CLOUD-BASED GEOSPATIAL PLATFORM IN SUPPORT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS 2030: HOW TO BE PREPARED FOR EARTHQUAKE DISASTERS?

Abstract

In July 2, 2018, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted a resolution of the strategic framework of disaster risk reduction. Many seismic countries have experienced challenges with natural hazards, such as earthquakes every year. Seismic safety monitoring and infrastructures, including building vulnerability assessment of earthquake are significant means to protect the safety of people and reduce the loss of property. We present cloud-based Geospatial Information Technologies in this study to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 in earthquake disaster loss reduction, mitigation, and resilience. The authors investigated and programmed the instruction building codes of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. We developed sophisticated algorithms to construct a geospatial cloud-based system to support the implementation of disaster risk reduction for strengthening infrastructures and resiliency of pre and post-earthquakes. However, the content is entirely based on the understanding of geospatial knowledge, engineering, and services to the people for a better world for future generations. The objectives of this study are to (1) participate in global sharing of experiences on utilizing geospatial information technologies to address disasters resilience and challenging issues of determining the vulnerability of buildings and estimation of risk as well as recommendation for retrofitting; and (2) developing Geospatial Infrastructure Management Ecosystem (GeoIME) including, Geospatial Rapid Visual Screening (GeoRVS) cloud-based platform. They enable the determination of the vulnerability of infrastructures, such as buildings and the estimation of risk for disaster reduction and management. This study shows that we reduced the cost and time for inspecting a building by 75% and %80, respectively. The application of this study can be used for retrofitting and rehabilitation of infrastructures like buildings and bridges for before and after earthquakes. Finally, we propose recommendations that might be helpful to countries having similar issues, and it has great potential for scalability and customization in other disasters such as floods.