Flood Evacuation Mapping Using a Time–Distance cartogram

Seula Park,Jung Ok Kim,Gunhak Lee

doi:10.3390/ijgi9040207

Abstract

When flooding occurs, people should be evacuated safely to designated shelters along the optimal routes to minimize serious damages on lives and properties. However, in general, only limited information related to evacuation procedures and using a directional arrow to indicate existing shelters is provided on the evacuation map. Moreover, the evacuation routes leading to nearby shelters are not presented effectively to people in an emergency situation. This paper aimed to provide an approach to generate a flood evacuation cartogram based on an actual evacuation. The proposed time–distance cartogram preserves the topological characteristics by minimizing distortion in transforming the evacuation routes. To empirically evaluate its application, we applied the proposed method to Siheung city in Korea. As a result, optimal shelter and evacuation routes were derived by considering significant factors influencing the actual access to the facilities. Moreover, the flood evacuation cartogram provides a more intuitive visualization than classic topographic maps, by relocating shelters and reshaping the routes intended for evacuation. The suggested method is significant as it provides practical flood evacuation information effectively and intuitively, and the generated cartograms as empirical results also provide helpful insights for more efficient evacuation plans.

Highlights

As the development of coastal areas continues through land reclamation, the risk of flooding is increasing and the risks related to huge losses of both life and property caused by inundation are increasing as well [1,2]
Siheung is suitable as a study area from which flood evacuation maps are created, as it is considered to be at high risk of flooding due to its small number of mountainous areas and large number of coastal reclamation sites [32]
Since the analysis shows that adjacent buildings are allocated to the same shelter and their evacuation routes are equivalent, it is reasonable to combine buildings into one group to create a cluster

Summary

Introduction

As the development of coastal areas continues through land reclamation, the risk of flooding is increasing and the risks related to huge losses of both life and property caused by inundation are increasing as well [1,2]. Natural disasters, such as hurricanes and tsunamis, can cause serious damage in coastal cities. In the case of such a disaster, it is critical to evacuate people as quickly as possible to minimize fatalities. When an evacuation order is issued by the government, people should move to the closest shelter as quickly as possible. For circumstances in which inundation is occurring, accurate forecasts and prevention measures using various physical and statistical models are challenging due to the complexity of the hydrological process [4]

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Conclusion