The 2018 CoreLogic Storm Surge Report was released Thursday by CoreLogic, a global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider.
“While industry predictions for this year’s storm season indicate average activity levels, associated storm surge risk remains an important consideration for residential and commercial properties in the 19 states analyzed,” said Dr. Tom Jeffery, senior hazard scientist at CoreLogic. “Depending on the location of a storm’s landfall and that area’s population density and reconstruction costs, lower Category storms can cause just as much damage as storms in higher categories.”
As the U.S. enters hurricane season, the report shows that more than 6.9 million homes along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts are at potential risk of damage from hurricane storm surge surge with a total reconstruction cost value (RCV) of more than $1.6 trillion (Table 1).
Already according to predictions of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the 2018 hurricane season is expected to have near- to above-normal activity. NOAA predicts a 70 percent chance of 10 to 16 named storms. While not all of them will develop into hurricanes, NOAA predicts five to nine of these will develop into hurricanes, and one to four are predicted to reach Category 3 classification or higher.
According to the report, risk from hurricane-driven storm surge for homes along the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines across 19 states, as well as for 86 metro areas is analyzed in the risk CoreLogic analysis. Homes are categorized by five risk levels: Low (homes affected only by a Category 5 storm), Moderate (homes affected by Category 4 and 5 storms), High (homes affected by Category 3, 4 and 5 storms), Very High (homes affected by Category 2, 3, 4 and 5 storms) and Extreme (homes affected by Category 1-5 storms). RCV figures represent the cost to completely rebuild a property in case of damage – including labor and materials by geographic location – assuming the worst-case scenario at 100-percent destruction.
Regionally, the Atlantic Coast has more than 3.9 million homes at risk of storm surge with an RCV of more than $1 trillion (Table 2), an increase of around $30 billion compared to 2017. The Gulf Coast has more than 3 million homes at risk with over $609 billion in potential exposure to total destruction damage, with over $16 billion increase compared to 2017. Areas with less coastal exposure but with lower elevations that extend inland tend to have more total homes at risk because the surge water can travel farther inland. Additionally, due to market conditions and previous storm surge damage, construction costs can increase despite having a lower number of at-risk homes compared to other states or Core-Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs). (more…)
Data providers abound in the GIS and geospatial industry. Choices range from mapping, built and natural terrain modeling, survey, GIS/LIS technologies, geospatial web, and asset inventory, mapping, geodetic and engineering surveying, photogrammetry, satellite imagery and real-time satellite data, remote sensing, aerial and ground-based LiDAR surveys, geographic and land information systems (GIS/LIS), 3D scanning, and spatial computing and analysis and much more.
Bentley Systems CEO Greg Bentley kicked off the Bentley Corporate Update webinar last week with a discussion of how the annual corporate update is different than in previous years. Journalists in 28 countries attended the 2017 Year In Infrastructure Thought Leadership Conference and Awards held in Singapore.
Leighton Asia Hong Kong Boundary Crossing – BIM Advancements in Construction – Be Inspired Award Winner (photo courtesy of Bentley Systems)
Esri announced the launch of its Africa GeoPortal, #AfricaGeoPortal, a cloud-based platform that provides rich content and solutions from Esri and its partners for those wanting a vast resource for African nations.
Data providers abound in the GIS and geospatial industry. Choices range from mapping, built and natural terrain modeling, survey, GIS/LIS technologies, geospatial web, asset inventory, mapping, geodetic and engineering surveying, photogrammetry, satellite imagery and real-time satellite data, remote sensing, aerial and ground-based LiDAR surveys, geographic and land information systems (GIS/LIS), and spatial computing and analysis, data provided by drones, and much more.
McMurdo Station Iceberg, Antarctica, NASA, taken from a small sat.
Cepton Technologies, Inc., a provider of 3D LiDAR solutions for automotive, industrial and mapping applications, recently introduced its Vista LiDAR sensor at the annual NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference, making it immediately available for the autonomous vehicle market.
Kinesis, the global vehicle tracking solution from Telematics at Radius Payment Solutions in Crewe, UK, recently recorded the milestone of over 2 billion vehicle tracked miles. Since launching in the UK three years ago, Kinesis has installed its state of the art tracking hardware in more than 50,000 vehicles across Europe, Southeast Asia and North America.
Mark Smith, CEO of Geospatial Corporation, spoke this week with GISCafe Voice about the challenges of mapping the underground, which includes mapping underwater. The company’s goal is to create an underground “map of the world,” by doing it “one pipeline at a time.” This is a sensible approach to a project that may seem a bit like trying to eat an elephant (start with the toes!). With the help of sensors and Geospatial’s cloud-based GIS platform, GeoUnderground, it looks like the goal is highly attainable.
What are specific challenges to mapping underground utilities?
The most obvious challenge is that the pipelines and conduits are underground or underwater and that makes the selection of the data acquisition methodology very important. I like to say that the difference between locating and mapping is pretty straight forward. Locators attempt to “clear” an area for a specific reason, such as in preparation for a construction project. At Geospatial Corporation, we approach a project in a very “holistic” manner. We know there is no “silver bullet” that will allow us to accurately map every type of buried infrastructure within a facility, right of way or municipality. We know that we need to use many types of data acquisition technologies to obtain a complete “picture” or “map” of the underground. In addition, getting this vast amount of data properly into a GIS platform from the field, often with numerous techs collecting below and above ground over large areas is in itself a trick. For this we have developed GeoUnderground, our proprietary cloud-based GIS platform built on Google Maps. GeoUnderground provides an economical, SaaS based, powerful yet very simple to use GIS Platform accessible from any phone. Our goal is to have every data acquisition tool seamlessly integrate into GeoUnderground.
