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

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

The adaptation continuum: groundwork for the future

The focus of the program was to understand the challenges posed by climate change and climate variability on vulnerable groups and the policies needed to support climate adaptation in developing countries. The aim of the book is to share this experience in the hope that it will be helpful to those involved in shaping and implementing climate change policy

Production of Innovations within Farmer–Researcher Associations Applying Transdisciplinary Research Principles

Small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan West Africa depend heavily on local resources and local knowledge. Science-based knowledge is likely to aid decision-making in complex situations. In this presentation, we highlight a FiBL-coordinated research partnership between three national producer organisations and national agriculture research bodies in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Benin. The partnership seeks to compare conventional, GMObased, and organic cotton systems as regards food security and climate change

Comparitive assessment of the vulnerability and resilience of 10 deltas, synthesis report

The proposed framework for delta assessment and especially the scorecards are intended to enhance awareness raising, discussion and prioritization on most relevant delta issues, in each delta but also in comparison with other deltas. This should lead to more efficient and effective (multi-sectoral) policy formulation, management design and implementation, in concrete Delta plans, pilot-projects and (research) programmes. The target groups are all stakeholders who are involved in delta management at different levels and with different interests (government, private companies, NGOs, public), and who wish to contribute to the resilience of their own delta and other deltas worldwide

Adaptation of WASH Services Delivery to Climate Change and Other Sources of Risk and Uncertainty

This report urges WASH sector practitioners to take more seriously the threat of climate change and the consequences it could have on their work. By considering climate change within a risk and uncertainty framework, the field can use the multitude of approaches laid out here to adequately protect itself against a range of direct and indirect impacts. Eleven methods and tools for this specific type of risk management are described, including practical advice on how to implement them successfully

Carbon Free Boston: Social equity report 2019

OVERVIEW: In January 2019, the Boston Green Ribbon Commission released its Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report, identifying potential options for the City of Boston to meet its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. The report found that reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 requires three mutually-reinforcing strategies in key sectors: 1) deepen energy efficiency while reducing energy demand, 2) electrify activity to the fullest practical extent, and 3) use fuels and electricity that are 100 percent free of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The Summary Report detailed the ways in which these technical strategies will transform Boston’s physical infrastructure, including its buildings, energy supply, transportation, and waste management systems. The Summary Report also highlighted that it is how these strategies are designed and implemented that matter most in ensuring an effective and equitable transition to carbon neutrality. Equity concerns exist for every option the City has to reduce GHG emissions. The services provided by each sector are not experienced equally across Boston’s communities. Low-income families and families of color are more likely to live in residences that are in poor physical condition, leading to high utility bills, unsafe and unhealthy indoor environments, and high GHG emissions.1 Those same families face greater exposure to harmful outdoor air pollution compared to others. The access and reliability of public transportation is disproportionately worse in neighborhoods with large populations of people of color, and large swaths of vulnerable neighborhoods, from East Boston to Mattapan, do not have ready access to the city’s bike network. Income inequality is a growing national issue and is particularly acute in Boston, which consistently ranks among the highest US cities in regards to income disparities. With the release of Imagine Boston 2030, Mayor Walsh committed to make Boston more equitable, affordable, connected, and resilient. The Summary Report outlined the broad strokes of how action to reach carbon neutrality intersects with equity. A just transition to carbon neutrality improves environmental quality for all Bostonians, prioritizes socially vulnerable populations, seeks to redress current and past injustice, and creates economic and social opportunities for all. This Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report provides a deeper equity context for Carbon Free Boston as a whole, and for each strategy area, by demonstrating how inequitable and unjust the playing field is for socially vulnerable Bostonians and why equity must be integrated into policy design and implementation. This report summarizes the current landscape of climate action work for each strategy area and evaluates how it currently impacts inequity. Finally, this report provides guidance to the City and partners on how to do better; it lays out the attributes of an equitable approach to carbon neutrality, framed around three guiding principles: 1) plan carefully to avoid unintended consequences, 2) be intentional in design through a clear equity lens, and 3) practice inclusivity from start to finish

Assessing Building Vulnerability to Tsunami Hazard Using Integrative Remote Sensing and GIS Approaches

