Remote sensing and GIS for water-related risk assessment in vulnerable urbanizing regions
Conveners: Conveners: Rares Halbac-Cotoara-Zamfir, Carla S.S. Ferreira, Zahra Kalantari, Anca Moscovici
Humanity is facing a broad range of development challenges with rapid urbanization, degradation and loss of natural capital and ecosystem services, climate change and associated increase of natural disaster risks. By 2050, 70% of the world’s population will live in cities, making urbanizing regions critical in achieving a sustainable future for the world. Changes in climate, land-use and water conditions have direct relevance for societal well-being and health and for ecosystems and their societal services. Particularly in regions where increased population density places people in increasing conflict with nature, water-related stresses tied directly to disasters can be seen in the economic, environmental, and societal impacts of droughts and floods. The assessment of actual challenges like climate change risk can help with improving the resilience of urban areas to present natural hazards in addition to providing information to guide adaptation strategies necessary for reducing future risks associated with climate change impacts.
This session aims to give an overview of the current research in application of remote sensing and GIS to enable the assessment of water-related risks and a prerequisite to identify city-scale sustainable development responses. We welcome contributions and studies with focus on implementation of Spatial data to identify context-specific vulnerability, thereby enabling spatially targeted assessments of risk and implementing appropriate sustainable adaptation and development responses across urban and peri-urban areas.
The session seeks for presentations of Web-GIS tools enabling spatial information to be integrated and readily accessible to a wide range of stakeholders, creating a participatory environment and facilitating collaboration in water-related risk assessment and sustainable planning.