Abstract
People, livelihoods, and infrastructure in Myanmar suffer from devastating monsoonal flooding on a frequent basis. Quick and effective management of flood risk relies on planning and preparedness to ensure the availability of supplies, shelters and emergency response personnel. The mandated government agency Department of Disaster Management (DDM) as well as local and international organizations play roles in producing, disseminating, and using accurate and timely information on flood risk. Currently, systematic flood risk maps are lacking, which leaves DDM to rely on inconsistent historic reports and local knowledge to inform their emergency planning. Although these types of knowledge are critical, they can be complemented to reduce bias and human error to planning processes and decisions. As such, the present situation has led to ineffective distribution of emergency response resources prior to flooding, leaving vulnerable populations less-than-prepared for inevitable flood events. Given these issues, we have developed a flood risk decision-support tool in collaboration with DDM. The tool uses surface water maps developed by the Joint Research Center (JRC), which were derived from more than 30 years of Landsat imagery. We have also incorporated population data, land cover data, and other information on flood exposure and vulnerability to create the first scalable and replicable Flood Risk Index (FRI) for flood risk reduction in Myanmar.
Highlights
Floods are considered to be one of the most recurrent natural hazards which can rapidly become significant disasters
In this study we present an innovative approach to flood risk mapping in a disaster risk reduction framework, leveraging open data and state-of-the-art cloud computing technologies
We present a framework to map spatially explicit flood hazard, exposure and vulnerability, and to merge those data into a single flood risk index (FRI)
Summary
Floods are considered to be one of the most recurrent natural hazards which can rapidly become significant disasters. Given the occurrence and widespread damages due to floods, it becomes imperative to address flood risks from a disaster risk reduction (DRR) approach. In this regard, a variety of scientific approaches are being used for mapping flood hazard and informing risk assessments. Four phases of disaster management have been used by governments, including mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery (Thieken et al, 2007; Carter, 2008). Implementing these four components in a disaster risk reduction approach is expected to increase resilience and reduce economic and human losses
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