GIS and risk assessment

Examples of GIS applications in the field of Risk Assessment

Hazard Mapping
A very common use of GIS in risk assessment is in the preparation of hazard maps. Hazard maps could be created to show earthquake hazard, landslide hazard, flood hazard or fire hazard. These maps could be created for cities, districts or even for the entire country.

GIS can be used for the analysis to determine hazard zones in the map, as well as in the output and printing of such maps. These hazard maps serve as risk zone identifiers for the general population since they are easy to understand and internet, but they are als of use to planners, developers and insurance companies, since they serve as a quick identifier of risk prone areas.

Threat Maps
Tropical cyclone threat maps are used by meteorological departments to improve the quality f their tropical storm warning services. The purpose of these maps is to quickly communicate the risks to the people likely to get affected by the cyclones. GIS is used effectively to display the position and likely movement of the winds and the vulnerability for the identified zones. These maps are very helpful for administrative agencies involved in risk assessment and disaster mitigation. The threat maps can be suitably overlapped with population and landuse maps to arrive at meaningful conclusions. These maps can also be provided to the media for effective communication. Considering the quick turn-around time for generation of these maps, threat maps can be used for real time simulation of wind velocities, cyclone tracks and identification of potential high risk zones.

Insurance Underwriting
GIS is now being used on “Geographic Underwriting Stations” (GUS). Insurance underwriters can access data on demographics, property values, crime rates, location of fire hydrants, police stations and fire station, as well as locations of hazardous facilities, all available on their desktops, delivered through GIS. Risk indexes for areas can be created by the GIS in conjunction with risk assessment programs – e.g. a very high “risk index” can be assigned to an area with dense population, high crime rate and high frequency of earthquake events. Using the GUS, underwriters can make real time yet informed decisions on whether to underwrite any particular property for fire, burglary, or natural hazards, and what premium to charge for insurance. GIS can also be used as a tool for segmenting the market for an insurer, in terms of income potential, policy requirements and buying trends.

Government Planning For Disaster Management
Regional planners require sophisticated risk assessment tools in order to plan for disaster mitigation as well as disaster monitoring and rescue in the event of a disaster. GIS can deliver not only data on hazards in the region information on building, lifelines, and critical facilities, but can also contain built in risk assessment programmes that allow the planner to simulate disaster scenarios and graphically view the potential damages and affected areas as well as plan rescue operations. The Indian government has also launched an initiative called National Resource Information System (NRIS) through the Department of Space, in an effort to create a nation-wide GIS database of natural resource that could be used for better disaster management.

GIS based Disaster Management Plan in Maharashtra
The Maharashtra government will use GIS to create digitized data base on Disaster Management Plan (DMP) up t the tehsil level on 1:50,000 scale. This would be coupled with hazard maps of each tehsil for hazard forecasting, loss estimation, emergency response and even development planning.

The 52 crore DMP project, aided by the World Bank and the British Government, envisages setting up a special communication network on the VHF and VSAT modes to link all the tehsils, districts and divisional headquarters with one another and also the main control room at Mantralaya in Mumbai for dissemination of urgent information on disaster at any place in the state.

A similar communication network would be set up in Mumbai to link all the civic wards to the BMC headquarters and various state central agencies like police, railways, airports, ports, fire brigade, hospitals, and TV and radio centres for issuing disaster alert and warning and informing public about response and relief operations.

Both the communication network and the GIS would account for nearly Rs. 33 crore of total outlay of Rs. 52 crore.

The DMP envisages a main emergency operations centre for the entire state at Mantralaya while a control room at each district headquarters for executing the disaster management measures.

The state additional chief secretary (home) would be in charge of the plan execution all over Maharashtra. The DMP also provides for training officials of the government and panchayat raj institutions and members of NGOs in disaster management exercises, community preparedness programme and strengthening of official agencies by supplying them with toolkits, medical kits, boats, tents and the like.

Japan’s earthquake-prediction programme may soon be closed down
Earthquake prediction programmes that blossomed in the rich countries in the 1960s failed in their objectives and were closed down. However, Japan’s programme, spending US $145 million annually lived on. But now a report adopted by the Ministry of Education’s Geodesy Council in Japan has admitted that Japaneses geophysicists have no special insights denied to others, and that their programme too is a waste of money. The programme may not last much longer.

Japan’s extensive network of detection equipment completely missed four big tremors in the early 1990s. These failures could be played down because the events occurred in sparsely populated areas of Hokkaido and northern Honshu. Where the forecasters really fell over was in failing to give any warning of the Kobe earthquake in 1995. This killed 6,400 people in the area that was supposed to be seismically inactive. The Council, engaging in some justifiable self criticism is urging the government to divert resources that would otherwise have been wasted on the programme into designing safer building and making better preparations for dealing with disasters after they have happened.

Conclusions
This paper has attempted to describe the various ways in which GIS can be used in risk assessment GIS can be used in the very beginning of the risk assessment process, in the identification of hazards itself. It can also be used to determine new hazard through overlay of hazard data sets. Hazard and vulnerability data which is both spatial and non-spatial in nature can be stored in GIS databases. Risk assessment programs can be called within the GIS to access this data and evaluate potential damages and risks. Finally, by displaying the potential damages that can be caused by natural hazards, GIS helps planners and insures to take preventive actions. GIS thus plays an almost indispensable role in the process of risk assessment.