Disaster Preparedness
Preparedness Stage
In the preparedness stage (also known as Prevention or Mitigation stage), the goal is to prevent disasters from occurring. For flooding, this is done by:
Mitigation - Significantly reducing or eliminating the risk of flooding
Preparedness - Creating a plan to be ready for the flooding emergency
In the following scenario, you will use various tools to examine floods, track precipitation, and analyze flood history using an example from Myanmar in August 2018. It's up to you to decide how to prepare in order to minimize the risk of flooding.
SCENARIO
1. Head over to http://hydrafloods-servir.adpc.net/mapviewer/ .
HYDrologic Remote Sensing Analysis for Floods
"The publicly available, web-based service delivering near real-time information for improved flood monitoring. Designed to provide information on flood location and extent to assist with flood preparedness, emergency response, and relief efforts.” An open-source tool. You will be using the historical flood analysis tool that provides information on flood-prone areas in the Lower Mekong Regions
a. On the right, you are able to zoom in and out, make the map full screen, draw shapes, and toggle legend (Fig 1).
b. On the left you can (Fig 2):
· Layer settings: Surface water and opacity. Select a date.
· Occerenced water: set a date.
· Imagery: Change the color of the map
· Layers: Change basemap and add province or township
2. Make sure you are in full screen view.
3. Click “Use Cases”
4. As you can see there are multiple past flood events in the Mekong Region. We will be focusing on Monsoonal Rains in Myanmar on August 2018.
a. The detail tab will give you the history of what happened in Myanmar.
5. Click View on Map.
6. Examine the surface water in purple.
a. Toggle on and off the provinces and townships to see who was affected by the flood.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Credit: Moe Kyaw Soe Rescue Workers Transporting Residents. The New York Times, Myanmar, 2018
After learning about the August 2018 Monsoon Rains in Myanmar that caused severe flooding and the failure of Swar Dam, ask yourself the following questions:
How could damage have been prevented?
Could the Swar dam have been reinforced to prevent dam failure?
Could people have been warned?
How could Earth Observations help answer these questions?
Credit: Hein Htet The Floodwater Caused One Carriageway of a Bridge to Buckle. The Guardian, Myanmar, 2018
Imagine that you work for the Department of Disaster Management (DDM) in Myanmar. In order to try to prevent the flood, you must study patterns in floods in the previous weeks.
1. Head to https://www.globalfloods.eu/. Go to Log In in the upper right-hand corner. Make a free account.
a. If it did not automatically redirect you, go to https://www.globalfloods.eu/glofas-forecasting/
b. View the tutorial video
Figure 3
Figure 5
2. Zoom into the Myanmar area, this can be done with your mouse, the left-hand slider, or the search function. (Fig 3)
3. Go to Static at the top. Turn on Major Rivers. Irrawaddy is the river in the Myanmar area. (Fig 4)
4. Go to Hydrological tab on top. Make sure Reporting Points is toggled on. (Fig 5)
a. Examine Reporting Points
5. Go to Meteorological tab on the top. Turn on the Precipitation Prob. >50mm (Fig 6)
a. This shows the accumulated rainfall over the forecast range of 10 days.
b. You can change the opacity of the layer with the slider under "Glofas".
6. Set the date in the left-hand corner for 2018-08-01. Change the dates to 2018-08-08, 2018-08-15, and 2018-08-22.
a. Examine the differences.
b. Toggle off the Precipitation Prob. >50mm
8. Toggle on Precipitation Prob. >150mm
a. Repeat step 6.
b. Toggle off Precipitation Prob. >150mm
9. Toggle on Precipitation Prob. >300mm
a. Repeat step 6.
Figure 4
Figure 6
Graduated Colors Maps used for each level of Precipitation Probability layer
Now that you have noticed the amount of rainfall throughout the past 4 weeks, what will you do?
Click a button to see the results
CONCLUSION
The Myanmar Swar Dam breach occurred on August 29, 2018, requiring more than 50,000 people to evacuate and resulting in damage to the town. These incidents could have possibly be prevented with greater access to flood monitoring and preparedness tols. Openly accessible tools allow many organizations and civilians to be aware of flooding and other natural disaster issues. They can be the next tool to prevent, prepare, and mitigate a flood. In the other tabs, you will use more tools to respond to floods and recover from floods.
Click the button to move on to the Disaster Response Stage:MORE RESOURCES:
NASA, the Capacity Building Program, and SERVIR have Decision Support Tools to further assist during the disaster stages. The Historical Analysis Tool is a prevention tool designed to provide information on flood-prone areas in the Lower Mekong Region. Floods and droughts can be found before they occur, making it useful for the preparedness/prevention stage. As well as assisting with response to flood disasters.
Click the link to learn more about the Historical Analysis Tool made by SERVIR - Mekong.
