Architecture of Environmental Risk Modelling: for a faster and more robust response to natural disasters

Demands on the disaster response capacity of the European Union are likely to increase, as the impacts of disasters continue to grow both in size and frequency. This has resulted in intensive research on issues concerning spatially-explicit information and modelling and their multiple sources of uncertainty. Geospatial support is one of the forms of assistance frequently required by emergency response centres along with hazard forecast and event management assessment. Robust modelling of natural hazards requires dynamic simulations under an array of multiple inputs from different sources. Uncertainty is associated with meteorological forecast and calibration of the model parameters. Software uncertainty also derives from the data transformation models (D-TM) needed for predicting hazard behaviour and its consequences. On the other hand, social contributions have recently been recognized as valuable in raw-data collection and mapping efforts traditionally dominated by professional organizations. Here an architecture overview is proposed for adaptive and robust modelling of natural hazards, following the Semantic Array Programming paradigm to also include the distributed array of social contributors called Citizen Sensor in a semantically-enhanced strategy for D-TM modelling. The modelling architecture proposes a multicriteria approach for assessing the array of potential impacts with qualitative rapid assessment methods based on a Partial Open Loop Feedback Control (POLFC) schema and complementing more traditional and accurate a-posteriori assessment. We discuss the computational aspect of environmental risk modelling using array-based parallel paradigms on High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms, in order for the implications of urgency to be introduced into the systems (Urgent-HPC).Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, 1 text box, presented at the 3rd Conference of Computational Interdisciplinary Sciences (CCIS 2014), Asuncion, Paragua

Adapting to uncertainty : exploring the intersection of climate change adaptation, social justice, and stormwater challenges in Lillestrøm, Norway

As climate change presents escalating challenges in urban environments, the criticality of effective stormwater management intensifies. This study investigates the potential role of landscape architecture in amalgamating principles of social justice, sustainability, and adaptive capacity, aiming to ensure an equitable distribution of adaptation benefits and burdens. Adopting an interdisciplinary methodology and utilizing systems thinking, this research assesses current climate-related strategies, identifies potential areas for improvement, and explores the complexities of implementing nature-based solutions in urban areas at risk. The study integrates methodologies from multiple disciplines, including a comprehensive literature review, detailed document analysis of prevailing laws and local guidelines, and advanced spatial analysis employing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and landscape architecture spatial analysis methods, such as the SCALGO Live tool for analyzing hydrological risk. Through these methods, it seeks to highlight physical vulnerabilities in the landscape that significantly impact homeowners and residents under the existing stormwater management legislation. The case study of Lillestrøm, Norway—a city grappling with high homeownership rates, rapid urban densification, and vulnerable topography—provides the context for examining how socioeconomics, urbanization trends, and legal definitions intersect with climate change adaptation strategies. The research elucidates the implications of the emerging privatization trend in stormwater management, emphasizing its potential to increase hazard exposure and vulnerability among a significant portion of the population to cloudbursts and extreme rainfall events. Results suggest that although nature-based solutions contribute to sustainable urban development, their effectiveness is impeded by the lack of a shared understanding and clarity in management frameworks. Therefore, this study advocates for a common language and consensus on the principles of climate change adaptation, social justice, and sustainability within the field of landscape architecture. While the insights gleaned from this research are rooted in the specific context of Lillestrøm, they offer broader relevance, contributing to a nuanced understanding of urban climate change adaptation challenges on a global scale, and providing valuable insights for future climate justice and adaptation strategies.M-GL

Effects of Detention for Flooding Mitigation under Climate Change Scenarios— Implication for Landscape Planning in the Charles River Watershed, Massachusetts, USA

