Emergency Shelter Allocation Evaluation

Introduction

FACT: Hawaii is the State most at risk of Tsunami conditions, Getting about one per year, a highly damaging one every 7 years. The biggest tsunami that occurred in Hawaii happened in 1946 when the coast of Hilo was hit with 30 ft waves at 500 mph, 170 fatalities. Click here for more facts of Tsunami Danger.

This project demonstrates how to make a spatial decision that determines the best use of monetary resources when further developing the emergency preparedness framework of a community. Spatial allocation decisions often can not be made most efficiently with consideration of only an independent variable, and scenarios realistically exist as multi-criteria based. This tutorial will demonstrate how this evaluation can be carried out using only Free and Open-Source Software(FOSS), particularly using the Quantum GIS (1.8.0) package and the GRASS Plugin.

Particularly, the scenario that outlines what the objectives are for this tutorial involve the expansion of Emergency Shelters in Hawaii pertaining to the emergency of a Tsunami event. The funding for this expansion has specific criteria which is as follows:

1. Funds must be concentrated to the area of highest risk to large waves within the State.
2. Shelter Location must be far away from Evacuation Land.
3. Shelter Location must be in area of highest population density.
4. Shelter Location must be far away from existing Shelters.

This tutorial is directed towards someone who has a minimal or basic understanding of GIS. The processes outlined throughout this tutorial may also be applicable in understanding gaps of public safety as a community evolves, or something as simple as determining the best location for a business expansion. The variety of applications are extremely widespread.

Data Collection

For this specific scenario, it was necessary to collect a variety of shapefiles (vector data) that are freely available online. There is a variety of online databases that have appropriate files with access to download freely. Sources of data very much depend on your geographical location and the government availability of free files.In this particular case the data was gathered from a catalog provided by the Hawaii State Government and U.S Census Bureau. Table 1. provides a specific breakdown of where each file was found and the adequacy of it.

Table 1. Data Collection Breakdown used throughout this Analysis

Shapefile Name	Format	Data Source	Description
Tsunami Evacuation Zones	Vector Polygon - Preliminary Analysis/Final Anaysis File	Hawaii State Office of Planning	High risk area to Tsunami impact.
Tsunami Wave Heights	Vector Point - Preliminary Analysis File	Hawaii State Office of Planning	Locations of large wave events along the coast, attributes include year by year breakdown of events.
Emergency Shelters	Vector Points	Hawaii State Office of Planning	Locations of Shelters, and individual capacity.
Census Tracts	Vector Polygon	U.S Census Bureau	Total Population by tract, 2009 TIGER/Line Shapefiles for: Hawaii

Setup

As mentioned within the introduction Quantum GIS(QGIS) version 1.8.0 is used to carry out this analysis, and within this platform the GRASS Plugin is also used in combination with QGIS tools. The following three sections will provide specific instructions as to how to download the necessary software and the appropriate set up to begin your project.

Install QGIS

If you don't already have the appropriate software downloaded to your computer, Click here to do so according to your running platform of your computer. I used Windows 1.1 Standalone Installer, and had no problems. Along with this download is the GRASS package that will allow you to add the GRASS plugin once you are in QGIS, requiring no additional download for this plugin.

Install GRASS Plugin

From this point forward through the tutorial it is assumed you have QGIS open. Having the GRASS plugin installed within your project allows for access to a wide variety of additional tools that are extremely useful, as you will see throughout this tutorial. The following steps will direct you to successfully loading the GRASS plugin.

1. Click Plugins tab ⇒ Click Manage Plugins ⇒ This will open up QGIS Plugin Manager Window
2. In filter type GRASS, and ensure there is an X in the box ⇒ click OK.
3. Click Plugins tab ⇒ GRASS tab will now appear ⇒ Expand the list of tools ⇒ Click 'New Mapset'
4. Click Browse to find destination folder NOTE: you must have a destination folder already in Windows Explorer ⇒ Click Next,
5. Create new location (Named mine Project) ⇒ Click Next.
6. Define your projection. This can be found within the metadata of your shapefiles, or on the site from which you downloaded the data ⇒ Click Next.
7. Define GRASS region ⇒ I selected USA, as it seemed most appropriate.