M.K.M. Charriere

Evaluating data quality collected by volunteers for first-level inspection of hydraulic structures in mountain catchments

Volunteers have been trained to perform first-level inspections of hydraulic structures within campaigns promoted by civil protection of Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italy). Two inspection forms and a learning session were prepared to standardize data collection on the functional status of bridges and check dams. In all, 11 technicians and 25 volunteers inspected a maximum of six structures in Pontebba, a mountain community within the Fella Basin. Volunteers included civil-protection volunteers, geosciences and social sciences students. Some participants carried out the inspection without attending the learning session. Thus, we used the mode of technicians in the learning group to distinguish accuracy levels between volunteers and technicians. Data quality was assessed by their accuracy, precision and completeness. We assigned ordinal scores to the rating scales in order to get an indication of the structure status. We also considered performance and feedback of participants to identify corrective actions in survey procedures. Results showed that volunteers could perform comparably to technicians, but only with a given range in precision. However, a completeness ratio (question / parameter) was still needed any time volunteers used unspecified options. Then, volunteers’ ratings could be considered as preliminary assessments without replacing other procedures. Future research should consider advantages of mobile applications for data-collection methods.

Evaluation of an open-source collaborative web-GIS prototype in risk management with students

Over the past decades, advancements in web services and web-based geospatial technologies have led to increasing delivery, access and analysis of rich spatial information over the web. With the use of open access data and open-source technology, it has become possible for policy and decision makers to make more transparent and informed decisions. Under the framework of the CHANGES project, a prototype web-based collaborative decision support platform was developed for the evaluation and selection of risk management measures, mainly targeting flood and landslide hazards. The design of the conceptual framework was based on the initial observations obtained from field visits and stakeholders’ meetings at the case study areas of the project. A three-tier client–server architecture backed up by Boundless (OpenGeo) was applied with its client side development environment for rapid prototyping. This developed prototype was tested with university students to obtain feedback on the conceptual and technical aspects of the platform as well as to analyse how the application of interactive tools during an exercise could assist students in studying and understanding risk management. During the exercise, different roles (authorities, technicians, community) were assigned to each group of students for identification and selection of risk mitigation measures in a study area: Cucco village located in Malborghetto-Valbruna municipality of North-Eastern Italy. Data were collected by means of written feedback forms on specific aspects of the platform and the exercise. The subsequent analysis of the feedback reveals that students with previous experience in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) responded positively and showed interests in performing exercises with such kinds of interactive tools for learning, compared to the ones with fewer or no GIS experience. These results also show that the prototype is useful and supportive as a decision support tool in risk management while user-friendliness, interactivity and practical aspects of the platform could be further improved.