Climate change has posed increased risks to environmental hazards (e.g., flooding, droughts, hurricanes) in addition to new challenges under climate change impacts (e.g., early snow melt, sea level rises, heat waves). Floods are omnipresent in almost every city in the United States and account for the most economic losses than any other single geophysical hazard (White and Haas 1975). Previous climate change studies have suggested promising trends of increasing temperature and changing precipitation patterns as well as increased intensity and duration of storm events that are likely to result in more flooding events in the Northeast region. Flooding mitigation strategies have been focusing on structured engineering solutions such as dams and dikes along streams and rivers since the late 1910s. In recent decades, in lieu of conventionally engineered infrastructure, scholars have called for “soft” strategies such as green infrastructure (Thomas and Littlewood 2010) and land use planning (Burby 1998; Godschalk 2004) for comprehensive hazard mitigation and stormwater management integrated into planning and design interventions for flooding mitigation. Stormwater detention is among the most prevalent stormwater management practices for flooding mitigation; however, the perceived benefits could be overestimated without empirical study (Beecham et al. 2005). In addition, planners are now facing challenges to cope with uncertainties from climate change impacts under a paradox between making room for water while managing growth in land use planning. For local planners and stakeholders to make adaptive land use decisions for climate change, this paper aims to answer two key questions: (1) to what degree and in what way does climate change have impacts on long-term flooding hazards? (2) how much detention area in the watershed would be needed for mitigating flooding hazards induced by climate change? And what do the results imply for innovations in landscape planning

Heritage and Resilience: Issues and Opportunities for Reducing Disaster Risks

This paper examines the unique role of cultural heritage in disaster risk reduction. Itintroduces various approaches to protect heritage from irreplaceable loss and considers ways to draw upon heritage as an asset in building the resilience of communities and nations to disasters. The paper proposes ways forward and builds on the current momentum provided by the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters” (HFA) and the advancement of a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction (HFA2) and the post-2015 development agenda. Cultural heritage is often associated with grandiose monuments and iconic archaeological sites that can hold us in awe of their beauty, history and sheer scale. However, the understanding of cultural heritage has undergone a marked shift during the last few decades in terms of what it is, why it is important, why it is at risk and what can be done to protect it. Cultural heritage today encompasses a broader array of places such as historic cities, living cultural landscapes, gardens or sacred forests and mountains, technological or industrial achievements in the recent past and even sites associated with painful memories and war. Collections of movable and immoveable items within sites, museums, historic properties and archives have also increased significantly in scope, testifying not only to the lifestyles of royalty and the achievements of great artists, but also to the everyday lives of ordinary people. At the same time intangibles such as knowledge, beliefs and value systems are fundamental aspects of heritage that have a powerful influence on people’s daily choices and behaviors. Heritage is at risk due to disasters, conflict, climate change and a host of other factors.At the same time, cultural heritage is increasingly recognized as a driver of resilience that can support efforts to reduce disaster risks more broadly. Recent years have seen greater emphasis and commitment to protecting heritage and leveraging it for resilience;but initiatives, such as the few examples that are presented here, need to be encouraged and brought more fully into the mainstream of both disaster risk reduction and heritage management. These are issues that can be productively addressed in a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction and, likewise, in the post-2015 development agenda

Revealing Risk & Redefining Development: Exploring Hurricane Impact on St. Croix, USVI

This thesis explores the direct and indirect role of landscape architecture in disaster risk reduction specifically focusing on designing and managing natural resources such as sun, wind and water as well as allocating infrastructure to improve the power and transportation system on the public, private and regulatory levels that can prove to endure the impact of a hurricane and promote a "culture of prevention." Every year a significant amount of damage is cause by natural disasters throughout the whole world. This highlighted the importance of mitigating the adverse impacts of disasters through the process of disaster risk reduction. The architecture, landscape architecture and urban design disciplines and the construction industry have a strong relationship with disaster management and therefore provide a high need in identifying how landscape architecture can contribute towards disaster risk reduction. This thesis focuses on the role of the design and construction industry, specifically the landscape architecture profession, in disaster risk reduction. A two-step approach was formalized to develop an understanding and to produce a design proposal based on the practice and theories of landscape architecture. The first step explores the definition of disasters and risk and provides a comprehensive literature review on disaster mitigation. The second step includes the systematic development and application of these policies, strategies and practices to limit or avoid the effects of hazards in the form of a three-tiered detailed design and mitigation plan. The findings from both steps will be applied to re-design the town of Christiansted, St. Croix, in the United States Virgin Islands

