Images

Lab One: Natural Disasters Game

Tsunami: Minimal Damage

The first part of my strategy was to try to place the hotels, the houses, the school, and the hospital as far from the shore as possible and then line the beaches with defenses that would reduce the impact of the disaster such as sand dunes and coconut trees. I also tried to put what I think was called something like a seismic indicator to help predict the event. Breakwaters were also placed in various spots along the shore. 

The one thing that I think I really could have done better was place evacuation systems. I didn’t know that was an option until two minutes before the tsunami hit and it told me to go to the community center. However, by that time I had already used up my budget and couldn’t afford anything else. I also could have put more defenses around the building themselves, not just on the shore.

Cost of Damages: $6,600          People Injured: 90       People Dead: 88

Tsunami: Maximum Damage

My entire strategy was to demolish as many defenses that were already there, put in no warning systems, and place the important buildings and all the housing in the high risk areas and closest to the water. I also tried to make it as packed with homes as I could. By raising the total amount of people housed, I felt like I could increase the risk of death and injury.

Cost of Damages: $36,800        People Injured: 503       People Dead: 505

Tsunami: Maximum Damage

Two Other Scenarios

The first scenario that I had was a wildfire, though I forgot to take screenshots of it. My strategy was to try to firebreak as much as I could, clearing the areas around buildings as much as I could and then place fire-resistant trees. I also tried to upgrade as many buildings as I could with fire protection. I didn't do a very good job, apparently.

Cost of Damages: $27,850        People Injured: 203       People Dead:15

The second scenario was a flood. The strategy I used was to place as many defenses like marshlands around water areas, place the school, hospital and housing on high, low-risk grounds and upgrade and retrofit as many buildings as I could afford, especially the ones around the water areas.

Cost of Damages: $12,750        People Injured: 110       People Dead: 8

Lab Two: ArcMap Hazards

USA Historic Earthquakes



This image from my explorations with the ArcGIS program shows previous earthquakes that have occurred all over the United States and their corresponding magnitudes. Some things that might need to be added to make it more of a complexity based approach include:

1. A layer that shows areas that have high-density populations (therefore showing what areas are going to have the most human loss of life)
2. A layer showing where the most buildings are that don't have the proper structure to withstand an earthquake
3. A layer showing the major fault lines
4. A layer showing regions with the least amount of funds to respond to a disaster or where the economy would be most affected by the monetary damage

Lab Five: ArcMap Earthquakes Part 1

In this lab, we explored how earthquakes are not just a tectonic hazard, but a hazard geologically and in terms of human vulnerability. We looked at where earthquakes in the US occurred, with more being happening in the western US, and how those areas generally had higher magnitude earthquakes as well, though this makes them less vulnerable to loss than other areas with less frequently occurring earthquakes because they are more likely to be prepared for such a disaster. Geologically, we looked at how ground shaking can aid in risk assessment, as well as how all these things affect urban areas. This is a map that demonstrates some of the risk assessment and information explored in this lab.

 

Map created during Lab 5, showing Ground Shaking, Past US Earthquakes, as well as geologic quaternary units, faults, and urban areas.

 Lab Five: ArcMap Earthquakes Part 2

In the first section of Part 2 of the lab, we looked more closely at Earthquake loss and destruction by looking at a few different aspects of earthquake assessment. One was building status, where we observed a map showing points that represented buildings, each labeled with one of the following: Unsafe, Limited Entry, Safe, and Insufficient Data. We also looked at how much many buildings were damaged per square kilometer. Lastly for this section, we looked at liquification. The first image shows the data for these assessments. 

This map shows the relationships between building damage density, building damage, and liquification. In the areas with more "Unsafe" status buildings, there are more buildings damaged per square kilometer as well as higher levels of liquification.

This map shows the relationship between PGA (Peak Ground Acceleration) and building damage density.  Building damage is more likely to be more dense in areas of higher Peak Ground Acceleration. 

This map shows the relationship between building damage density and PGV, or Peak Ground Velocity. In areas with higher ground velocity, there is going to be denser building damage.

