WORKPACKAGE 1 - DATA STRUCTURE AND CAPTURE

Task 1 - Conceptual Definition of Hydrogeomorphologic Disaster in Portugal

The conceptual discussion on natural disasters and the definition of quantitative criteria to its collection are of major importance and will engage the totality of senior researchers of the Disaster Project team. Outputs of Task 1 will directly guide the data collection to be made within Task 3. Furthermore, the relationship between Task 1 and Task 3 is mutual, because the criteria to include disastrous floods and landslides into the database need to be in agreement with the detail of the information sources the team will explore in the project.

A starting point to build up a consistent and representative hydro-geomorphologic disaster database for the conctinetal Portugal is to consider those events that produced killed people, missing persons, injured people, evacuees and homeless people. We can assume that such consequences are relevant enough to be reported by the press, namely daily newspapers. In addition, the research team will establish a strand index that allows a quantification of the economic losses, both direct and indirect, resulting from hydrogeomorphologic events.

Task 2 - Definition of the Structure for the GIS Database on Hydro-geomorphological Disasters

The previous definition of GIS database structure is a fundamental procedure to organise data acquisition. Therefore, the main
objective of this task is to conceptually define and to physically build a GIS database to store information on national hydrogeomorphologic disasters.

The spatial information obtained from sources described in detail in Task 3 will be collected as points. In some cases, when
the information is available with the required detail, events will be delimited and represented as areas (polygons).

At the national level, the disastrous floods and landslides that may be collected as areas will be spatially represented by the controid of the affected area, and all the occurrences will be integrated in GIS as points. At local (municipal) level, both points and areas (polygons) will be represented.

The attribute database will have the following main structural fields: (1) ID; (2) Coordinate X; (3) Coordinate Y; (4) Place (5)
Disaster Type; (6) Disaster Sub-type; (7) Year; (8) Month; (9) Day; (10) Human Losses; (11) Material Losses; (12) Data Source; (13) Observations.

Task 3 - Data Collection and Validation for the Inventory of Hydrologic and Geomorphologic Disasters Occurred from 1865 to 2010

The data collection started with the selection of newspapers to be analysed by three research teams belonging to the Oporto, Coimbra and Lisbon Universities. Newspapers were selected according to two criteria: 1) the newspaper must have been published continuously for a long period of time; 2) the set of selected newspapers should guarantee the best regional spatial distribution of the news, in order to cover the entire country.

The set of newspapers that were selected and systematically surveyed for collecting data on disasters is showed in Table 2, which includes the corresponding reference period, category, coverage and spatial incidence. The national daily newspaper Diário de Notícias provides the longest time period, having been published continuously since 1865. Two other daily newspapers having a regional coverage were systematically surveyed, the Jornal de Notícias published in Oporto (North of Portugal) since 1888, and the Diário de Coimbra published in Coimbra (Central Portugal) since 1931. The remaining 8 newspapers are weekly regional and local newspapers published in different regions of the country, thus ensuring the necessary regional coverage.

Occasionally, five additional newspapers (O Século, Comércio do Porto, O Primeiro de Janeiro, Público and Correio da Manhã) were surveyed for some specific dates in order to complete or validate some DISASTER cases. At the total, 145,344 newspapers specimens were surveyed in order to identify DISASTER cases.

WORKPACKAGE 2 - DATA EXPLOITATION

Task 4 - Evaluation of the Geographic Distribution of Hydro-geomorphological Disasters

The evaluation of spatial distribution of past disastrous floods and landslides in the country is a critical step towards hazard and risk assessment by assuming that circumstances that produced natural disasters of hydro-geomorphologic origin in the past are able to generate similar disasters in the future.

Therefore, the historical information on past events will be exploited within Task 4 with the following main objectives:
- To identify the spatial distribution of natural disaster of hydro-geomorphologic origin in the Portuguese mainland, taking into
account the different types of floods and landslides occurring in Portugal.
- To characterize the spatial distribution of disastrous floods and landslides by aggregating data at the municipality level and
hydrographic basin.
- To establish the ranking of Portuguese municipalities, regions and hydrographic basins regarding the occurrence of hydrogeomorphologic disasters.
- To relate the geographic distribution of disastrous floods and landslides with the spatial distribution of physically pre-disposing
factors for flood and landslide occurrence.
- To explore the physical rationale for the geographic distribution of natural disaster of hydro-geomorphologic origin.

