Database

The dynamics of a variable and its interaction with other variables are key for estimating the disaster risk. For example, ASEAN Regional Vulnerability Assessments guidelines highlighted that flooding late in the crop cycle results in far more significant crop damage than early in the planting cycle. Similarly, the dynamics of all the variable and its interactions has to be understood and documented. From among the comprehensive list of variables used in the ASEAN Regional Vulnerability Assessments guidelines and other available studies, few variables are selected to demonstrate how the dynamic nature of variables could be considered in the dynamic risk assessment process.

Variables

  • Rainfall observation and forecasted condition (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal)
  • Temperature observation and forecasted condition (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal)
  • Water level measurement at rivers and reservoirs at different time slices
  • Tide level measurement at coastal stations at different time slices
  • Earthquake detection with time, location and its intensity in near real time


Applications

  • The seasonal drought risk depends on rainfall received during the previous season or previous year.
  • The stress of heat wave on human depends on length of consecutive high temperature days.
  • The rainfall occurring after the soil saturation point is important to decide the run-off (floods). High tides would aggravate the flood risk in coastal regions, as the high tide slows down the river discharge into sea.
  • For assessing the rainfall risk to crops, knowing the crop stages would be important. For example, heavy rainfall occurring during the harvesting stage would pose more risk to crops than the growing stage.
  • The impacts caused by two hazards occurring at the same time, for example, heavy rainfall and earthquake, would result in differential impacts as compared to individual hazards. Similarly, the occurrence of high temperature and forest fire simultaneously poses much higher risk.

There are various databases that are dynamically updated near real time from global, regional and national centres, and are available for users. Few data sets are highlighted in Table-3, which needs to be updated from wider participation in the ADAGE.

Dynamic data sources








































HAZARDS DATABASE

1. Earthquake magnitude and location

Description : Near real time data of earthquake and magnitude with geographical coordinates,

available since 1900

Agency :United States Geologic Survey (USGS)

Website : https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/search/

2. Tsunami wave height and run-off time.

Description: NOAA/WDC Tsunami Event Database - Global database of all tsunamis from 2000 –present, providing wave source, run-up, height and date.

Agency : National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Website : https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/tsu.shtml


3. Tsunami warning

Description : Tsunami warning that is classified into: no tsunami warning, advisory, watch, or threat. Times are local to users’ browser, unless otherwise indicated.

Agency : NOAA/National Weather Service (US Tsunami Warning System)

Website : https://www.tsunami.gov/

4. Cyclone track with wind speed

Description: International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship – Spatial data of cyclone track with wind speed and time details for all the Ocean basins are archived and updated time-to-time. At present IBTRACS data is available since 1858 for some regions and for all the regions since the satellite era 1980s. National Institute of Informatics (NII) archives best tracks for only typhoons in Pacific Ocean basin since 1978.

Agency : National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA) and National Institute of Informatics (NII)

Website : https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ibtracs/index.php?name=ibtracs-data-access and http://agora.ex.nii.ac.jp/digital-typhoon/

5. Real time satellite image for weather and earthquake

Description: Real time satellite imagery for weather and earthquake, provided every 10 minutes from the Himawari series of geostationary meteorological satellites.

Agency : Japan Meteorological Agency

Website : http://www.jma.go.jp/en/gms/index.html


6. Near real time satellite based precipitation

Description: Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM)/ Tropical Radar Measuring Mission – Satellite based rainfall estimates available near real time at 3-hourly, daily, monthly time step with spatial resolution 25X25 km. The data is available since1998 to present.

Agency : National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Website : https://pmm.nasa.gov/data-access/downloads/trmm and http://apdrc.soest.hawaii.edu/data/data.php

7. Gridded precipitation data compiled from meteorological stations

Description: Gridded precipitation data of ~25X25km spatial resolution available at daily time scale for the period 1950 to 2007 over Asia.

Agency : APHRODITE's Water Resources

Website : http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/precip/english/products.html

8. Near real time satellite based precipitation estimates

Description: JAXA Global rainfall Watch - Near real time global rainfall maps (about four hours after observation) are available from satellite based estimates for Asia. The information is available for the following time steps: hourly, daily and 3 days. The data is shared in web-based GIS portal and the outputs can be downloaded as Google KMZ file.

Agency : Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Earth Observation Research Center

Website : http://sharaku.eorc.jaxa.jp/GSMaP/index.htm

9. MODIS Land surface temperature

Description: MODIS Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity (MOD11) Terra product available since 2000 and Aqua product available since 2002. The images are available for ~ 1100 X 1100 km area at 8 day time interval.

