Publications / 2015 Proceedings of the 32nd ISARC, Oulu, Finland

FloodViz: A Visual-Based Decision Support System for Flood Hazard Warning

Er-Xuan Sung, Meng-Han Tsai, Shih-Chung Kang
Pages 1-8 (2015 Proceedings of the 32nd ISARC, Oulu, Finland, ISBN 978-951-758-597-2, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

Disaster prevention and response is becoming increasingly concerned not only with disaster mitigation, but also with the integration of hazard-related data. Take flood hazards for example, decision makers require precipitation data and the critical threshold value to judge when to evacuate the residents. Therefore, a system that can provide key information in real time is required. We developed a visual-based flood decision support system, called FloodViz, which runs automatically and provides information to help flood mitigation. The aims of the proposed system are to integrate interdisciplinary data from meteorology and hydrology and provide a clear description of the flood situation. We propose a solution that uses Information Technology (IT) to achieve our goal. We first acquire the rainfall forecasts of all the administrative regions. The at-risk regions, whose precipitation exceeds its critical value, can thus be identified using a computational model. To give the decision maker key information, we interpret flood information with visualization. The interface of FloodViz comprises a map of Taiwan highlighting the high-flood potential regions and a data filter for the time sequence. Flood response decision makers can determine if pre-evacuation is necessary based on the domain knowledge and flood information provided by FloodViz. FloodViz was tested in a real case during the strike of Typhoon Fung-wong. The system, which offered early warning information, successfully extended the response time for flood response and rescue, and thus minimized the possible damage induced by floods.

Keywords: decision support system, information visualization, real-time system, flood hazard warning