Lab 6: Volcanoes

In this lab, we looked at a few different aspects of volcanoes, such as where they have occurred historically, how they relate to different kinds of plate boundaries, and lahars. We also looked into specific volcanic eruptions that have occurred, such as Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helen's. We were also able to learn a new program besides ARCMap by doing this lab. This new but very similar program was ARCScene

In the first part of the lab, we looked at global locations of volcanoes, and then determined what countries had the highest numbers of volcanoes. The top five are Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States, with Indonesia having the highest number of volcanoes and the United States having the fifth highest.

In the next part of the lab, we worked in ARCScene. The first image that we pulled up was a flat, black and white DEM map, or "digital elevation model", of Mt. Rainier. Right now, this map doesn't give as much information as it could. 

After we opened the black and white DEM map, we turned on the Triangular Irregular Network layer, or TIN layer. The differences between the two are that the TIN model doesn't display gradual in color like the DEM model did, but the TIN model has more detailed topography, so we can see the changes in elevation better.

Next, we looked at the land covers layer as well as the lahar flow layer. We can see the relationship between the lahar flow, the topography, and the land covers much better now. The relationship they have is that the lahar flow will move down the areas of lower elevation, where it has less resistance to its flow.

After this, we left ARCScene and started working back in ARCMap to look at the effects of the Mt. St. Helen's eruption. 

This is what Mt. St. Helen's topography looked like before the eruption.

This is Mt. St. Helen's topography after the eruption.

This image shows the difference between the two layers, or the volume lost from the eruption.

Lab 7: Mass Wastage Events

In this lab, we looked at mass wastage events. Specifically, we looked at landslides, which are one of the most commonly known forms of mass wastage. We started by making observations from an ArcMap Image of the United States.

This is a map showing the susceptibility and incidence of the United States.

Some of the areas that I chose to discuss for this lab are:

  1. One example is the areas along the Mississippi River. These areas are either high in susceptibility to landsliding but with low incidence or have a high landslide incidence. This is probably because of an increase in slope angle and removal of lateral support due to the erosion from the river.

  2. The California Coast is another area where water can erode away the soil through wave action. This causes risk, but people often want to live there and build property there because water-front property is more valuable.
3. Plateaus in the Western United States are also moderately to highly susceptible areas to landsliding due to the increased slope angles these landforms have. The more vertical a slope is, the more gravity will want to act on it and pull things down.

 4. The Rocky Mountains is another area that has high incidences of landslides. I believe this is probably due to several reasons, one being rainfall. In the more northern, wetter regions of the mountains, rainfall can cause saturation in the soil, which, when occurring in great amounts, can reduce cohesion. In the southern areas, where it is drier, there will be less rainfall and therefore not enough cohesion.

5. The Appalachian Mountains is a huge area of mass wastage, probably due to all sorts of reasons. It could be because of rainfall happening all along the mountains, creating less friction and cohesion between the particles of soil. Loss of vegetation probably also plays a role in this areas high incidence of landslides.

Next we looked at a specific mass wastage event that occurred in Forest Falls, California on July 11, 1999. Initially, we looked at rainfall in that area.

For some reason, when I try to put a caption on this and other images, the image jumps toward the beginning of the page and won't let me move it back down all the way usually, and when it does, I try to add a caption again and it just does the same thing. So, I will explain this image here:

This image shows the elevation levels for Forest Falls, California, in the gray-scale area toward the middle of the image. All the dots represent rainfall: This is a Doppler Radar image. The green dots mean lighter precipitation, whereas the red dots are where heavier precipitation is occurring. 


Then we tried to asses slope failure risk using ArcMap. 

Again, I can't seem to add a caption, so I will explain the image in this paragraph. This image shows the elevations of Forest Falls and shows the levels of risk. The red areas are going to have the highest risk levels whereas the green areas have the lowest. 

This is the final image we were supposed to post for this lab. However, I could not find which layer was supposed to be the layer for flowdirection, so I did my best. This map shows the parcels, and the volume of rain that fell in that area. 

Lab 8: Flooding

In this lab, we explored what it would look like and what would happen to the Eau Claire University campus area if the river flooded. This first image is 780 ft, the second is 800 ft, and the third is 900. 

For the next part of this lab, we looked at the Eau Claire University campus and what would happen to it if the river flooded, but we looked at a 3D model of it to really understand what if would look like if this event took place. The image below shows the campus area buildings along with the hill and what it would look like if the river flooded at 900 ft.