Lincoln County Tsunami Evacuation Zones

Connor Matthews

Lab 4

Introduction:  In this lab I examined the tsunami evacuation zone if the “Big One” (referring to an earthquake off the northern west coast of the U.S.) were to be triggered.  The purpose of this lab was to find suitable areas of relief in the case that this earthquake was to happen, for preparedness to evacuate large amounts of people.  In order to look at demographics of this tsunami statewide, I had to use DOGAMI’s tsunami information along with census data of census blocks to clip out my desired affected area. After I had clipped out the blocks within the tsunami zones I summarized both the population and housing units by county to get the two tables shown in my map.  I then needed to figure out the total area of city limits affected, which was done using clip along with a city limits data set and the DOGAMI tsunami data set.  The total acres affected were: 39,165.16.  I then figured out the distance of highways that would be affected using the same clip analysis step used previously for the city limits.  The total mileage of highways affected is: 255 miles.

In order to create suitable multi-category recovery zones, I had to set a Lincoln county DEM to my total extent being looked at.  I then created raster fields of the Highway network, the tsunami data layer and the Lincoln county DEM.  In the end I want to combine these three raster data layers to show the most suitable land for recovery zones.  I had to reclassify each raster layer into ten categories 1-10 (10 being the most suitable) with respect to closeness to highways, in areas of low slope, and close to the evacuation zone but not within it.  Combining these three raster models gives me my mutli-criteria evaluation model that I made and ran within the model builder shown below.

After getting my combined evaluation model I reclassified it into two categories.  The first being recovery zone suitable and the second being not.  I chose to classify the suitable recovery zones from 7.1-9.7 and the non-suitable 0-7.1 to get two different areas.  I then used the majority filter tool and the raster to polygon to finish my polygon recovery zone areas.  After getting these areas, I examined the Highway and city limits data layers with respect to the recovery zones to choose best suited cites for the tent cities.

Final Map:

Conclusion: My findings in my research suggest suitable land in case of a natural disaster that can be used for “Tent City” recovery cites for victims.  With my findings of using the Multi-category evaluation model I can now look at potential locations close to highways for emergency evacuation.  After spatially analyzing the recovery zones with respect to highways and city limits I created three somewhat central locations for the emergency tent cities.  With these findings I have better prepared Lincoln County in the event of a catastrophic earthquake causing detrimental tsunami damage.

References:

http://www.oregon.gov

https://www.census.gov/

Class Lab folder

DOGAMI

 

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