Task 5 - Evaluation of the Time Dimension of Hydro-geomorphological Disasters

The evaluation of the temporal distribution of disastrous floods and landslides occurred in Portugal in the period from 1865 and 2010 is a central task within Disaster Project. The team aims to address the general trends on the time dimension of hydro-geomorphologic disasters, both at the yearly and monthly scales.

The key objectives of this task are the following:
- To evaluate the recurrence of damaging events at the national and regional scales.
- To understand the seasonality of hydro-geomorphological disasters.
- To establish the general trends on the temporal occurrence of disastrous floods and landslides.
- To account for the singular behaviour of particular types of floods and landslides.
- To establish rainfall threshold responsible for flood occurrence and landslide activity in the different regions of the country.
- To estimate the recurrence (return periods in years) associated with monthly and daily precipitation extremes. This analysis will be carried out separately for the different types of natural disasters of hydro-geomorphologic origin, and it will be exclusively applied to the available long-running meteorological stations.
- To perform the temporal analysis of extreme precipitation events using the longest available precipitation series.

Task 6 - Climatologic Analysis of Rainfall Extreme Events in Portugal and Relationships with Hydro-Geomorphologic Disasters

Rainfall amount, duration and intensity directly control the floods and landslides magnitude, and indirectly, the human and material consequences of natural disasters of hydro-geomorphologic origin.

Within Task 6 we intend to understand the physics related with the atmospheric circulation patterns that governs the occurrence of rainfall extreme events in Portugal.

The team will use long-term records of atmospheric variables available from the NCAR/NCEP Reanalysis database (1948-2007) that allow a continuous 3-D characterization of the atmospheric circulation and associated thermodynamical characteristics at high resolution (2.5ºlat x 2.5º lon). For the first half of the 20th century there are no upper level databases only sea level pressure (SLP). We will make use of the recently available EMULATE database, with a SLP daily dataset since 1850 until 2000 for the European region at lower resolution (5ºlat x 5ºlon).

The climatologic analysis of rainfall extreme events in Portugal will be made in Task 6 with the following main objectives:
- To characterises and quantify the frequency of the most typical Weather Types associated with rainfall extreme events leading to hydro-geomorphologic disasters.
- To analyse and compare the large-scale atmospheric context of some exceptional disastrous floods and landslides (diagnosis study of notable case events).
- To evaluate the role of large-scale atmospheric circulation, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and blocking episodes to modulate the monthly and seasonal occurrence of these Hydro-geomorphologic disasters.

Task 7 - Vulnerability Assessment of Elements at Risk Exposed to Hydro-geomorphological Disasters

The human impact of natural disasters is never entirely determined by nature, but is contingent on economic, cultural, and social relations. Natural disasters do not affect people equally. In fact, a vulnerability approach to disasters would suggest that inequalities in exposure and sensitivity to risk, as well as inequalities in access to resources, capabilities, and opportunities, systematically disadvantage certain groups of people, rendering them more vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters. Although vulnerability assessments are not necessarily local in nature, they do address specific characteristics — socioeconomic, biophysical, cultural, historical, political — of defined regions and places characterizing the capabilities and the resilience of communities and citizens.

Considering the above mentioned reasons, the main objectives of this task are:
- To know why communities and citizens have been differently affected by hydro-geomorphologic disasters, i.e. the causes of harm and loss for particular peoples and places.
- To assess which specific groups (sex, age, social status, …) has been more affected by disastrous floods and landslides in order to evaluate inequalities and their social vulnerability.
- To assess the variation of social vulnerability and exposition to hydro-geomorphologic disasters throughout time.
- To ascertain the individual and societal risk regarding hydro-geomorphologic disasters in Portugal.
- To offer viable solutions for vulnerabilities of people and population identified at risk.

WORKPACKAGE 3 - DATA DISSEMINATION

Task 8 - Implementation of the Project Web site and the Web-GIS

This task architecture stands over two main components: the WebGis Platform Graphic User Interface (GUI) and the Geographic
Information System (GIS) itself. The second raised form the work developed under task 2 and following, passing through stages as data collecting, GIS implementation and on-line broadcasting of geographic information.

The main objective of this task is:
- To design a specific web site exploiting GIS- based web technology to display maps and associated data on the distribution of sites affected by damaging landslides and floods occurred in Portugal from 1865 to 2010.