Towards a cross-domain interoperable framework for natural hazards and disaster risk reduction information

Abstract

According to the United Nations' International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, ''natural hazards are processes or phenomena that may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, loss of livelihoods and services, social and economic disruption, or environmental damage''. They are at the interface between human and natural systems. From this perspective, natural hazards are a multidimensional domain including environmental issues, the private and public sector and citizens and governance ranging from local to supranational. The vast amount of information and data necessary for comprehensive hazard and risk assessment present many challenges regarding the lack of accessibility, comparability, quality, organisation and dissemination of natural hazards spatial data. In order to mitigate these limitations, an interoperability framework has been developed and published in the INSPIRE Data Specification on Natural Risk Zonestechnical guidelines (DS) document. This framework provides means for facilitating access, integration, harmonisation and dissemination of natural hazard data from different domains and sources. The objective of this paper is twofold. Firstly, the paper highlights 123Nat Hazards (2015) 78:1545-1563 DOI 10.1007/s11069-015-1786 the key aspects of the interoperability to the various natural hazard communities and illustrates the applicability of the interoperability framework developed in the DS. And secondly, the paper ''translates'' into common language the main features and potentiality of the interoperability framework of the DS for a wider audience of scientists and practitioners in the natural hazard domain. In this paper, the four pillars of the interoperability framework will be presented. First, the adoption of a common terminology for the natural hazard domain will be addressed. A common data model to facilitate cross-domain data integration will then follow. Thirdly, the common methodology developed to express qualitative or quantitative assessments of natural hazards is presented. Fourthly, the extensible classification schema for natural hazards developed from a literature review and key reference documents from the contributing community of practice is discussed. Furthermore, the applicability of the interoperability framework for the various stakeholder groups is illustrated. This paper closes discussing main advantages, limitations and next steps regarding the sustainability and evolution of the interoperability framework.

INSPIRE standards as a framework for artificial intelligence applications: a landslide example

“…For this project, we worked with four INSPIRE themes: Geology, Land Cover, Hydrography, and Natural Risk Zones. The Natural Risk Zone application schema was not fully adequate for this application as it lacked the "landslide susceptibility" concept and "landslide type" code lists (Tomas et al, 2015). We addressed this issue by formally extending the Natural Risk Zone schema and the natural hazard code list.…”

“…INSPIRE is intended to be used as an overarching umbrella under which domain-specific applications can find their place by extending it where necessary. The Natural Risk Zone theme (Tomas et al, 2015) and the extension presented in this work are an example of using this extension facility. Within the Natural Risk Zone theme, the Natural Hazard category value code list includes geological and hydrological hazards, including "flood" and "landslide", but the different subclasses of floods and landslides are not specified.…”

INSPIRE standards as framework for artificial intelligence applications: a landslides example

“…INSPIRE is intended to be used as an overarching umbrella under which domain-specific applications can find their place by extending it where necessary. The Natural Risk Zone theme (Tomas et al, 2015) (meters per year) is very different. They can both destroy property but it is unlikely for an earth flow to result in fatalities while the opposite can be said of debris flows (Hungr et al, 2014).…”

“…The INSPIRE Natural Risk Zone theme also lacks the definition of susceptibility as a concept and feature type. The term susceptibility is not implemented as a feature type because for most hazards (e. g floods and earthquakes) the concept is embedded within the concept of hazard likelihood (Tomas et al, 2015). This does not apply in the landslide domain where susceptibility and hazard are distinct concepts (e.g.…”

Understanding practical challenges to risk and vulnerability assessments: the case of Swedish municipalities

“…Furthermore, too much focus on technical factors is likely to go hand in hand with the 'danger of attempting to do too much' (King 2008), which was noted in relation to risk assessments concerning natural hazards conducted by local governments in Australia. In addition, the large amount of data needed for conducting comprehensive RVAs gives rise to challenges related to quality, comparability, organisation and dissemination of the data (Tomas et al 2015). But rather than trying to cover every possible aspect of risk, there is a need to understand what information concerning risk is really needed in the local context.…”