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The DISASTER project aims to create, exploit and disseminate a GIS database on hydrologic (floods) and geomorphologic (landslides) disasters occurred in the Portuguese mainland in the period from 1865 to 2010. Disaster losses, systematically registered in historical databases, will provide the basis to identify where, and to what extent, the negative consequences embedded in the concept of risk are realized. In fact, natural disasters can be considered as tracking marks, both in space and time, where the most unfavourable combinations of hazard occurrence, physical exposure and vulnerability conditions are revealed. In other words, the recognition of disaster occurrences will allow understanding where, and to whom, disaster risk becomes impact. Finally, the proposed disaster database will provide a reliable basis for risk assessment processes, a departing point for the application of disaster reduction measures.
The proposed project has the following specific objectives:
- To discuss and establish validated criteria to define a natural disaster of hydrologic or geomorphologic origin in Portugal.
- To define, conceptually and physically, a GIS database to store the national information on hydro-geomorphological disasters.
- To collect, validate and organize, using different sources of information (e.g., archive investigation, institutional data, and
interviews) the historical inventory on floods and landslides that caused disastrous consequences in continental Portugal in the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century.
- To build a national disaster GIS-based database to be used for a variety of scientific, technical and legal applications.
- To analyse the geographical and temporal trends in disaster impact for the considered time span, and to assess whether such
trends are related with natural causes or with human actions.
- To characterize the frequency-magnitude statistics of the triggering meteorological events that result in hydro-geomorphologic
disasters in Portugal by using extensively recently digitized precipitation records from historical Portuguese stations since the late 19th century or early 20th century that has never been used before.
- To characterise the synoptic and large scale atmospheric circulation patterns associated with short and long term extreme rainfall events that ultimately lead to hydro-geomorphologic disasters.
- To assess the societal and the individual risk posed by floods and landslides, in Portugal, and to compare the obtained results with similar statistics for other countries.
- To provide an objective basis for vulnerability assessment and to contribute for rationalising decision-making for disaster
preparedness.
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