ReAFFIRM: Real-time Assessment of Flash Flood Impacts: a Regional high-resolution Method

Flash floods evolve rapidly in time, which poses particular challenges to emergency managers. One way to support decision-making is to complement models that estimate the flash flood hazard (e.g. discharge or return period) with tools that directly translate the hazard into the expected socio-economic impacts. This paper presents a method named ReAFFIRM that uses gridded rainfall estimates to assess in real time the flash flood hazard and translate it into the corresponding impacts. In contrast to other studies that mainly focus on in- dividual river catchments, the approach allows for monitoring entire regions at high resolution. The method consists of the following three components: (i) an already existing hazard module that processes the rainfall into values of exceeded return period in the drainage network, (ii) a flood map module that employs the flood maps created within the EU Floods Directive to convert the return periods into the expected flooded areas and flood depths, and (iii) an impact assessment module that combines the flood depths with several layers of socio- economic exposure and vulnerability. Impacts are estimated in three quantitative categories: population in the flooded area, economic losses, and affected critical infrastructures. The performance of ReAFFIRM is shown by applying it in the region of Catalonia (NE Spain) for three significant flash flood events. The results show that the method is capable of identifying areas where the flash floods caused the highest impacts, while some locations affected by less significant impacts were missed. In the locations where the flood extent corresponded to flood observations, the assessments of the population in the flooded area and affected critical infrastructures seemed to perform reasonably well, whereas the economic losses were systematically overestimated. The effects of different sources of uncertainty have been discussed: from the estimation of the hazard to its translation into impacts, which highly depends on the quality of the employed datasets, and in particular on the quality of the rainfall inputs and the comprehensiveness of the flood maps.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Karnatic rhythmical structures as a source for new thinking in western music

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis addresses the issues of how rhythm could be taught differently in the West, how the new methodology described here could impact the performance of rhythmically complex contemporary music as well as becoming the starting point of a new creative approach for improvisers and composers. The three main goals of this research are to describe South Indian (Karnatic) rhythmical concepts which could be considered sufficiently universal to be integrated with western classical and jazz aesthetics, to show how these techniques can be utilised to analyse and perform western contemporary music with more understanding and accuracy, and to demonstrate how these concepts can be integrated within a western creative framework, be it improvised or composed

EVALITA Evaluation of NLP and Speech Tools for Italian - December 17th, 2020

Welcome to EVALITA 2020! EVALITA is the evaluation campaign of Natural Language Processing and Speech Tools for Italian. EVALITA is an initiative of the Italian Association for Computational Linguistics (AILC, http://www.ai-lc.it) and it is endorsed by the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AIxIA, http://www.aixia.it) and the Italian Association for Speech Sciences (AISV, http://www.aisv.it)

Proceedings of the Fifth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics CLiC-it 2018 : 10-12 December 2018, Torino

On behalf of the Program Committee, a very warm welcome to the Fifth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-­‐it 2018). This edition of the conference is held in Torino. The conference is locally organised by the University of Torino and hosted into its prestigious main lecture hall “Cavallerizza Reale”. The CLiC-­‐it conference series is an initiative of the Italian Association for Computational Linguistics (AILC) which, after five years of activity, has clearly established itself as the premier national forum for research and development in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing, where leading researchers and practitioners from academia and industry meet to share their research results, experiences, and challenges

Proceedings of the 42nd Australian Linguistic Society Conference - 2011

ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences, School of Language Studies; ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, School of Culture, History and Languag

EVALITA Evaluation of NLP and Speech Tools for Italian - December 17th, 2020

Welcome to EVALITA 2020! EVALITA is the evaluation campaign of Natural Language Processing and Speech Tools for Italian. EVALITA is an initiative of the Italian Association for Computational Linguistics (AILC, http://www.ai-lc.it) and it is endorsed by the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AIxIA, http://www.aixia.it) and the Italian Association for Speech Sciences (AISV, http://www.aisv.it)

Proceedings of the Seventh Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics CLiC-it 2020

On behalf of the Program Committee, a very warm welcome to the Seventh Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2020). This edition of the conference is held in Bologna and organised by the University of Bologna. The CLiC-it conference series is an initiative of the Italian Association for Computational Linguistics (AILC) which, after six years of activity, has clearly established itself as the premier national forum for research and development in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing, where leading researchers and practitioners from academia and industry meet to share their research results, experiences, and challenges

