FLOREON

Motivation

In the 16th century, Francis Bacon, writer, philosopher, scientist, and statesman was quoted saying “nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished”. Through his scientific work, Bacon asserted that nature should not be forecast, rather interpreted. He was also a supporter of the law of cause and effect and placed emphasis in the significance of trial by error.

Natural disasters have been occurring all over our planet since the beginning of time. The geographics of these disasters imply that the most severe effects occur in proportion to areas of increased human and economic development. It is disillusional to insist that these disasters are just coincidental and to ignore the potential for increased instances. Thus, the evident task for the modern world is to systematically minimize the consequences of larger events by thoroughly investigating smaller, local incidences and actively applying knowledge gained through research. In order to implement this approach, it is detremental that relevant information be obtained in a timely manner and used as a tool for discovering optimal solutions and forecasting potential disasters.

Though we may not be able to “control the winds and rains” yet, twenty-first century technology does enable us to utilize relevant data from recent events, improving our ability to recognize significant patterns in the earth’s behaviour. These patterns may be analyzed by both professionals and non-professionals in the field, as well as by various levels of public safety administrations, and may reveal solutions for dealing with future disasters. The goal is to limit the unfavorable influences of natural disasters and their consequences.

Motivation and Realization

Using modern computer and internet technology to create a model prototype to simulate real natural disasters is essential in executing this project.

During the first phase, we have chosen repetitious natural disasters, whose timely forecast may have saved on damages leading to costly repairs. Our system, FLOREON (FLOods REcognition on the Net), was created to be operated by both expert and lay internet users as a medium in simulating and forecasting flood situations.

Research and Development carried out in the field of simulated flooding has proven the FLOREON system to be a benficial contribution, as well as an essential tool in the advanced development of flood simulation. FLOREON will progressively influence simulated models and forecast floods based on its pilot model, “Stonavka river basin floods the entire Moravia-Silesian Region”, which will also act as a tool for observing social issues such as air quality and traffic.

The end product of this project shall be a system that provides simulated results of various situations online and presents both their current and historical developments. These results will then become accessible to a wide range of interested parties, e.g., crisis workers, townships, owners of private and commercial properties and etc... In the event of a crisis, these users will be provided simulated results via our advanced visualization methods. These methods will provide extremely valuable data to aid in the decision-making process for the most effective solutions during crisis situations. Likeness and timely accessibilty to information are the keys to the system’s success. Information relevant to crisis situations, be it current data or a processed simulation and prognosis, is requisite to users who depend on data from various communication channels. This information also needs to be illustrated wherever and whenever, on any type of equipment available, be it at crisis centres with the most advanced facilities, or in the field, where the only form of communication might be a mobile phone. Our system will be able to provide requisite information to all these channels in a way that ensures all users receive the most comprehensive and complete information available.

One of the main tasks to be fulfilled by our system is its ability to act as a mediator while providing useful and understandable information to all users. This task must be approached in a way that ensures that those in need of information, be it a civilian, town mayor responsible for crises, or expert in a given field, are all able to obtain the maximum amount of information to adequately understand and evaluate the situation prior to making a decision about its solution. In order to fulfil the task of illustrating information of this character to various groups of users, information such as “this area will be flooded by a two-metre high wave”, must be appropriately filtered and expertly dispatched.

The system is not, nor will it be, a sytem for providing one dimensional simulator-user information. It is intended as an integral tool for enabling expert evaluations, for validating and mediating interested parties. Additionally, it should act as a provider of current information while gathering feedback from all users, including non-professionals in the field (i.e. announcing current water levels at a given location), in a joint effort to, be it actively or passively, contribute to dealing with a crisis situation or to propose methods for addressing these situations.

The functions of this system in highest demand are its ability to deliver precise and understandable graphic and textual information to all parties participating in providing solutions, to aid in foreseeing and preventing crisis situations, and to satisfy the need to know current or simulated developments of a given problem.

Additional demands stemming from the main goal of this project include the necessity for an open, modular, architectural system. In other words, the system should be able to utilize results from other models, supplement alternative modules and models, substitute for inaccessible models, and provide future comparisons of results from other models.

Innovational Contribution

The end result of our system will act as a portal for modeling, simulating and monitoring floods, traffic and the growing pollution problem in the Moravia-Silesian Region. Further expansion for system functions will be designed to include progressive development for applications in other regions of the Czech Republic and abroad.

The project is designed to include innovational contributions in the following areas:

Improved support systems for regional crisis management
Advanced warning system
Regular situation assessments
Modeling states of emergency (e.g. rising levels of flood waters, pollution, etc... – from the perspective of prepared models and potential scenarios)
Visualized crisis situations and predicted outcomes
A uniform portal system for all crisis situations
Development of mobile units for emergency vehicles serving as a terminal station and/or as a central point for connecting to workers in the field
Mobile applications enabling quick orientation in the field and timely feedback for emergency workers

A complete system managenent based on one modular system will be gradually expanded upon for modelling, simulating and monitoring floods. This sturdy modular system is able to carry out a wider range of tasks; its stability lies within its limited dependance on a chosen methodology. The system is built with an “open mind” and allows for the integration of other situations and problems. Within the realm of this expansion, methodological approaches and processes will also be created in order to assist with system upgrades.