Agency : National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Website : https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/dataprod/mod11.php

10. Temperature

Description: A database of global historical weather and climate data in addition to station history information. It consists of quality controlled daily, monthly, seasonal, and yearly measurements of temperature, precipitation, wind, and degree days as well as radar data and 30-year Climate Normals.

Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Website: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/


11. Weather forecast products

Description: Forecast products generated using Numerical Weather Prediction models e.g. Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model – Forecasted weather products for parameters such as rainfall, temperature, wind speed, mean sea level pressure, are available at various time steps (hourly, 6 hourly, 12 hourly, daily, 3 days, 5 days, 10 days, and so on) for up to 8X8 km spatial resolution. In general, the digital forecast products are shared by the information generator to the user agencies upon request.

Agency : Global/Regional Meteorological centers and some of the National Meteorological centers in ASEAN region has their own or having access to digital forecast products of WRF. RIMES has its experimental WRF products.

Website : http://nwp.imd.gov.in/ , http://cdaas.rimes.int/

12. Future rainfall and temperature (maximum and minimum) projections

Description: NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) Downscaled Climate Projections (NEX-DCP30) – Downscaled high resolution future projection of rainfall and temperature variable for the whole world at daily time step at 25X25 km spatial resolution. The data for historical runs are available for the period 1950 - 2005 and the future scenario are available for the period 2006 – 2099. RIMES hosted all these datasets in a web based platform for users to analyse these data sets and to prepare required climate information for their needs.

Agency : National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Website : https://cds.nccs.nasa.gov/nex/ or http://cdaas.rimes.int/???

13. River Runoff and discharge for Asia

Description: River discharge and runoff values at daily time step is available for 642 stations and monthly time steps for 1703 stations in Asia. The data period available for individual station differs, however, the earliest available year is 1865 and the latest available year is 2015. The data is available free of charge of non-commercial purpose.

Agency : Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC)

Website : http://www.bafg.de/GRDC/EN/02_srvcs/21_tmsrs/riverdischarge_node.html

14. Dartmouth Flood Observatory River and Reservoir Watch Version 3.4

Description: Satellite based river and runoff discharge is available for selected locations in South East Asia and other parts of the World since 1998 at daily time steps.

Agency : Dartmouth Flood Observatory

Website : http://floodobservatory.colorado.edu/DischargeAccess.html

15. Mean Sea Level

Description: A global data bank for long term sea level change information from tide gauges and bottom pressure recorders. The data is available for various locations around the world at monthly and annual time steps for last 30 years.

Agency : Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL)

Website : http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/

16. Climate data

Description: Climate scenario that consists of RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, RCP 6.0, and RCP 8.5

Agency: CCAFs climate data (CGIR)

Website: http://ccafs-climate.org/data/


17. Climate data API

Description: the models simulate the response of the global climate system to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. The data in the Climate Data API have been aggregated to both the country and basin levels.

Agency: World Bank

Website: https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/902061-climate-data-api


18. Vegetation Indices

Description: Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Vegetation Condition Index (VCI), and Vegetation Health Index (VHI) derived from NOAA-AVHRR satellite images at 16km spatial resolution available in near real time for 10 days and monthly time steps for the period 1984-2017

Agency : FAO Earth Observation Web portal

Website : http://www.fao.org/giews/earthobservation/asis/index_2.jsp?lang=en

19. Disaster Incidents in ASEAN region

Description: Information about every disaster incident (with geographical coordinates) in the ASEAN region is stored in ASEAN Disaster Information Network. The website shows all the logged disaster events in the region and they are disseminated as a weekly and monthly summary of events in the region by email to the National Focal Point. The disaster incidents would be helpful to analyse the occurrence of multiple hazards occurring over the same time as well as same hazard occurring over different time.

Agency : ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA) Center

Website : http://adinet.ahacentre.org

20. EM-DAT International Disaster Database

Description: Occurrence and effects of disasters since 1900 is archived in a disaster database at country level. Although the spatial resolution is low, this data sets can be useful for understanding the impacts resulted by interactions of multiple-hazards occurring at the same time and in same place.

Agency : Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters - CRED

Website : http://www.emdat.be/

21. GDACS Disaster Archive

Description: Disaster database with occurrence, severity of impact details available for the hazards earthquake and tsunami (reliable since 2002), floods (reliable since 2006), and cyclones (reliable since 2011) globally.

Agency : Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System

Website : http://www.gdacs.org/alerts/default.aspx?profile=archive


22. Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) Atlas

Description: The risk data associated with earthquakes, tsunamis, riverine flooding, cyclonic winds and storm surge with a global level of observation and a national level of resolution. Consists of hazards and exposure.

