Allocation of functional behavior to geo-information for improved disaster planning and management

Abstract

This paper describes a novel modeling strategy that couples a systems engineering design approach borrowed from industry that allocates spatial features in a GIS to a design-driven hierarchical functional model. We show that establishing a design goal such as 'evacuation' can be decomposed into a hierarchy of related functions that enable evacuation (e.g., provide shelter, provide mobility) and that these functions can be mapped to a requirements perspective and used to develop a functional feature attribution scheme that is more risk-relevant than traditionally-attributed geo-information features in the disaster modeling context. We present a riverine flooding example of this methodology applied to assessing the vulnerability of lifeline systems, and describe how this modeling approach and the systems perspective may bring efficiencies to geo-information management and provide new insights to the modeling of risk in complex interdependent systems. © 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.