Geo-enabled FOSS tool supports for immediate flood disaster response planning

Abstract

—Flood is a major natural hazard occur recurrently in Sri Lanka. Allocating victims to camps and provide medical facilities are two main activities at the immediate response phase of a flood and use of manual methods delayed this process. This project developed a geoenabled application to support immediate response planning, mainly focusing on allocation victims to IDP camps, provide medical facilities, and supporting access avoiding already blocked roads based on administrative divisions of the affected area. Capacities and facilities in camps and hospitals are matched against the needs of the victims. It identifies the blocked roads, alternative routes to reach resource centers, camps and hospitals and provide navigation guidance. The tool can be used after a flood disaster, assuming basic demographic data and the current flood affected area data are available. The tool is developed as a plug-in for QGIS, a free and open source desktop Geographic Information System software. The tool is verified with sample data related to “Kaluthara” area. It is intended to integrate with InaSAFE disaster response support tool at a later stage.