Assessing the socio-economic impacts of flash floods for early warning at regional, national, and continental scales

Flash floods are one of the most devastating natural hazards, claiming numerous lives and tremendous economic losses. One of the main reasons for their catastrophic potential is the limited time available for precautionary measures, such as warnings or evacuations. Early warning systems (EWSs) play a key role for emergency managers to react in a timely manner to upcoming floods and effectively mitigate the impacts. This thesis explores possibilities to enhance the methods available for flash flood early warning and thus improve the operational decision support. While a variety of existing methods aims at the prediction of the hazard component of flash floods (e.g. the peak streamflow), an increasing number of EWS developers and end-users have recognised the potential of tools that automatically translate the flash flood hazard forecasts into the expected socio-economic impacts (e.g. the population affected). These so-called impact forecasts enable more objective and rapid decisions, ultimately leading to a more effective flood response. While for fluvial floods, impact forecasts have been available for several years and over various spatial scales, the existing approaches for flash floods have been limited to a small number of prototypes focusing on individual catchments or relatively small regions. These small-scale approaches can be useful for the coordination of local emergency measures, but their potential is limited for supporting the decisions of authorities operating over larger domains (e.g. regional, national, or international civil protection mechanisms). The main goal of this thesis has been to extend the available decision support by applying the concept of flash flood impact forecasting over large spatial scales. Two methods have been developed for estimating the impacts in real time, named ReAFFIRM and ReAFFINE. The two methods take into account that emergency services operating at different spatial scales require different kinds of real-time information to make informed decisions: ReAFFIRM provides detailed impact estimates in high resolution to support regional or national authorities in the coordination of location-specific emergency measures (e.g. evacuations), whereas ReAFFINE generates order-of-magnitude impact estimates with pan-European coverage that can be useful for end-users operating across regions or countries. The application of ReAFFIRM and ReAFFINE for a number of past flood events has demonstrated their capabilities to identify flash flood impacts in real time over the different spatial scales. The developed algorithms have a moderate computational cost and require only datasets that are available throughout the EU, which facilitates the real-time implementation of the methods and their integration into the operational procedures of end-users across Europe. An additional objective of this thesis has been to explore a more integrated perspective of flood early warning. Traditionally, EWSs are designed separately for the different physical processes that lead to flooding (i.e. individual systems for fluvial, pluvial, coastal, and flash floods). This means that the end-users need to monitor a number of separate flood forecasts with potentially even contradicting outputs. Especially during events in which different flood types coincide (so-called compound floods), this can be time-consuming and confusing. The decision support could be significantly simplified by automatically integrating the forecasts of different flood types into an overall compound flood forecast. This idea has been explored through the analysis of a recent catastrophic compound flood, for which the impact estimates from ReAFFIRM have been combined with those from a system designed for fluvial floods. The combined performance of the methods has shown to be superior to the individual performances, clearly demonstrating the potential of such