Hande Demirel

Climate Impacts in Europe. The JRC PESETA II Project

The objective of the JRC PESETA II project is to gain insights into the sectoral and regional patterns of climate change impacts in Europe by the end of this century. The study uses a large set of climate model runs and impact categories (ten impacts: agriculture, energy, river floods, droughts, forest fires, transport infrastructure, coasts, tourism, habitat suitability of forest tree species and human health). The project integrates biophysical direct climate impacts into a macroeconomic economic model, which enables the comparison of the different impacts based on common metrics (household welfare and economic activity). Under the reference simulation the annual total damages would be around €190 billion/year, almost 2% of EU GDP. The geographical distribution of the climate damages is very asymmetric with a clear bias towards the southern European regions. More than half of the overall annual EU damages are estimated to be due to the additional premature mortality (€120 billion). Moving to a 2°C world would reduce annual climate damages by €60 billion, to €120 billion (1.2% of GDP).

Impacts of climate change on transport a focus on road and rail transport infrastructures

This report provides a general EU-wide outlook about the future vulnerability of transport to climate change with a focus on the road and rail transport and their infrastructures. It also analyses some specific adaptations measures, illustrating key issues to be considered for policy making. It represents a first JRC/IPTS scientific contribution to the analysis of future impacts of climate change on the transport system in Europe, and has been conducted in the framework of the JRC PESETAII project. Depending on future global warming and the region in Europe, transport modes and system components could be affected by one or several simultaneous changes in the climate conditions, including hotter summer conditions, extreme precipitation events, increased storminess and sea level rise. If such impacts are not anticipated in future transport infrastructure design and maintenance, those changing weather conditions could, in some regions, accelerate their deterioration, increase severe damages risks, traffic interruption and accidents which could, on their turn, affect economic activities. This research project has drawn some future trends regarding changing exposure of road and rail infrastructures to weather-induced risk under climate change, considering two future time intervals (2040-2070 and 2070-2100), future infrastructure deterioration and damage costs and costs associated with some selected adaptation cases.

A Framework for Enhancing Real-Time Social Media Data to Improve the Disaster Management Process

Social Media datasets are playing a vital role providing information that can support decision-making in nearly all domains. This is due to the fact that social media is a quick and economical approach for collecting data. It has already been proved that in case of disaster (natural or man-made) the information extracted from Social Media sites is very critical to Disaster Management Systems for response and reconstruction. This study comprises of two parts: The first proposes a framework that provides updated and filtered real time input data for the disaster management system through social media, and the second consists of a designed web user API for a structured and defined real time data input process. The aim of this study is to propose a framework that can filter and organize data from the unstructured social media sources through recognized methods and bring this retrieved data to the same level as that acquired through structured and predefined mechanisms, such as a web API. Both components are designed such that they can potentially collaborate and produce updated information for a disaster management system to carry out accurate and effective decision-making.

The Role of Spatial Data in Building Information Modelling

Bilgi teknolojilerindeki gelismeler insaat sektorunu hizli sekilde degistirmekte, ulastirma altyapilarinin, binalarin planlama, tasarim, insa ve yonetimini, kisaca yasam dongusunu farklilastirmaktadir. Bu yeni yaklasim, insaat projesi yasam dongusu boyunca karar almaya destek olmakta ve performansin onemli olcude artirilmasini saglamaktadir. Cok disiplinli olarak gerceklestirilen insaat projesi yasam dongusunun geregi farkli kaynaklardan gelen veri, yontem ve is modellerinin butunlestirilmesi gerekmektedir. Planlama asamasinda hazirlanan cizimlerin iki boyutlu olmasi, yapinin son halini gosteren uc boyutlu cizimlerin bulunmamasi, yapilarda zaman icerisinde yasanan degisimlerin tespit edilememesi, yapi elemanlarina ait ozniteliklerin dijital ortamda tutulmamasi gibi sorunlar maliyetleri arttirmaktadir. Bu kapsamda yaklasik 25 yillik bir tarihi bulunan ve Yapi Bilgi Modellemesi (YBM) olarak adlandirilan teknoloji, gunumuzde oldukca etkin olarak kullanilmakta olup pek cok ulkede kanun ve yonetmeliklerle belirlenerek zorunlu olarak uygulanmasi gereken standart haline donusmustur. Ulkemizde henuz kullanilmaya baslanan YBM modellerinin temeli uc boyutlu mekansal veri modelleridir. Bu calisma kapsaminda mekansal verilerin YBM’deki rolunu degerlendirmek uzere secilen ornek yapi icin bir YBM modeli olusturulmustur. Secilen yapinin guncel uc boyutlu bina modelinin uretilmesi icin yersel tarayicilar kullanilarak uc boyutlu nokta verileri elde edilmis, yapi modellenmis ve daha once 2006 yilinda olcme yontemleri ile elde edilen iki boyutlu modeller yine YBM ile modellenerek karsilastirilmistir. Gelistirilen yazilim ile yillar icinde yapida olusan farklar otomatik olarak belirlenmistir. Calisma kapsaminda elde edilen sonuclar, karsilasilan problemler ve cozum onerileri sunulmaktadir.