Risk and vulnerability assessment for natural hazards is of high interest. Various methods focusing on building vulnerability assessment have been developed ranging from simple approaches to sophisticated ones depending on the objectives of the study, the availability of data and technology. In-situ assessment methods have been widely used to measure building vulnerability to various types of hazards while remote sensing methods, specifically developed for assessing building vulnerability to tsunami hazard, are still very limited. The combination of remote sensing approaches with in-situ methods offers unique opportunities to overcome limitations of in-situ assessments. The main objective of this research is to develop remote sensing techniques in assessing building vulnerability to tsunami hazard as one of the key elements of risk assessment. The research work has been performed in the framework of the GITEWS (German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System) project. This research contributes to two major components of tsunami risk assessment: (1) the provision of infrastructure vulnerability information as an important element in the exposure assessment; (2) tsunami evacuation modelling which is a critical element for assessing immediate response and capability to evacuate as part of the coping capacity analysis. The newly developed methodology is based on the combination of in-situ measurements and remote sensing techniques in a so-called “bottom-up remote sensing approach”. Within this approach, basic information was acquired by in-situ data collection (bottom level), which was then used as input for further analysis in the remote sensing approach (upper level). The results of this research show that a combined in-situ measurement and remote sensing approach can be successfully employed to assess and classify buildings into 4 classes based on their level of vulnerability to tsunami hazard with an accuracy of more than 80 percent. Statistical analysis successfully revealed key spatial parameters which were regarded to link parameters between in-situ and remote sensing approach such as size, height, shape, regularity, orientation, and accessibility. The key spatial parameters and their specified threshold values were implemented in a decision tree algorithm for developing a remote sensing rule-set of building vulnerability classification. A big number of buildings in the study area (Cilacap city, Indonesia) were successfully classified into the building vulnerability classes. The categorization ranges from high to low vulnerable buildings (A to C) and includes also a category of buildings which are potentially suitable for tsunami vertical evacuation (VE). A multi-criteria analysis was developed that incorporates three main components for vulnerability assessment: stability, tsunami resistance and accessibility. All the defined components were configured in a decision tree algorithm by applying weighting, scoring and threshold definition based on the building sample data. Stability components consist of structure parameters, which are closely related to the building stability against earthquake energy. Building stability needs to be analyzed because most of tsunami events in Indonesia are preceded by major earthquakes. Stability components analysis was applied in the first step of the newly developed decision tree algorithm to evaluate the building stability when earthquake strikes. Buildings with total scores below the defined threshold of stability were classified as the most vulnerable class A. Such the buildings have a high probability of being damaged after earthquake events. The remaining buildings with total scores above the defined threshold of stability were further analyzed using tsunami components and accessibility components to classify them into the vulnerability classes B, C and VE respectively. This research is based on very high spatial resolution satellite images (QuickBird) and object-based image analysis. Object-based image analysis is was chosen, because it allows the formulation of rule-sets based on image objects instead of pixels, which has significant advantages especially for the analysis of very high resolution satellite images. In the pre-processing stage, three image processing steps were performed: geometric correction, pan-sharpening and filtering. Adaptive Local Sigma and Morphological Opening filter techniques were applied as basis for the subsequent building edge detection. The data pre-processing significantly increased the accuracy of the following steps of image classification. In the next step image segmentation was developed to extract adequate image objects to be used for further classification. Image classification was carried out by grouping resulting objects into desired classes based on the derived object features. A single object was assigned by its feature characteristics calculated in the segmentation process. The characteristic features of an object - which were grouped into spectral signature, shape, size, texture, and neighbouring relations - were analysed, selected and semantically modelled to classify objects into object classes. Fuzzy logic algorithm and object feature separation analysis was performed to set the member¬ship values of objects that were grouped into particular classes. Finally this approach successfully detected and mapped building objects in the study area with their spatial attributes which provide base information for building vulnerability classification. A building vulnerability classification rule-set has been developed in this research and successfully applied to categorize building vulnerability classes. The developed approach was applied for Cilacap city, Indonesia. In order to analyze the transferability of this newly developed approach, the algorithm was also applied to Padang City, Indonesia. The results showed that the developed methodology is in general transferable. However, it requires some adaptations (e.g. thresholds) to provide accurate results. The results of this research show that Cilacap City is very vulnerable to tsunami hazard. Class A (very vulnerable) buildings cover the biggest portion of area in Cilacap City (63%), followed by class C (28%), class VE (6%) and class B (3%). Preventive measures should be carried out for the purpose of disaster risk reduction, especially for people living in such the most vulnerable buildings. Finally, the results were applied for tsunami evacuation modeling. The buildings, which were categorized as potential candidates for vertical evacuation, were selected and a GIS approach was applied to model evacuation time and evacuation routes. The results of this analysis provide important inputs to the disaster management authorities for future evacuation planning and disaster mitigation