Agency: UNISDR

Website

GAR Atlas: https://risk.preventionweb.net/capraviewer/main.jsp?countrycode=g1

GAR raw data: https://risk.preventionweb.net/capraviewer/download.jsp?tab=9&mapcenter=0,1123252.6982849&mapzoom=2

23. PREVIEW Global Risk Data Platform

Description: Spatial data information on global risk from natural hazards. The data is available on past hazardous events, human and economical hazard exposure and risk from natural hazards. It covers tropical cyclones and related storm surges, drought, earthquakes, biomass fires, floods, landslides, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

Agency: UNEP and UNISDR

Website: http://preview.grid.unep.ch/


VULNERABILITY AND EXPOSURE DATABASE


1. Vulnerability and coping capacity

Description: Inform risk index on multi-hazard disaster risk

Agency: The Excel sheet contains all the source data and the calculation steps for functional levels, categories and dimensions. Results can also be consulted online, as country profiles, or as GIS data. The data includes risk o humanitarian crises and disasters, hazards and exposure, vulnerability, coping capacity, conflict, displacement, etc. It also has section on utilizing this INFORM to understand SDGs achievement level.

Website: http://www.inform-index.org/


2. Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) Desinventar

Description: It consists of disaster damage and loss database. It is a conceptual and methodological tool for the generation of National Disaster Inventories and the construction of databases of damage, losses and in general the effects of disasters.

Agency: UNISDR and UNDP

Website: https://www.desinventar.net/


3. Energy infrastructure, global power plants data

Description: An open source database of power plants around the world. It centralizes power plant data to make it easier to navigate, compare and draw insights for one’s own analysis. Each power plant is geolocated and entries contain information on plant capacity, generation, ownership, and fuel type (Global Energy Observatory, Google, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Enipedia, World Resources Institute. 2018)

Agency: World Resources Institute (WRI)

Website: https://www.wri.org/resources


4. Geonetwork (Railroads of the world, Roads of the world, World Cities, Georeferenced database of dams in southern eastern Asia, World port index)

Description: The data varies from interactive maps, GIS datasets, satellite imagery and related applications. It covers the data of administrative and political boundaries, agriculture and livestock, applied ecology, base maps, remote sensing and toponomy, biological and ecological resources, climate, fisheries and aquaculture, water resources, infrastructures, land cover and land use, population and socio-economic indicators, topography, etc.

Agency: FAO

Website: http://www.fao.org/geonetwork/srv/en/main.home


5. Socioeconomic - Poverty, Humanitarian data exchange, Multidimensional Poverty Index

Description: Multidimensional poverty index. The tools can be applied at the international level. Subject to the availability of data, they are also applicable at the national and sub-national levels. The latter include: regional, urban/rural, male/female, age-group, income level, ethnic group, etc (UNDP, 2018).

Agency: UNDP

Website: https://data.humdata.org/dataset/multidimensional-poverty-index


6. Socioeconomic - World Income Inequality Database - WIID3.4

Description: Inequality database, shows inequality data based on country, region, non-geographical category, and years. The indicators used are Gini coeficient, median income and mean income.

Agency: UNU

Website: https://www.wider.unu.edu/database/world-income-inequality-database-wiid34


7. Socioeconomic - Conflicts

Description: It covers individual events of organized violence (phenomena of lethal violence occurring at a given time and place). These events are geo-coded down to the level of individual villages, with temporal durations disaggregated to single, individual days (UCDP, 2017)

Agency: UCDP Georeferenced event dataset

Website: http://ucdp.uu.se/downloads/


8. Global Data Lab(Subnational Human Development Index)

Description: The Subnational Human Development Index (SHDI) presented in this website is a translation of the UNDP’s official HDI (hdr.undp.org) to the subnational level. As such, it is an average of the subnational values of three dimensions: education, health, and standard of living.

Agency: UNDP

Website: https://globaldatalab.org/shdi/

Most of the data sets are available in GIS-supported ESRI Shapefile or XYZ text files. The climate data sets are available in NetCDF format, which needs to be brought into GIS platforms by converting into GIS compatible formats. Tools like ARCGIS have functionalities to work with NetCDF format.

Dynamic risk assessment require variables at finer spatial and temporal resolution. Accessing data and indicators for these variables is challenging for low capacity countries ASEAN. Hence developing and collating these data sets would be an important step towards carrying out dynamic risk assessment in future. Developing the capacity to carry out dynamic risk assessment would improve understanding on disaster risks. This enhanced capacity could be a valuable input for disaster risk reduction initiatives being implemented in ASEAN countries.