Spatio-temporal evaluation of transport accessibility of the Istanbul metrobus line

Abstract High budget transport infrastructure projects in the Istanbul Metropolitan Area endeavour to increase the efficiency of the transportation system. Among those investments; the bus rapid transit system – Istanbul Metrobus Line (IML) – is the most popular one that serves one million trips per day. Yet, the performance and impact of IML are not quantitatively assessed. Hence in this study, a high-resolution GIS-remote sensing framework is designed to analyse before and after accessibility over the period of 40 years (namely 1987–1997–2007–2014). High resolution satellite images were processed to generate the lacking historical land cover/use information with the expected high accuracy. Within the study area, utilized accessibility indices have unevenly increased after the operation of IML, such as 104.19% in potential and 99.07% in daily accessibility. According to the achieved results, such high spatio-temporal spatial framework could aid decision makers to quantitatively assess and evaluate the performance of such investments.

A comparative analysis of gridding systems for point-based land cover/use analysis

Abstract For spatial analyses, raster land cover/use maps are converted into points, where each point holds attribute of its corresponding land cover/use. However, these are not identical in terms of areas or shapes; thus assigning a point to each isolated shape is not an adequate solution and for that gridding is suggested. Square, hexagon and triangle are among the basic land use gridding systems where each of them has its own advantages in such process. This research aims to compare the systems in providing accurate representations of the original land cover/use maps, assess the data loss while increasing resolution and suggest suitable gridding system. The research finds the errors in area and feature numbers as criteria for selected classes. Modules that find out errors in each scale considering each criterion and class alone are proposed. The modules suggest both the best system for each criterion alone and for combined criteria.

Drought Conditions in Turkey Between 2004 and 2013 Via Drought Indices Derived from Remotely Sensed Data

Drought indices are widely used for the assessment of drought severity by indicating relative dryness or wetness affecting environment, society and economies. The possible devastating impacts of drought could only be assessed, monitored and diminished via such quantitative indicators. Hence, several indices are available for the assessment of drought, where several of them are spatial information based. Due to diverse geographical and temporal distribution of drought, spatial information technologies could provide mature approaches, methods and tools. Within this study, spatial information based indices, being Temperature Condition Index (TCI), Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) and Vegetation Health Index (VHI) were generated using Terra-MODIS (moderate resolution imaging spectro-radiometer) images to analyze the drought conditions in Turkey for the period of January 2004–December 2013. In order to automate the process of generating indices and data handling, codes were written in Interactive Data Language programming language. According the results of indices, 2007–2008 and 2013 experienced a serious meteorological drought for the region, where agricultural drought and hydrological drought were also evolving.

Accessibility and territorial cohesion: ex post analysis of Cohesion Fund infrastructure projects

Accessibility models not only help to explain spatial and transport developments in developed and developing countries but also are powerful tools to explain the equity and efficiency impacts of urban and transport policies and projects. In this book, leading researchers from around the world show the importance of accessibility in contemporary issues such as rural depopulation, investments in public services and public transport and transport infrastructure investments in Europe.

Spatial Analyses for Environmental Impacts of Landfill Areas

This study presents significant spatial and temporal aspects of solid waste management on a case study conducted at the Istanbul Metropolitan area, where existing models of waste management have significant limitations due to limitations of handling spatiality and temporality. Since the decision making process should be performed over time and across space, remote sensing technology provides mature solutions. In order to analyze the changes IRS 1C PAN (5×5 m spatial resolution and dated 2000) and the IKONOS MS (4×4 m spatial resolution and dated 2004) images have been used. For the landfill areas, Istanbul Metropolitan area currently involves two sites, 1/5000 scaled map and both satellite images were overlaid in order to visualize the differences between reserved area and used area of the landfill. In order to analyze the flow direction of landfill areas towards watershed areas a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) was constituted and analyses were performed. The spatial and temporal changes of the two landfill areas were detected and results were discussed.