Dr. Ulf Erlingsson was project coordinator for the creation of a natural hazard mitigation GIS for the Central American country of Nicaragua. He led a team in designing specifications for the decision support system, and also took personal part in the mapping and classification of natural hazards. The end product exceeded the expectations.
A GIS for decision support developed by Dr. Erlingsson, called HazMit (Press Release), was licensed to the client for use in evaluating and mitigating natural disasters in Nicaragua. It features calculation of risk cost per year, making cost-benefit analysis or mitigation possible, as well as comparing the cost-effectiveness of different mitigation ideas against each other.
Based on the experiences from the project, we would like to suggest to create an International Standard for Mitigating Natural Disasters.
Paraglider for landscape studies
The paraglider has some interesting characteristics that places it in the niche between ground-based observation on the one hand, and an airplane platform on the other. It gives the air-borne geomorphologist the chance to see it all in three dimensions, in real life, and to fly where it pleases him. The minimum altitude depends on safety, that is, always having an option open for emergency landing. The velocity is around 30 km/h (20 mph). The paraglider is ideal for cruising at between 50 and 500 m above the ground (the picture on the bottom right was taken from 1300 m).
The first commercial application of it, in this use, was perhaps the mapping of natural hazards in Nicaragua in 2000. The paraglider proved to be an invaluable complement to traditional methods. It is much less costly than a helicopter, which allows much more time to be spent over the target area. Also, it can be transported by car, eliminating also the approach flight of a helicopter.
Client
INETER - Instituto Nicaragüense de Estudios Territoriales
Departamento de Ordenamiento Territorial
Participating organizations
Norlat, Norway (main contractor)
This was one example of a project carried out by Dr Ulf Erlingsson, while a partner in AB Hydroconsult. You can visit their list of projects for more information, or Erlingsson's CV or authorship pages. At present Dr Erlingsson is CEO of Lindorm, Inc. in Miami, Florida, the company that manufactures the SediMeter™.
Programa Bolivar, Nicaragua
AB Hydroconsult, Sweden
INDES, Nicaragua
CIGEO, Nicaragua
