Urban Risk Management: Essential Information and Role of Remote and Close Sensing

The multi-disciplinary research project Strengthening Local Authorities in Risk Management (SLARIM ), initialed by ITC, includes three case study cities in Asia. An important question the project aims to address is: what are the essential data for risk management, and how to access or create such data. The role of common sources (e.g. census data, cadastral data), data derived from remote sensing (i.e. high-resolution satellite imagery, aerial photos), and data from close sensing (i.e. field observation, including mobile GIS) to acquire essential risk management data will be discussed. Special attention is given to the question of the minimum area and to disaggregation of population data. A few examples are given of Lalitpur, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal.