Emergency Management & Natural Hazards Monitoring

Mitigating damages, especially loss of life, as a result of a natural disaster is an issue of major concern worldwide. Riverside uses state of the art hydrologic and hydraulic models, real-time satellite imagery, and high resolution digital elevation models to support natural disaster management and disaster preparedness projects. Riverside is particularly well-versed in 21st-Century tools for flood forecasting and inundation mapping. Used by emergency managers, floodplain managers, and water supply organizations, these disaster preparedness tools are valuable for predication and analysis of areas of inundation, as well as providing timely information needed to support disaster preparedness agencies. Riverside has also developed and provided the tools necessary to prepare communities for such disasters by establishing methods to communicate early notification of disasters. In Bangladesh, for instance, Riverside helped establish effective and culturally relevant methods to disseminate warning messages to the village level regarding floodplain levels.