Hazard Owl

Watching assets for the
impact of natural hazards

Roland Martin

Senior GIS Consultant

Arup

Coming up...

• What's a hazard?
• Why do they matter?
• What can we do about them?
• What's the Hazard Owl?
• How does the front end work?
• How does the back end work?

smokeybear.com

• A global, integrated, multidisciplinary firm of professionals working together to tackle complex planning, infrastructure and building design challenges
• 11,000 engineers, designers, planners, management consultants and economists
• 90 offices in 37 countries
• Full service from concept through completion
• Dedicated to delivering value through expertise, global resources and local delivery

Everything we work on - whether a building, a bridge, a railway or an airport - must meet particular standards for seismic design.

USGS

Wikipedia

How do we manage our response?

What is a natural hazard?

But first...

What is a natural hazard?

Earthquake

Tsunami

Volcano

Hurricane / Cyclone / Typhoon

Bushfire

Flood

Storm

What makes it a natural hazard?

Extreme event     +     People

=

Natural hazard

We can't prevent natural hazards

But we can...

1. Reduce their impacts
2. Plan ahead and be prepared
3. Recover more quickly

Risk

=

Hazard

x

Vulnerability

x

Consequences

Data Feeds

Data Feeds

• Bushfires
  • NASA (MODIS)
  • New South Wales Rural Fire Service
  • Queensland Rural Fire Service
  • South Australian Country Fire Service
  • Tasmania Fire Service
  • Victoria Country Fire Service

Data Feeds

• Earthquakes
  • British Geological Survey
  • EMSC-CSEM
  • Geoscience Australia
  • GNS Science - Te Pü Ao (New Zealand)
  • Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
  • Natural Resources Canada
  • USGS Shakemap

Data Feeds

• Tropical Cyclones, Hurricanes, and Typhoons
  • Joint Typhoon Warning Center
  • National Hurricane Center
• Tropical Weather Forecasts (National Weather Service)
• Tsunamis (National Weather Service)
• Volcanoes (Smithsonian Institution)

The system typically registers betwen 5,000 and 10,000 hazards worldwide at any given time

That's roughly one and a half million hazards every year

Some feeds are easy to read

• GeoRSS
• Clean KML
• Esri Shapefile

Others present greater challenges

• Raw HTML
• Dirty KML
• Complex APIs

FME Server

What is FME?

• Spatial ETL tool

• Reads and writes hundreds of spatial and non-spatial data types

• Enables almost unlimited combinations of data transformation

• Simple, intuitive interface which requires no coding

Why use it for Hazard Owl?

• Handles all relevant data types (GeoRSS, shapefile, KML, plain text, PostGIS)

• Reliable, with a strong user base

• Simple interface for building complex processes

FME Server

• Web-based interface for FME

• Allows workspaces to be scheduled

• Includes simple email tools

The database

Why PostGIS?

• Speed and simplicity

• The JSON data type, allowing you to build a semi-structured database

• Functions for generating GeoJSON from queries

Database Elements

• Hazards - reported hazard events from incoming feeds
  • Type - i.e. "earthquake", "bushfire", etc
  • Source - i.e. "USGS", "CGS", etc
  • Parameter - i.e. "magnitude at source"
• Assets - locations we're interested in
  • Type - i.e. "office", "bridge", etc
• Watches - which hazards to watch near assets
• Triggers - different levels at which alerts are triggered by watches
  • Alert level - i.e. "moderate", "danger!" 
• Alerts - watches which have gone above a trigger level
  • Alert emails - emails which have been sent to users

Database Schema

Assets

Watches

Triggers

1:M

1:M

Hazards

Alerts

1:M

1:M

1:M

Database API

• Uses a custom web API, developed using PHP
• Calls are similar to:

var url = 'api/query.php?action=get_hazards&hazard_type=1';

$.post("api/submit.php?action=add_watch", $('#form').serialize())
.done(function(data) {
    if (data == 1)
	map.closePopup();
});

Leaflet

Why Leaflet?

• Simple, generally intuitive interface for users
• Fast, free of unnecessary clutter
• Performs well with large datasets
• Easily extensible

Tilestache

Seismic Plate Boundaries

• Data doesn't change regularly
• Symbolized based on plate type
• Displayed as tiled raster base layer using Tilestache

Tilestache

• Open source technology similar to Mapbox
• Dynamically generates and caches basemap tiles
• Very fast and simple to use
• Enables you to generate basemap tiles without paying for a subscription or uploading data
• Fiddly to set up on Apache for Windows

Watching hazards

Adding assets, watches, and triggers

Users cannot add hazards or alerts

Watches can be added by clicking the "watch for hazards at this location" button. Triggers are added using the same form

Assets can be added using the digitizing tools in the map interface

What happens then?

1. A hazard approaches an asset

2. If there is a watch in place for that hazard and asset, the severity is compared against the triggers

3. If a trigger level is exceeded, an alert is generated, and sent via email to the user

What happens then?

All systems fail occasionally

We set up FME Server to email us automatically if anything goes wrong - for instance if a server is unexpectedly turned off for maintenance.

Still to be added...

• Proper design
• More basemap layers
• Interface to add new assets
• Administration interface
• Ability to "play back" hazards
• ...

What we've seen...

• What's a hazard?
• Why do they matter?
• What can we do about them?
• What's the Hazard Owl?
• How does the front end work?
• How does the back end work?

smokeybear.com

Thank you!

roland.martin@arup.com