Running to Safety: Analysis of Disaster Susceptibility of Neighborhoods and Proximity of Safety Facilities in Silay City, Philippines

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Going on foot is the most viable option when emergency responders fail to show up in disaster zones at the quickest and most reasonable time. In the Philippines, the efficacy of disaster management offices is hampered by factors such as, but not limited to, lack of equipment and personnel, distance, and/or poor road networks and traffic systems. In several instances, emergency response times exceed acceptable norms. This study explores the hazard susceptibility, particularly to fire, flood, and landslides, of neighborhoods vis-à-vis their proximity to safety facilities in Silay City, Philippines. Imbang River exposes communities in the city to flooding while the mountainous terrain makes the city landslide prone. Building extraction was done to get the possible human settlements in the city. The building structures were extracted through image processing using a ruleset-based approach in the process of segmentation and classification of LiDAR derivatives and ortho-photos. Neighborhoods were then identified whether they have low to high susceptibility to disaster risks in terms of floods and landslides based on the hazards maps obtained from the Philippines' Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB). Service area analyses were performed to determine the safety facilities available to different neighborhoods at varying running times. Locations which are inaccessible or are difficult to run to because of distance and corresponding hazards were determined. Recommendations are given in the form of infrastructure installation, relocation of facilities, safety equipment and vehicle procurement, and policy changes for specific areas in Silay City.

Remote Sensing-Based Proxies for Urban Disaster Risk Management and Resilience: A Review

“…Hence, their availability define the better life condition for the people living in the region and they form the basis for assessing social vulnerability of an urban area [39]. In addition, a distance between buildings and lifelines (e.g., hospitals) is important in emergency cases: the longer this distance the higher is the social vulnerability of urban areas [33,93,136,137].…”

“…Distance to lifeline Decrease in distance to health systems, fire stations and etc. decreases the vulnerability Vulnerability VHR images [33,93,136,137] Potential to evacuation High level of covered road area shows resilient urban area which is calculated as Road/km 2 Resilience Road map/road vector data [31] Presence open spaces…”

Post-disaster recovery assessment using remote sensing image analysis and agent-based modeling

“…Hence, their availability define the better life condition for the people living in the region and form the basis for assessing social vulnerability of an urban area (Liu et al 2017a). In addition, a distance between buildings and lifelines (e.g., hospitals) is important in emergency cases: the longer this distance the higher is the social vulnerability of urban areas (Armenakis and Nirupama 2013; Patino et al 2016;Roy and Blaschke 2015).…”