Accelerating Trusted Product Access, Evaluation and Use to Support Community Lifelines

Abstract:

Satellite imagery to rapidly develop maps of historical flood hazard and current inundated areas over large spatial coverage is indispensable in supporting situational awareness for improved debris estimation, transportation impacts and damage assessments. However, how best to utilize these maps as actionable information during flood disasters and for flood disaster response assistance is less clear. Furthermore, the integration of any satellite data from an “untrusted” (non-mandated) source into the operations chain and response protocols of a mandated agencies such as FEMA, PDC (PDC is already pulling some DFO-DSS layers) or the UN WFP would be a non-trivial procedure. These agencies desire to prioritize support and resource requirements for community lifelines. (Safety & Security; Food, Water & Shelter; Health & Medical; Energy (Power & Fuel); Communications; Transportation; and Hazardous Materials). The majority of these lifelines can be impacted by floods.

The Global Flood Observatory’s (DFO, University of Colorado Boulder) web map server and its associated mobile app (DFO-Floods) is a resource for global extents of floods now delivered as map products via web services. This flood decision support system (DSS) serves flood maps along with other trusted geospatial data to the global disaster response community. However, acceptance of the DFO product line as a trusted information source requires additional tests to assess its performance in combination with the respective response process of agencies around the world. This would allow moving the product from a high Application Readiness Level into an Operational Readiness Level (ORL) for agency trusted data implementation.

This paper reviews success examples of the DFO flood layers, illustrates the newly released mobile app and discusses the need for trusted flood map products and services to support the global disaster response community.