Challenges and Opportunities for Creating Intelligent Hazard Alerts: The “FloodHippo” Prototype |
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| Authors: | J Michael Johnson Jim M Coll Paul J Ruess Jordan T Hastings |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA;2. Department of Geography and Atmospheric Science, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA;3. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, USA |
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| Abstract: | Disasters evolving from hazards are a persistent and deadly occurrence in the United States. Despite this, hazard alerts have remained spatially vague, temporally imprecise, and lack actionable information. These deficiencies indicate a divide between the status quo and what is possible given modern environmental models, geographic information systems (GIS), and smartphone capabilities. This work describes an alternative, prototype system, “FloodHippo,” which integrates operational model outputs, cloud‐based GIS, and expanded communication channels to provide personal and interactive disaster alerts for floods. The precepts and methods underpinning FloodHippo apply equally to other disasters that evolve over space and time, presenting the opportunity for a more intelligent disaster response system. The development of such a system would not only minimize current shortcomings in disaster alerts but also improve resilience through individual action, along with community, academic, and federal cooperation. |
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| Keywords: | flooding emergency response geospatial analysis public participation hazard alerts social media National Water Model |
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