Projects
GuiDANCE
GeohazarDs in AfricaN CitiEs: patterns, rates and sustainability in urban sprawling contexts
Africa
today faces multiple challenges involving economic development, population
growth, environmental issues, and climate change, to name but a few. Faced with
these challenges, rapidly expanding cities in Africa generate large concerns in
terms of the increasing impacts of geohazards such as landslides, volcanic
eruptions, earthquakes, local subsidence, ground collapse and gully erosion.
Although significant progress has been made in establishing institutions and
regulations for risk reduction in Sub-Sahara Africa over the last 10 years,
knowledge on hazards and capacities to design and implement adequate risk
reduction remains extremely limited. The short term (5 years) general
scientific objective of this FED-tWIN project is to gain insight into baseline
patterns/rates of geohazards in urban sprawling contexts. The research will
focus on the study of geohazard
patterns/rates that occur under natural conditions as well as the way in
which humans have affected these processes or their exposure to these processes
therefore increasing the level of risk. The specific objectives are (1)
estimating the surface distribution of ground deformations associated to
geohazards in Sub-Saharan urbanized contexts; (2) documenting active geohazard
processes using a range of techniques to identify the most suitable strategies
for operational monitoring of these events using a combination of data
(ground-, air- and space-borne)/platforms and analytical techniques; (3)
exploring the interplay between natural (climatic, geomorphologic, seismic conditions)
and human-induced parameters (urban expansion, urban infrastructure, land use
change) controlling the dynamics and frequency-magnitude relations of these
processes in these environments. The long-term scientific objective (10 years)
is to develop specific expertise in the field of remote sensing and geohazards
in Africa and with Africans around a strong collaboration between the VUB Department
of Geography and the RMCA Department of Earth Sciences to tackle the challenges
related to Disaster Risk Reduction. The project builds upon the unique existing
expertise and networks of collaborators of both institutions. During the first
two years of the project, the FED-tWIN researcher will get familiar with new
techniques and skills that he/she is expected to master (additional to the ones
he/she already has experience with); capitalising on RMCA/VUB expertise in the
key techniques to be used. The recent advent of high frequency satellite data
acquisition (e.g. Sentinel-1 and -2, Planet imagery) opens the scope for
systematic data analysis for a large series of urban targets using state-of-the
art methods. Radar remote sensing techniques are a priority method for the
FED-tWIN candidate. A key aspect will also be the integration of the RMCA
collection of historical aerial photographs in the research, as it has the
potential to reveal key information on the state of the environment from the
mid of the 20th century till today. It is expected that the FED-tWIN researcher
becomes a leader in his/her field with a large autonomy developing new
synergies, partnerships, external project funding, and student (PhD and MSc)
supervisions. These key challenges are in line with the current R&D
strategies of the two institutions.