integrated approaches for improving the decision support.Las avenidas torrenciales son una de las amenazas naturales más devastadoras, causando numerosas víctimas y enormes pérdidas económicas. Los sistemas de alerta temprana (SAT) juegan un papel clave para que los servicios de emergencia puedan reaccionar de manera oportuna y mitigar con eficacia los impactos. Esta tesis explora diferentes posibilidades de ampliar los métodos disponibles para la alerta temprana de avenidas torrenciales, con el objetivo de mejorar la toma de decisiones de los servicios de emergencia. Una variedad de métodos se dedica a la predicción del componente de amenaza de las avenidas repentinas (e.g. los caudales máximos instantáneos). No obstante, un número creciente de desarrolladores de SAT y usuarios finales han reconocido el potencial de herramientas que traducen automáticamente estos pronósticos de amenaza en impactos socioeconómicos (e.g. la cantidad de población afectada). Estas predicciones de impacto permiten tomar decisiones más objetivas y rápidas, que conducen a una respuesta más eficaz ante las avenidas y sus consecuencias. Los estudios realizados para la predicción del impacto de avenidas torrenciales han sido limitados a unos pocos prototipos que se enfocan en cuencas individuales o regiones relativamente pequeñas que pueden resultar útiles para la coordinación de medidas de emergencia locales, pero su potencial es limitado para apoyar las decisiones de las autoridades que actúan en dominios más amplios (e.g. autoridades de protección civil regionales, nacionales o europeas). El objetivo principal de esta tesis ha sido extender el apoyo a la toma de decisiones disponible mediante la aplicación del concepto de previsión del impacto de avenidas torrenciales en grandes escalas espaciales. Para ello, se desarrollaron dos métodos para estimar los impactos en tiempo real: ReAFFIRM y ReAFFINE. ReAFFIRM proporciona estimaciones de impacto detalladas y en alta resolución para dar apoyo a las autoridades regionales o nacionales en la coordinación de medidas de emergencia específicas (e.g. evacuaciones), mientras que ReAFFINE genera estimaciones de impacto en órdenes de magnitud con cobertura paneuropea que resultan útiles para los usuarios finales que actúan en grandes dominios espaciales. El uso de ReAFFIRM y ReAFFINE para una serie de inundaciones pasadas ha demostrado su capacidad para identificar los impactos de las avenidas torrenciales en tiempo real y en diferentes escalas espaciales. Los algoritmos desarrollados tienen un coste computacional moderado y solo requieren datos que están disponibles en toda la UE, permitiendo su implementación e integración en los procedimientos operativos de varios usuarios finales en toda Europa. Un objetivo adicional de esta tesis ha sido explorar una perspectiva más integrada de la alerta temprana de inundaciones. Tradicionalmente, los SAT son diseñados por separado para los diferentes procesos físicos que pueden resultar en inundaciones. Esto significa que los usuarios finales deben monitorear una serie de pronósticos de inundaciones por separado con resultados que podrían resultar potencialmente contradictorios, especialmente durante eventos en los que coincidan diferentes tipos de inundaciones (también llamadas inundaciones compuestas). Lo anterior puede alargar los tiempos de respuesta, generar confusión y, en última instancia, impedir una respuesta de emergencia eficaz. El apoyo a la toma de decisiones podría ser simplificada significativamente y de manera automática mediante la integración de los SAT de diferentes tipos de inundaciones en un único pronóstico que las englobe. Esta idea se explora a través de la combinación de las estimaciones de impacto de ReAFFIRM con las de un sistema diseñado para inundaciones fluviales. El rendimiento de ambos métodos combinados ha demostrado ser superior al de cada uno de manera individual, indicando el potencial de combinar el pronóstico de impacto por inundacionesPostprint (published version

