Geography Reference
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explains why floods of equal magnitude cause more losses and damage in
developing countries compared to developed nations who generally have well-
structured monitoring and early warning system (Opolot, 2013). Flood disaster
management is a huge capital intensive program due to the amount of spatial
information required for risk prediction and assessment, especially when
ground-based survey method is adopted. To maximize the limited financial
resources (in developing countries), a sustainable and cost-effective method of
extracting and generating required information is paramount.
The first step needed to carryout flood risk analysis and assessment is to
identify the areas vulnerable to the hazard (Sanyal and Lu, 2004; Ishaya et al.,
2009) and delineating these areas in a map. Initially, estimating flood risk was
a complex multi-faceted problem because various knowledge in systematic
disciplines such as geography, geomorphology, climatology, hydrology,
hydraulic engineering and urban planning need to be combined.
The current advancement in geographic information system (GIS) and
remote sensing techniques have revolutionized the method of modeling flood
risk and extracting spatial information to support decision making processes
and enacting of public policies. GIS technique allows the integration and
synchronization of spatial data captured by space borne sensors orbiting the
earth with demographic and socioeconomic data for the purpose of generating
timely geospatial information for comprehensive risk mitigation planning
(Tralli et al., 2005).
The primacy of GIS technology in the field of disaster management,
especially flood related has been reported and adopted by contemporary spatial
scientist (Nkeki et al., 2013; Sanyal and Lu, 2004; Taubenbock et al., 2011;
Alaghmand, et al., 2010; Samarasinghe, et al., 2010; Tralli et al., 2005;
Triglav-Cekada and Radovan, 2013; Opolot, 2013; Zhang et al., 2008; Wang,
2004; Nirupama and Simonovic, 2007; Zheng et al., 2008; Irimescu, et al.,
2010).
The capability of GIS technology to visualize and analyze spatial and non-
spatial data from diverse sources makes it a powerful platform for multilevel
decision making and so greater credit should be given to its geovisualization
capabilities (Nkeki, 2013a). The technique is able to generate series of maps
that summarize vital information useful for decision making and spatial
planning. A GIS help to manipulate remote sensing data in a spatial format and
offer a friendly platform to integrate such dataset with non-spatial data to
produce new maps.
These maps are essential components and constituents for developing a
GIS database pertaining to disaster assessment and management. GIS database
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