ISYDE

ISYDE (Information SYstem for Damage Evaluation) is a collection of 45 automatic GIS-based procedures designed with open-source tools to estimate exposure and damage both in qualitatively and quantitatively terms for the vulnerable categories in the Po District as specified in Flood Directive : population, infrastructures, economic activities (classified as: residential buildings, commercial and industrial activities, and agricultural activities), environmental and cultural heritage, and Na-tech sites.

ISYDE has been developed in a GIS environment by using free and open-source software and programming languages, i. e., QGIS for processing and data analysis, Python and SQL. Particularly, all the 45 GIS-based procedures have been designed and implemented with the QGIS Graphical Modeler, a visual programming language for workflow design, where complex geoprocessing operations can be concatenated and executed as a single algorithm with a GUI (even with multiple inputs).

Input data for the procedures have been preprocessed and stored in a centralized spatial database (PostgreSQL with PostGIS extension). Every user has different level of authorization to maintain the data completeness and consistency in compliance with OGC standard.

ISYDE is a complex system both from a the methodological and implementation point of view, but extremely efficient to speed up the decision-making process for flood risk planning and management, i.e., it is designed in order to:

• ease distribution;

• allow easy use for not expert user;

• simplify the arrangement of damage and exposure maps and related databases for helping decision makers during the phase of planning and management for flood risk.