HY:
CARiMAN in Hydrogeological Risk
Responsible:
USMB
Assistants:
All Partners
1
Scientific and technological objectives of the JPA
Landslides
represent a serious threat for people living in mountainous areas. The notion of
“landslide” includes very different phenomena, with different size, velocity
and kinematical behaviour. Moreover, landslides can change typology during their
evolution.
The
complexity of the phenomena makes the managing of landslides a difficult task
for authorities, agencies and institutions that usually do not have a specific
preparation on the problem.
This
is complicated by the fact that landslides occur during short and mostly
unpredictable high intensity events (rainstorms, earthquake). During these
events the managing authorities need to take decision in short time under
considerable stress conditions. With these conditions, the managing agencies
cannot carefully analyse all available signals and data without a specifically
designed tool.
Another
feature of landslide event is that they are geographically widespread, so that
several different location are impacted and several agencies are involved during
a single event. Due to the variety of phenomena involved and the number of
locations impacted, it is not impossible to provide a server-based support for
decision. The need for a client-based decision support system is therefore very
high.
1.
The first objective of the project is to develop a client-based fast-decision
support system for risk assessment and management of landslides, based on an
integration of monitoring data, earth observation (EO) data, GIS geo-databases
and landslide modelling.
The
decision support system will acquire all the available data from different
sources via WEB and elaborate them independently using the models that will be
developed, and making a risk analysis on the basis of the model results. An
easy-to-use human interface will facilitate the use of the decision support
system as an effective tool for management.
The
decision support system will be an open environment that can be tailored to the
specific needs of the end-user amd can be connected with other similar systems
developed for different risks in CARiMAN.
2.
The second objective project is the calibration of the decision support system
by the application to a number of past events, and the validation of its
effectiveness by the application to the landslide events occurring during the
project itself. This part of the project will be conducted in collaboration with
end-users, in order to optimise the applicability of the decision support system
for non-specialist users.
3.
A third objective is the development of a learning system, based both on
training activity and e-learning technologies. A WEB site will be developed for
this task, with online courses and support.
State
of art
Landslide
risk assessment and management is a relatively new topic in research. For many
years, in fact, researchers in the field of landslides focused only on hazard
assessment, neglecting the problem of coupling these studies with potential
damages estimation.
The
first risk assessment and management studies dates back to the late 80s, when a
number of researchers (Einstein, 1988; Fell, 1994; Morgan, 1997) applied to
landslides the analysis developed for other risks (industrial risk, dam failure
risk). A futher development has recently been observed in this topic, especially
for linear facilities risk assessment (Bounce et al, xxx; new, xxx).
Notwithstanding, most of these studies concentrate in risk modelling approach,
and none of them uses different levels of information in a coherent framework of
Risk Management.
The
development of decision support systems in the field of landslides is therefore
extremely rare, with some attempts made for local situation, with little
relevance from a methodological point of view (Oboni).
The
project will enhance the state of art by means of: (1) integration of different
data sources in a coherent modelling framework; (2) development of a
high-scalable decision support system that can be adopted in different
situations, with a large field of applicability.
2
Relevance to the objectives of the IST Priority
The
project is particularly relevant to the IST objective of Improving Risk
management, by developing an open platform for risk assessment and
management and contributing to the development of European services for
environmental management. In particular , several key IST technologies will be
exploited during the project: advanced modelling and simulation, decision
support tools, GRID technology to form part of an integrated system for the
prevention and the management of emergencies. Moreover, applications will
integrate data from earth observation (EO).
From
a technical point of view the project is also relevant in developing of
GRID-based Systems, for the management complex problems like landslides. In
particular, the potential of the Grid and peer-to-peer approaches will be
exploited for modelling, simulation and data mining.
From
a socio-economic point of view, the project address the IST challenge of
“strengthening social cohesion by providing efficient, intelligent and easy to
use systems”. This will be accomplished through the development of an esay-to-use interface for the decision
support system, that will allow the use of the tool als to non-specialist.
Moreover, the project address the challenge of “enabling sustainable growth
and improving competitiveness both of large and small businesses”, through the
involvement of SME in the project.
3
Potential impact
The
impact of the project will be both socio-economic and technical.
From
a socio-economic point of view, the project is specifically designed to provide
the authorities and agencies with an effective tool for risk management. This
tool will be based on the specific requirements of the end users. Moreover,
after an analysis of the operational procedures of the different end-users, a
proposal of standardization of these procedures will be provided. This proposal
will take into account the current procedures in the different European country
and will be designed to address the most common problems encountered by the
end-users during the risk management of occurred landslide event.
From
a technical point of view, the innovation of the project is the development of a
system that is able to automatically integrate different sources of information
at a client level, thus lllowing the use of the system with different data and
for different locations at the same time, improving the possibility to face
emergences related with widespread phenomena like landslides. This approach
could potentially be used for other phenomena in different fields.
The
dissemination of the project results will be facilitate by the peer-to-peer
strategy adopted. A constant involvement of end-users will allow easy
propagation of the results. The WEB site of the project will help the
dissemination of the project deliverables. In addition, the WEB site will
provide support to end-users and will include an e-learning tool with on-line
courses that will enhance the use of the decision support system.