What solutions do you provide to achieve goals?
At Geospatial we consider our data acquisition technologies to be simply “sensors on a platform”. The platform could be designed to run inside of a pipeline or conduit and have various types of gyroscopic or electromagnetic sensors. These technologies are extremely accurate under most conditions and allow us to accurately map in x,y&z pipelines and conduits as small as 1.5 inches in diameter to 20 feet in diameter. These technologies are often used on projects for telecom, (Such as AT&T, Comcast & Verizon). This is also applicable for sewers, gas lines and numerous other types of infrastructure. We have developed a method of combining technologies to geo-reference the video collected inside a pipeline during periodic inspections. This allows the pipeline owner to locate any defects within the pipeline, providing an exact xy&z location of the defect. This also allows the video data to be stored and viewed, edited and shared on GeoUnderground. We are constantly looking for new types of data acquisition and data management technologies to be added to GeoUnderground. To this end, we are creating strategic alliances with numerous sensor companies.
Are you creating a map of the world’s underground infrastructure and if so, when do you think that will be completed and how will it be maintained?
Yes, our slogan is that we are creating a map of the world’ underground, one pipeline at a time. In reality we are aggregating data of behalf of our clients that is slowly, but surely creating a map of the underground. As more and more of our clients realize the benefits of mapping and knowing the location of their critical assets, the mitigation of risk and the ROI obtainable from sophisticated analysis, they will accelerate the mapping of their underground and above ground assets. More and more infrastructure stakeholders are beginning to plan to map their entire facility.
How do Blockchain technologies figure in?
It’s a massive undertaking to attempt to map the underground. Just as we are constantly finding new sensor applications, we are also exploring new software applications utilizing Blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
How do you renovate or replace utility structures that are underwater?
Geospatial doesn’t repair or replace pipelines, but we do have several ways to map pipelines underwater involving either our gyroscopic technologies and our electromagnetic technologies. We have successfully mapped a telecom conduit under the East River in New York City, also the Harlem River in NYC, The Savanna River in Georgia, the Inner Coastal Waterway in Charleston, along with many other rivers and lakes across the USA.
What do you think will be the result of mapping the outdated infrastructure, and how might it be maintained or retrofit using your data?
A few years back, no one would have guessed that all of the above ground infrastructure would have been digitally mapped, from the air, from un-manned drones or from the streets. The underground infrastructure is the last unmapped frontier. We can only begin to speculate the many uses and benefits derived from having an accurate 3D map of the underground. Smart City initiatives, increasing Federal and state requirements for gas & oil pipelines, an abundance of new sensors creating the Internet of Things and the ability to run risk analysis on critical pipelines all require management to know the exact position and depth of our critical infrastructure.
Yuneec announced the availability of Pix4Dcapture on its H520 ST16S ground station controller. Pix4D is a premier software application that creates professional, georeferenced maps and models from drone imagery, giving users the ability to map flight plans and set customized mapping parameters.
Esri recently introduced its new software release of Survey123 for ArcGIS mobile application with Spike, a laser measurement solution offered by ikeGPS. Field data capture and asset inspection activities just got easier with the integration of Spike into Survey123. Spike allows users to measure hard-to-reach physical objects from a distance simply by taking a photo with their smartphone or tablet. Survey123 with Spike runs on Apple iOS and Google Android smartphones and tablets.
Users can then capture real-time measurements from that image, including areas, elevations, distances between two points, and GPS/GNSS location. With just a single mobile device, fieldworkers can locate the correct asset, record measurement data, and report accurate data directly back to the office using this low-cost application.
Roberto Avila , Ph.D. GIS Applications & Data Services Unit Manager with Colorado Department of Transportation, spoke with GISCafe Voice about the integration and how the DOT is making use of the technology.
Avila said that he had used Spike and realized that it would be a vast improvement over using specialized measurement equipment and paper maps to measure and collect dimensions for all kinds of surveying, asset and facilities management, field asset inventories and inspections and damage assessment, plus disaster response operations. He felt that the DOT would be more likely to use Spike if it was integrated into the Survey123 release rather than being used separately from that application.
The Colorado Department of Transportation manages and maintains a great number of physical assets along Colorado roadways, and has already benefited from beta testing of this solution. “We have been beta testing it since November or December and developing applications groups who are using it,” said Avila. “These are engineering, environmental and other groups who see its potential. We’re using it in facilities, for areas and volume, to measure the rough length of culverts and bridges, and how much damage is caused by natural events.”
Avila said they were already using Esri’s Survey123 forms to conduct field assets data collection on signs, curb ramps, outfalls, bridge asbestos inspection, cattle guards and other assets. The ability to collect sign panel dimensions (height and width) as well as the height of the sign post through the use of Spike has been a game changer. The CDOT is now able to incorporate Spike measurement capabilities into some of the current apps like sign, facilities, and rip-rap providing a tremendous increase in efficiency, monetary savings, and a safe data collection environment for CDOT workers. (more…)
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