FOSS4G 2019 Bucharest Workshops speaker: Silvia Franceschi


Talks

FOSS tools for modelling natural hazards: the HortonMachine library

The climate change and the recent extreme events occurred all over the world draw again the attention to the natural hazards both for prevention and for management aspects. In this context, environmental modelling can help in managing geospatial data, mapping hazards and risks zones and support decision makers in building functional infrastructures with low environment impact and for a safe urban planning.
In the context of modelling natural hazards hydro-geomorphology analysis is a key aspect. In the last decades many researchers tried to extract useful information from digital data and in particular from Digital Terrain Models (DTM) with the development of ad-hoc algorithms and tools. In the meanwhile the data availability increased and high precision DTM are available almost all over the world.
There are many possibilities to analise natural hazards and to define hazard and risks zones as required by the national and international directives. The algorithms contained in the HortonMachine library are the result of more than 10 years of research, development and real application of people from different research institutes and professionals working in the field of environmental engineering. The HortonMachine library contains tools for data management (raster, vector and point cloud), data collection in the field, and environmental modelling in particular related to hillslope stability, floods, debris flow and woody (Large Wood) floods.
The workshop will cover the main aspects of the hydro-geomorphological analysis of a river basin starting from a DTM. The aim is to evaluate the maximum discharge that can occur in a section for a given precipitation or using statistical information derived from the Intensity Duration Curves. Some generic geomorphological analysis on the DTM will be performed that will be used to delineate the stream network and the watershed closed at the desired section.
The last step will be the evaluation of the hillslope stability and of the maximum discharges using the shallow stability model Shalstab and the semi distributed model Peakflow integrated in the HortonMachine library.
The expected participant is the average GIS user that wants to approach new tools for environmental modelling related in particular to natural hazards. The user can be a professional, a person of the public administration or even a decision maker who has average knowledge of GIS and GIS data and wants to approach this topic.
The HortonMachine library is a package of applications and tools and does not have a specific GIS support. The visualization of the data and results can be done with anyone’s preferred GIS.

Geopaparazzi: never out of data in the field

The workshop is dedicated to professionals, researchers and students that needs to collect data from the field and use this information to update or create GIS data, but also to OpenStreetMappers as well as tourists that want to keep a geo-diary.
Geopaparazzi is an easy to use and intuitive mobile application for digital field mapping for Android devices developed to support the work of the technicians in the field, offering a mapping environment with real time GPS position and the possibility to take georeferenced notes, georeferenced and oriented pictures and georeferenced sketches. Furthermore, Geopaparazzi provides a powerful support for structured data collection based on customized forms. Forms may contain combo and check boxes, text fields, pictures and sketches organized over multiple tabs. Background data on the map view can be personalized using available local data or on-line services with the possibility to use vector offline Mapsforge basemaps, Mbtiles offline databases, TMS and WMS services. Vector layers in Spatialite DB can be visualized in the map view with a style prepared on the device or directly imported in the DB from SLD style files and edited with simplified tools developed to be used on a device in the filed.
In the last years we developed some applications in the HortonMachine library to support Geopaparazzi, which supply an userfriendly GUI with specific functionalities to: prepare the base raster data for the map view in Geopaparazzi, prepare the overlay vector layers as Spatialite DB with the support of the styling (original SLD), prepare the forms with all the detailed sections, visualize and export as shapefiles of all the data collected in the field (GPS tracks, text notes, pictures and form based notes).
The workshop starts with an introduction of the application, installation and description of the main features. Then a short section will be dedicated to the preparation of the input data: background maps, vector layers and forms. Following these sections there is a practical testing of Geopaparazzi outdoor in the field. The last section, back in the room, is dedicated to the export of the collected data. The data collected can be visualized or used directly in a GIS environment using everyone’s preferred GIS or can be synchronized with the data collected by the other surveyors of the team using the new web application Geopaparazzi Survey Server.