Modeling Disaster Risk

Overview

This MIT practicum project worked with a consortium of public, private, and nonprofit actors to address urban resiliency challenges in the southwestern Colombian city of Mocoa. The group delivered a report and presentation detailing various urban planning strategies to help Mocoa's residents recover from the effects of landslides in the area.

Methodology

For this project, my group mapped the environmental restrictions (i.e. slopes, safety, water systems protection, forests/conservation) to understand potential areas for development. Then, we assigned scores based on distance to four variables: 1) Deep forest and conservation, 2) water courses, 3) urbanized areas, and 4) main roads, to result in a map of "scores" as a function of each pixel distance to these variables. We restricted these scores within a maximum radius to be relevant to the site evaluation procedure by our client, within a 10km radius of the city. Then we assigned potential land to the nearest town, telling us the land areas close to each town which had potential for development. Finally, we ranked each town based on these scores, with a weighted average of the polygons around each town. We were able to shortlist 6 sites and choose one for a building density analysis.

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