South Africa's National Disaster Atlas Uses webMathematica
Technology to Fight Catastrophic Events
In South Africa, disasters such as droughts, floods, and
famines are common occurrences. While emergency supplies are
often available, they are useful only if government officials can anticipate when and
where disaster will strike.
Dusan Sakulski, System Integrator and Coordinator
of the National Disaster Management
Centre of South Africa, has
developed a webMathematica-based
application that helps predict the time, location, and intensity of natural disasters.
Named the National Disaster Hazard and Vulnerability Atlas, the program has already
drawn support from the United Nations and NASA--both are calling for a Global Atlas,
an expanded version that will incorporate climate data from around the world.
The atlas has also found a niche as a valuable tool for education. The
University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and the University of Virginia in the United
States have both incorporated the atlas into their disaster management and prevention courses.
Sakulski describes the atlas as an "interactive virtual book with chapters on such
topics as droughts, floods, famines, and cyclones." The atlas generates customized
maps and other graphics that illustrate historical weather patterns. Data
evaluations that could take hours to do by hand take only a few seconds with the atlas.
Sakulski notes, "Because the
calculations are done by Mathematica, the results are always consistent and reliable."
The graphics created by the atlas are used to pinpoint regions that regularly need
disaster assistance and to predict
which regions are likely to need assistance in the future. When potentially dangerous regions
are identified, disaster
management officials develop what-if scenarios and formulate strategic responses
for each event. "In the event of a
real disaster, our intention is to rerun the most similar scenario to get information
that could minimize the disaster's impact," Sakulski says.
According to Sakulski, webMathematica is "simply the best." Using just a web
browser, anyone can access the atlas to
gather and compile data, create geophysical maps, and run models of environmental systems
"on the fly." Another
especially important feature of webMathematica is its ability to handle the
large amount of data that essentially forms
the core of the atlas. Says Sakulski, "With webMathematica, the atlas minimizes
the amount of time and effort needed to
plan for disasters and has solved many of the coordination difficulties that hindered
past disaster relief programs."
The atlas works by taking in user-specified parameters such as type and
quantity of data. For example, the rainfall section of the atlas offers options to view average monthly
distribution or average annual distribution for any given range of time. The
groundwater section enables users to view groundwater levels,
riverbeds, and other geographic features separately or in any combination on a map
of South Africa. Once parameters
have been set, the atlas passes them to webMathematica. There
they are used to generate the particular map or graph
requested and are then passed back to the web browser where the user can view, print,
and save the results.
Sakulski considers the atlas to be a work in progress. The flexible structure of
webMathematica applications makes it
easy to add data and new features on an as-needed basis. "All in all," says Sakulski, "there
is no other technical environment that enables seamless integration of symbolic and
numeric abilities like Mathematica." Currently, Sakulski
is beginning work on the Global Atlas that is being pursued by NASA and the United Nations.
Both organizations have
invited Sakulski in to demonstrate features of his atlas and are supporting him
in the first Global Atlas "chapter," a world-scale rainfall-tracking application.