To a large extent, independant of other platforms and software and with the system’s expansion, it will possible to observe various technical parametres and calculations. Independence from secondary platforms enables unlimited upgrades based on current needs and significantly cuts costs on operational goods and software.

Defined interface for exchanging data for supporting the modular system itself, as well as for research-based solutions tying into similar tasks and projects.

Building a knowledge-based system significantly cuts user costs. Utilizing GIS and database systems allows for the creation of a knowledge-based system on the pretence of high-risk situations and enables the application of findings in situations where limited data is available. Additionally, any uncertainties concerning modelling and/or statistics will gradually be eliminated.

Solution Process

Modeling, simulating and monitoring crisis situations caused by natural disasters will produce an end product that will serve as a prototype for modelling and simulating situations caused by natural disasters using modern internet technology.

The project goal is to utilize current, technological methods to recognize situations and provide support in the decision-making process in an effort to limit the negative influences of natural disasters and/or consequences of anthropogenic activity.

The project mainly focuses on building a support system to assist in the decision-making process for affected regional waterways, monitoring air quality levels and traffic situations.
The FLOREON project intergrates and utilizes the most advanced approaches and solutions in the field of IT and hydrology.
Project FLOREON is an integrated tool for model development.

Architecture

As with all information systems created to interact with users, FLOREON must also establish clearly defined technical parametres specifying communication protocol for a given group of system users, sequences of individual events, communication methods for modules, initiatives and etc... The introductory phase of the project is described as follows:

a simplified user-system communication for acquiring current flood updates as well as analytical flood records from the past and in the future
to coordination calculations of new meteorological data entries in cases where records of simualtions are run automatically and updated system results are saved

For these two parametres, as well as for many other essential and supportive paramtres already defined and those yet to be defined, it was necessary to propose a base architectural system to comply with all the forseeable demands placed on such an extensive and unique system.

The architecture designed for this system has been adequately generalized to comply with general parametres and to enable future upgrades. Furthermore, the system’s architecture allows for the utilization and exchange of randomely accessible technology that may be used either commercially or as an open source.

A hierarchy model was used in the architecture of this system. For general purposes, the system was built from several smaller, more basic models that may be upgraded or substituted with alternate models. As for the system’s hierarchy, each indivdual model may be built using other models while maintaining its easy upgrade and/or substituting properties for alternate solutions whenever necessary.

The given model, and its sub-models, must be able to communicate in some way. In order for the system to maintain its independence, implementation-independent technology is requisite. Currently, the most appropriate solution appears to be the internet. We have chosen the internet for its simplicity concerning the connection of models to sub-models, for its easy compatibility and its standardized format of communication. Thanks to these properties, the system is able to remain very flexible, distributable and implemental – it is absolutely independent.

FLOREON’s architecture may be viewed from several angles, starting with its distribution among individual internet services and the level of communication within the system. Here we can see a set of basic models at the highest level of the hierarchy: a module for storing data (Warehouse), a module for mathematical calculations (FloodMathematic – implemented here mathematically, but also used as an existing application), a module for calculating model statistics (Postprocessing), a module for importing GIS data (Geograph), and/or a module for importing meteorological data. The main module of the system that defines and manages individual parametres in FLOREON is the core module (Coordinator). This module also acts as an interface for system access for both other systems and users (e.g. to help an internet client).

Data storage takes place at the lowest level of the system hiearchy. An extended version of PostgreSQL database (PostGIS) is used for working with vector data and storing Microsoft SQL Server relational data. In addition, we have implemented our own database warehouse for screening data. Another integral part of the databse are indexes; one for working with data in the area of automobile traffic and one that saves processed data for generating 3D graphics. The remaining system levels are modules for calculating air quality, traffic situations and etc... The system core is managed by a level directly connected to the data level; programs and applications that communicate with users or other sytems are directly above this level. Modules for backing up data, monitoring, and user maintenance are also integrated into the system. A fundamental aspect of the system, the calculation module, predicts river flows (Flood Models and Pollution modules). The difficulty level of this type of simulation increases rapidly in comparison to more precise numerical models or models that naturally deal with more instances of entry data uncertainty. Computational clusters are used to accelerate and more precisely simulate these calculations. The aim here is to initialize more instances of specialized applications for calculating flow volume concurrently with several computational node clusters. These flow volume calculations correspond to various user demands and/or randomly generated entry values. This is a third party application for both commercial and non-commercial interests, as well as for actual applications or specially created numeric models calculated with Mathworks MATLAB.