Geoinformatics production for urban disasters risk reduction: A zero cost solution

Abstract

Catastrophic events (such as natural disasters) bring more damages to urban area than rural places because of high density of human population, properties and infrastructures. Geo-informatics is critical for all stages of disaster management. It is critical for risk assessment of natural disasters. Based on a research project of urban natural disaster vulnerability measurement and risk assessment, this paper illustrates a zero cost solution of geo-informatics semi-automatic production by using open-source and free-access geo-software. In order to enrich attributes to meet the requirements of risk assessment, methods of combining the produced geo-informatics with other format of geo-data (e.g. DEM, raster layers, vector layers, Microsoft Excel files, etc.) are introduced. The geo-informatics developed from this research forms a basis for disaster vulnerability measurement which is a part of disaster risk assessment. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.