Tuesday, June 2, 2015

GeoHazards: Tsunami Evacuation

This week in GIS4048 Applications, we continue our journey through Hazardous terrain. This week we are discussing Tsunami's. Specifically, we were charged to build an evacuation map for the Fukushima II Nulcear Power Plant that was flooded by the Tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011. This Tsunami, that hit the northeastern coastline of Japan, was the product of a 9.0 earthquake.

A Tsunami is an incredibly destructive force that:

- „Causes human death (average death rates are estimated at 50% of the population but have been reported up to 80%.)
„- Leaves people homeless, destroys other property.
„- Psychologically traumatic.
„- Spreads contaminates to water and food sources.

Our objective is to provide an analysis of both the Radiation hazard and the runup evacuation zones caused by this Tsunami. There were many tasks to accomplish. Below I outline two major tasks.

Task#1 Fukushima Radiation Exposure Zones
To create the Fukushima Radiation Exposure Zones, I had to develop my map so that I could look at the distances to determine the possible population totals that might be effected by the nuclear radiation from Fukushima II. To accomplish this I needed several layers of data.  I included the following layers:

a. JpnBndOutline
                                    b. NuclearPwrPlnt
c. JapanCities
d. Roads
e. NEJapanPrefectures

With these layers, I could find Fukushima II by manually selecting from the NuclearPwrPlnt attribute table the plant I was concerned with. From this selection I made a layer with the one point: Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant.

At this point I needed Population information; I added Japan Cities and selected those Cities that were within 50 miles of my NucPwrPlnt.

Next, I could use the multiple rings tool to place rings at: 3, 7, 15, 30, 40 and 50 miles from the Fukushima II, Nuclear Power Plant.

ArcToolBox>Analysis Tools > Proximity > Multiple Ring Buffer

 After this, I found, by using Select by location the cities that fell within the prescribed distances above 

The last step for me was to ensure I had selected an appropriate symbology for the radiation zones
.
                        - The first attempt I forgot to deselect <all other values>
                        - Subsequently, I reviewed several color ramps before selecting the red to green ramp.
                        - I selected Category= Unique value and then deselected the borders for each color

Here is my result:




Task#2 Model Builder: Develop Tsunami Runup Zones 

This was a very interesting portion of this week's lab. Model Builder is a great tool; you just have to stay organized and save your model when done. To get to the Model Builder you open ArcCatalog then add a ToolBox to your GeoDataBase (right click on the .gdb and select New > Toolbox). Once you have added the Toolbox, you can right click on it and select New > Model  

After I completed and successfully ran my model, I went back to it to do some editing, however, I could not open it. I must not have saved it properly (though I thought I had because it appeared in ArcCatalog). So, I re-accomplished the model, getting two-times the practice on this part of the lab, and then I ran the model and SAVED my work.  
Lesson Learned: Ensure my work is always SAVED.








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