state parameters of an urban application. The proposed system is developed under the EU-founded THREAT-ARREST project, to provide security, privacy, and trust in an intelligent and energy-aware transportation scenario, bringing closer the vision of sustainable circular economy

A tale of two cities: Annapolis and St. Augustine balancing preservation and community values in an era of rising seas

Annapolis, Maryland, and St. Augustine, Florida, are colonial cities on the East Coast of the United States with national historic landmark designations recognizing the strong blends of natural and cultural resources that make each community unique. Annapolis faces nuisance flooding that is challenging the above-ground resources and the natural settings and cultural frameworks that support and enhance them. St. Augustine has witnessed dozens of hurricanes and frequent coastal flooding, impacting the delicate balance of natural and cultural resources in a fast-growing population with significant vulnerabilities. The Federal Emergency Management Agency provides a model for determining “community value” in cultural resource hazard mitigation planning. These communities can prioritize the protection of historic places threatened by natural disasters by comparing that model against the United States Secretary of the Interior’s factors for determining historic integrity. This framework can serve as a model approach for evaluating public sentiment for the protection and preservation of historic places within the larger context of disaster preparedness and recovery. This can enable communities to evaluate and prioritize places that matter to prepare for and recover from rising waters

Minimising flood risk accumulation through effective private and public sector engagement

Flooding is a global problem affecting both developing and developed countries. Academics and practitioners in climate science frequently argue that changing climatic conditions are likely to worsen the length and severity of these flood events, which will have catastrophic consequences to economies and social lives of communities world over. Whilst the overall consequences affecting many regions have been established, effective and efficient strategies to cope with the effects of flooding and building up resilience strategies have not properly evolved. This paper examines this issue by exploring effective strategies undertaken in partnerships between private and public stakeholders. The paper details two case studies conducted in a developed and a developing country to investigate what global strategies for coping and resilience to flooding have worked in practice. The two case studies: Cockermouth in Cumbria, UK and Patuakhali in Bangladesh provide interesting insights on how some of the strategies work within the chosen developed and developing country contexts. The case study findings are mapped against UNISDR’s ten-point checklist under the “Making Cities Resilient Campaign”. In conclusion the paper examines how these findings can be incorporated within city development plans to develop stakeholder capacity and capability and eventually build up resilient cities

Minimising flood risk accumulation through effective private and public sector engagement

Flooding is a global problem affecting both developing and developed countries. Academics and practitioners in climate science frequently argue that changing climatic conditions are likely to worsen the length and severity of these flood events, which will have catastrophic consequences to economies and social lives of communities world over. Whilst the overall consequences affecting many regions have been established, effective and efficient strategies to cope with the effects of flooding and building up resilience strategies have not properly evolved. This paper examines this issue by exploring effective strategies undertaken in partnerships between private and public stakeholders. The paper details two case studies conducted in a developed and a developing country to investigate what global strategies for coping and resilience to flooding have worked in practice. The two case studies: Cockermouth in Cumbria, UK and Patuakhali in Bangladesh provide interesting insights on how some of the strategies work within the chosen developed and developing country contexts. The case study findings are mapped against UNISDR’s ten-point checklist under the “Making Cities Resilient Campaign”. In conclusion the paper examines how these findings can be incorporated within city development plans to develop stakeholder capacity and capability and eventually build up resilient cities

Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio

Climate change and transport infrastructures: State of the art

Transport infrastructures are lifelines: They provide transportation of people and goods, in ordinary and emergency conditions, thus they should be resilient to increasing natural disasters and hazards. This work presents several technologies adopted around the world to adapt and defend transport infrastructures against effects of climate change. Three main climate change challenges have been examined: Air temperatures variability and extremization, water bombs, and sea level rise. For each type of the examined phenomena the paper presents engineered, and architectural solutions adopted to prevent disasters and protect citizens. In all cases, the countermeasures require deeper prediction of weather and climate conditions during the service life of the infrastructure. The experience gained supports the fact that strategies adopted or designed to contrast the effects of climate change on transport infrastructures pursue three main goals: To prevent the damages, protect the structures, and monitor and communicate to users the current conditions. Indeed, the analyses show that the ongoing climate change will increase its impact on transport infrastructures, exposing people to unacceptable risks. Therefore, prevention and protection measures shall be adopted more frequently in the interest of collective safety

Comparative assessment of the vulnerability and resilience of 10 deltas : work document

Background information about: Nile delta (Egypt), Incomati delta (Mozambique), Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (Bangladesh), Yangtze (China), Ciliwung (Indonesia), Mekong (Vietnam), Rhine-Meuse (The Netherlands), Danube (Romania), California Bay-Delta, Mississippi River Delta (USA