Research and Studies

Spatial analysis for identifying concentrations of urban damage

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Disasters resulting from earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, floods, and terrorist attacks can result in significant and highly concentrated damage to buildings and infrastructure within urban regions. Following such events, it is common to dispatch investigation teams to catalog and inventory damage locations. In recent years, these data gathering efforts have been aided by developments in high resolution satellite remote sensing technologies (e.g. Matsuoka & Yamazaki, 2005) and by advances in ground-based field data collection (e.g. Deaton & Frost, 2002). Damage inventories are typically presented as maps showing the location and damage state of structures in part or all of an effected region. In some cases information on the post-event condition of major infrastructure systems such as transportation, power, communications, and water networks is also included.

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