A COLLABORATIVE WEB-GIS BASED DECISION SUPPORT PLATFORM FOR RISK MANAGEMENT OF NATURAL HAZARDS

L'un des principaux problèmes dans la gestion des risques est le manque de bonne communication et de collaboration efficace entre les services, agences et organisations chargés de la prévention, l'atténuation et la gestion des risques. La participation des différents groupes d'acteurs est une importante composante de la prévention et l'atténuation des risques. Cela demande une approche intégrée et coordonnée, qui aide les parties prenantes responsables de gérer le risque, depuis l'identification des risques jusqu'au processus de prise de décision, à obtenir la meilleure combinaison des stratégies de réduction des risques. Comme les dangers naturels et les risques liés à ces dangers sont de nature spatiale, les outils d'aide à la décision basés sur le web et intégrés aux systèmes d'informations géographiques (SIG, GIS en anglais] ont été considérés de plus en plus comme des instruments utiles. En prenant les avantages du web moderne, les technologies géospatiales et open-source pour obtenir une structure intégrée et centralisée, une plateforme collaborative web-SIG est proposée pour la gestion des risques avec la participation des différentes parties prenantes. Les principaux objectifs de cette recherche sont 1) de proposer une approche systématique et intégrée de gestion des risques avec la participation des différents parties prenantes; 2) d'étudier la possibilité et l'application des outils interactifs web-SIG d'aide à la décision pour l'analyse, la communication et l'échange d'informations entre les parties prenantes de la gestion des risques and 3) de proposer une approche novatrice pour améliorer potentiellement les activités de collaboration entre les parties prenantes grâce à des approches interactives et participatives. Les apports conceptuels de cette étude sont basés sur les premiers feedback, les entretiens semi- structurés et les observations obtenues lors des visites sur le terrain et des réunions avec les parties prenantes menées sur trois sites d'études en Europe, dans les régions de Voïvodie en Pologne, de Buzâu en Roumanie et du Frioul-Vénétie julienne en Italie. Même si certaines plates-formes existent dans les zones d'études, aucune n'a une plate-forme qui permet une approche flexible et collaborative pour formuler et la sélectionner des mesures de gestion des risques comme ce qui est tenté dans cette étude. De plus, la plupart des plates-formes existantes sont principalement concentrées sur l'inventaire des événements, la visualisation des risques et la diffusion de l'information. Dans cette recherche, un prototype est réalisé et centré sur l'analyse des risques, la formulation et la sélection des mesures potentielles en utilisant une interface interactive web-SIG intégrée à un outil d'évaluation multicritères (MCE). Cette plate-forme est considérée non seulement comme une plate-forme web pour le partage centralisé des informations des risques, mais aussi comme un outil pour assurer un cadre intégré où les parties prenantes concernées peuvent analyser les risques et évaluer les mesures de réduction des risques. Pour le développement du prototype, une architecture client-serveur à trois niveaux renforcée par Boundless (OpenGeo) a été appliquée avec son environnement de développement côté client. Ce prototype a été présenté aux parties prenantes locales et régionales des zones d'études. Leur feedback a été collecté pour comprendre leurs points de vue et déterminer si la plate-forme est utile et applicable pour leurs activités en matière de gestion des risques. Le prototype a également été évalué avec les étudiants pour obtenir des commentaires sur les différents aspects de la plate-forme et pour analyser la façon dont l'application des outils interactifs pourrait aider les étudiants à analyser et comprendre la gestion des risques. -- A collaborative web-GIS based décision support platform for risk management of natural hazards (Aye Zar Chi, ISTE) One of the main problems in risk management is the lack of good communication as well as efficient and effective collaboration between the agencies, services and organizations in charge of risk prévention, mitigation and management. The involvement of various stakeholder groups is an important component of risk prévention and mitigation. This calls for an integrated and coordinated approach which helps responsible stakeholders in managing risk, starting from risk identification to the decision-making process for achieving the best combination of risk réduction stratégies. As natural hazards and associated risks are spatial in nature, web-based décision support tools integrated with Géographie information systems (GIS) have been increasingly considered as useful instruments for providing décision support. Taking the advantages of modem web, spatial and open-source technologies to achieve a centralized and integrated framework, in this research, a web-GIS based collaborative décision support platform is proposed for risk management with involvement of various stakeholders. The principal purposes of this research are: (1) to conduct a systematic and integrated risk management approach with diverse involvement of différent stakeholders; (2) to explore the possibility and application of interactive web- GIS décision support tools for the analysis, communication and exchange of décision support information between risk management stakeholders and (3) to propose an innovative approach to potentially enhance collaboration activities between stakeholders through interactive and participatory approaches. The conceptual inputs of this study are based on the initial feedback, semi-structured interviews and observations obtained from the field visits and stakeholder meetings carried out in three case studies of Europe: the Malopolska Voivodeship of Poland, Buzâu County of Romania and the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia région of Italy. Even though some platforms exist in study areas, no single case has a platform at hand which enables as flexible and collaborative approach for the formulation and selection of risk management measures as attempted in this study. Moreover, most platforms have focused mainly on inventoiy of events, risk visualization and dissémination of information. In this research, a prototype is realized and focused on the risk analysis, formulation and selection of potential measures through the use of an interactive web-GIS based interface integrated with a Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) tool. This platform is regarded not only as a web platform for centralized sharing of risk information but also for ensuring an integrated framework where involved stakeholders can analyse risk and evaluate risk réduction measures. For the prototype development, a three-tier client-server architecture backed up by Boundless (OpenGeo) was applied with its client side development environment. This developed prototype was presented to the local and régional stakeholders of the study areas and feedback was collected to understand their perspective in determining whether the platform is useful and applicable for their activities in risk management. The prototype was also further evaluated with students to obtain feedback on différent aspects of the platform as well as to analyse how the application of interactive tools could assist students in studying and understanding risk management