News Releases
2007
| Technology Enabling Climate Change Preparedness |
NARRAGANSETT, RI. -- Climate change uncertainty has policymakers, municipal officials, civic planners, and emergency responders looking to versatile computer modeling technology as the best way to map the potential impacts from a wide spectrum of predictions.
In January, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse turned to ASA, a science and technology solutions company headquartered in Narragansett, Rhode Island when scientific analysis was needed for a presentation on climate change preparedness for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
In particular, Whitehouse requested mapping and visualization of the impacts of a 20-foot sea-level rise to areas throughout Rhode Island. ASA provided Whitehouse with flood model images of downtown Providence, Newport Harbor, and Barrington. ASA specializes in three-dimensional computer modeling and simulation of environmental processes for many purposes including for operational planning. The senator’s message to the committee included ASA’s images as examples in showing the tools that exist and that can be utilized when assessing risks, planning contingencies, and reducing vulnerabilities for his coastal state as well as throughout the United States in the face of global climate change possibilities.
In speculation of increased severe weather patterns, tropical storm intensities, and flooding, there is a great need to translate the National Weather Service textual flood forecasts into a meaningful visual product that better communicates risk to officials as well as the general public.
ASA’s enabling technology calculates flood extents based on the National Weather Service’s water level profiles, produces flood maps, and distributes those maps to planners, responders, and the general public via the Web. ASA's use of web services for distribution of integrated data within geographic references for environmental problems and crisis management solutions allows the use of flexible open standards to quickly distribute data to web pages, mobile devices, and also enables strategies to distribute warnings to mobile devices, including cell phones.
The outputs from the models can also be imported into a variety of widely-used mapping applications such as Google Earth or overlaid on aerial photos to give them context. From the mapping applications, images are easily exported and delivered back to the National Weather Service or distributed by other outlets.
Based on disaster history, an advance warning of 18 hours allows residents and business owners to prepare their homes and businesses for flooding and evacuate to safer areas, avoiding much of the danger and damage posed by floods and allowing emergency workers to concentrate on the most vulnerable areas.
Rapidly generated maps based on real-time or predictive data, delivered via the Web or other media to a variety of devices is the type of end-to-end technology that is easy, affordable and applicable for use by government services, local officials, as well as the general public who need to prepare for many possible impacts of climate change.
