Development of a visual tool for natural disaster risk assessment for the communities of the Republic of Georgia

Abstract

The National Risk Index, developed by us, provides a relative measurement of national-level natural hazard risk across communities. The risk is defined as the potential for adverse impact from a natural hazard. Local and national authorities require information on the frequency and impact of hazardous events that have occurred or may occur in the future as a basis for risk-informed planning. Generally, most local authorities do not have the technical expertise to develop tools for this, and therefore, it is important to provide national-scale platforms for disaster risk assessment. This paper presents a national multi-hazard risk profiling platform for administrative units within Georgia, located in the Caucasus. The risk calculation is based on a method that uses historical disasters and their frequencies of hazardous phenomena such as landslides, floods, and earthquakes. We calculate the risk for the communities of Georgia. Most methods require detailed data from different sources to calculate risk, and data availability and quality are one of the main challenges in this type of work. This problem is particularly evident in developing countries, where there are limited resources to collect and analyze data quality. Our method is original because it allows for risk calculation, risk assessment, and online visualization of data based only on disasters, recorded in the country’s territory. The interactive map can be used as a visual tool for disaster risk assessment by the parties concerned as well as decision-makers.