Pathways to Coastal Resiliency: the Adaptive Gradients Framework

Current and future climate-related coastal impacts such as catastrophic and repetitive flooding, hurricane intensity, and sea level rise necessitate a new approach to developing and managing coastal infrastructure. Traditional “hard” or “grey” engineering solutions are proving both expensive and inflexible in the face of a rapidly changing coastal environment. Hybrid solutions that incorporate natural, nature-based, structural, and non-structural features may better achieve a broad set of goals such as ecological enhancement, long-term adaptation, and social benefits, but broad consideration and uptake of these approaches has been slow. One barrier to the widespread implementation of hybrid solutions is the lack of a relatively quick but holistic evaluation framework that places these broader environmental and societal goals on equal footing with the more traditional goal of exposure reduction. To respond to this need, the Adaptive Gradients Framework was developed and pilot-tested as a qualitative, flexible, and collaborative process guide for organizations to understand, evaluate, and potentially select more diverse kinds of infrastructural responses. These responses would ideally include natural, nature-based, and regulatory/cultural approaches, as well as hybrid designs combining multiple approaches. It enables rapid expert review of project designs based on eight metrics called “gradients”, which include exposure reduction, cost efficiency, institutional capacity, ecological enhancement, adaptation over time, greenhouse gas reduction, participatory process, and social benefits. The framework was conceptualized and developed in three phases: relevant factors and barriers were collected from practitioners and experts by survey; these factors were ranked by importance and used to develop the initial framework; several case studies were iteratively evaluated using this technique; and the framework was finalized for implementation. The article presents the framework and a pilot test of its application, along with resources that would enable wider application of the framework by practitioners and theorists

Landscape Planning and Design for Natural Disaster Mitigation and Response from a design simulation of the Bluestone Dam failure

The frequency and the intensity of natural disasters, especially weather-related disasters such as storms or floods, have been increasing rapidly in the last 20 years. This trend is expected to continue to increase in the future due to climate change. Among natural hazards, floods are the most serious type, causing more cost and loss of life than any other natural hazard in the world. In addition, there are 27,000 dams, which is equal to 32% of all dams in the country, that have the potential to be damaged or fail. This could cause catastrophic damages in communities that exist downstream from those dams.;In the United States, disaster management has been addressed by new policies in government and new engineering techniques. However, their methods have not been successful in regards to flood management. They have not focused on coexisting with river dynamics, but controlling it to protect more properties for development along the river. The fundamental principle of landscape architecture is to create balance --- balance between the needs of people and the needs of the environment, between the manmade and the natural, as well as between development and conservation. From this perspective, landscape architectural methods could provide different and alternative choices for disaster management, other than that of the conventional methods.;This paper reviews one project conducted to achieve flood management planning and design from the landscape architectural perspective. The goal of this project is to propose landscape planning and designs focusing on flood management, based on a simulation of a Bluestone Dam failure. Bluestone Dam is one of many dams in West Virginia with a high hazard potential. The project is composed of two projects, one is in a community that lies upstream from the Bluestone Dam, and the other is in a community that is located downstream of the dam. The objective of the upper stream project was to mitigate the risk of failure to the dam through stormwater management planning. The objective of the downstream project was to propose planning and design to respond to the potential of a failure in the dam. The project concluded that stormwater management with Low Impact Development strategies would be a feasible and practical plan to mitigate the risk of dam failure. The project also proposed a successful plan of flexible waterfront designs which can respond to flood emergencies as well as be coexistent with local river dynamics