MODIS data based Semi-Real Time Media GIS Contents to Support Natural Disaster Mitigation

Abstract

Natural disaster mitigation is a collective effort of forecast, assessment, and encouraging the publicparticipation in disaster mitigation. This study focused on the rarely addressed aspect, “the value of publicawareness” in natural disaster mitigation. The methodology used satellite data and Geographic InformationSystems (GIS) to produce semi-real-time “Media GIS” contents. When deliver the content to the media withmaximizing four related factors; speed, attractiveness, richness, and accuracy, Media GIS contents will helpto increase the public awareness on the respective disaster. The methodology to produce Media GIS contentsis based on; basic fundamentals of GIS, freely available satellite images, and information extracted fromGoogle Earth. Hence, contents carry inherent characters of GIS and significantly different from conventionalgraphics in media. Also the graphical variables like, size, value, texture, hue, orientation, and shape, wereoptimized to match with target content users (age group, social group) and medium (print, TV, WEB,mobile), while minimizing the cost. With the news brakes of the disaster, MODIS (250m) satellite data can beextracted in Geo TIFF and KLM (Keyhole Markup Language) formats. The KML file can be overlayed onGoogle Earth, to extract more spatial information of the area of interest. Photoshop or any similar graphicsoftware can be used to create the product while keeping the geometric character of the content. The finaloutput (in TIFF/JPEG and KLM file) is the GIS media content for TV, WEB, mobile contents, and for printmedia, which support to increase the public awareness of the disaster. Two cases studies; disastrous floodoccurred in Bangkok in 2011 and the severe drought recorded in eastern Sri Lanka in 2014, are presented inthe study.

KEYWORDS: Disaster mitigation, Media GIS, MODIS, NDVI, Semi real time, Public awareness