Universidad Politécnica de Madrid Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

Software system to improve natural disaster risk management

A new software system, designed at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid's Facultad de Informática, enables 37 organizations from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru to share spatial information and improve natural disaster risk management.

The new software system is called SIAPAD (an acronym for the Spanish Sistema de Información para la Prevención y Atención de Desastres, meaning Andean Information System for Disaster Prevention and Relief). The system is useful for deploying disaster risk management strategies in the Andean region, as it improves the accessibility and visibility of information (on hydrology, meteorology, seismology, volcanoes, geography, statistics, etc.) having a bearing on disasters and available from several regional agencies. This provides an integrated spatial view that is useful for joint information analysis.

The SIAPAD system is developed on an architecture based on a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) with 26 server nodes and 4 facilitator nodes. The system includes a web portal, called GEORIESGO, which displays the potential uses and integration of spatial information on disasters. The portal uses artificial intelligence techniques, employing a natural disaster ontology and a knowledge-based thematic search engine for integrated geographical information discovery and visualization.

 

Open software

The system uses major open source software tools in order to improve its sustainability, i.e. maintenance and growth. On the whole, the SIAPAD model, developed for the Community of Andean Nations, should be applicable in other regions with similar features.

The research has spawned SIAPAD, reported in Computers & Geosciences and authored by Martín Molina of the Department of Artificial Intelligence based at the UPM's Facultad de Informática, and Salvador Bayarri of IVER Technologies. SIAPAD is an initiative sponsored by the Andean Committee for Disaster Prevention and Relief (CAPRADE) and was funded by the Secretariat General of the Community of Andean Nations and the European Union through the Andean Community Disaster Prevention (PREDECAN) project..

The stakeholders were 37 Andean organizations generating disaster-related information that participated in system development within a context of international cooperation. The project has made a major contribution to raising the awareness about the utility of sharing information resources in the Andean Community, a region often hit by disasters caused by recurrent natural phenomena such as earthquakes, volcano eruptions, fierce storms, etc.

 

Reference

Martin Molina, Salvador Bayarri. A multinational SDI-based system to facilitate disaster risk management in the Andean Community, Computers & Geosciences 37 (2011) 1501-1510.

 

SOURCE: FIUPM