Features - rodekruis/IBF-system GitHub Wiki

This page gives an overview of features in IBF.

Feature overview

Features per disaster type

These are features that are currently implemented for some disaster-types, but not all. The goal is to implement IBF-wide.

# feature flood Flash flood drought typhoon malaria
1 Events v v v v *
2 Lead times v v v v
3 Event areas v v
4 Breadcrumbs v v v
5 Duration in timeline v v
6 Set trigger v
7 Line/polygon layers v

Features configurable per country and disaster type

These are IBF-wide features. Some of them are configured to be on or off on country (and disaster-type) level.

# feature configurable per country
8 Early Actions v
9 Community notifications v
10 Email notifications
11 WhatsApp notifications v
12 Trigger log
13 Multiple admin levels v

Feature descriptions

1. Events

Forecast data is grouped into separate events which cover separate parts of the country, and can have different lead times and different severity levels.

* In malaria events are currently used, but not in the way they should. A separate event is uploaded for each pre-defined month/lead time (0-month/1-month/2-month). Each month covers the whole country instead of a relevant subpart only. Events are not uploaded for a calculated lead time, but instead separately for each lead time.

2. Lead times

  • The table above indicates which disaster types have flexible lead times.
  • Whereas IBF started out as giving off forecasts for one or more fixed lead times only (in line with the EAP), it has now largely evolved to flexible lead times. Any forecast within a specified timeframe can lead to a trigger or warning, also if shorter or longer than the EAP-agreed lead time.
  • This feature largely aligns in terms of implementation with Events.

2.1 Undefined lead time

  • A typhoon event can have an associated track which is still too far away from land to retrieve any landfall time and thus a lead time from.
  • There is a specific no-landfall-yet-warning scenario for this. The timeline shows an additional element at the far end saying 'Undetermined landfall'. Also the chat section and the email have specific copy on this.

3. Event areas

If multiple events occur at once, then the portal opens in National View where the various events are depicted in the map via one polygon each, called event areas. This polygon is the union of the admin-areas that are part of that event.

  • The event areas is calculated as the union of admin-areas with the same eventName as uploaded by the pipeline. It is therefore up to the pipeline's definition how to organize events. Currently this is e.g. according to parent admin-area for flash-floods, while in floods it is the group of admin-areas tied to one GloFAS station. But the pipeline can in principal choose any other grouping logic.
  • The union can consist of multiple separat polygons if not all event admin-areas are adjacent.
  • Currently event areas are only enabled for flash-floods and floods, due to e.g. performance limitations.

4. Breadcrumbs

Indicates whether the portal is navigated through breadcrumbs, as indicated by buttons in the top left of the map.

  • The portal opens on National View with an overview of events in map (but also in chat section), identified by a 'National view' breadcrumb in the map.
  • These events are ideally shown in the map as event areas (see feature 3. Event areas), but otherwise as separate admin-areas within each event.
  • Subsequently you can zoom in to event-level either via map or chat, which will result in an event breadcrumb being added.
  • Subsequently you can zoom in to admin-area-level, by selecting one admin-area of the event, resulting in yet another breadcrumb being added.
  • If the specific implementation is multi-admin-level, you can zoom in to even deeper admin-levels, reflected by additional breadcrumbs.
  • If a disaster-type does not have breadcrumbs implemented, instead always all admin-levels of the country will be shown, but only the "active" admin-levels will be be enabled/clickable.
  • NOTE: to implement breadcrumbs for drought/typhoon, first 'event areas' must be implemented. Additionally, because evnets can overlap geographically, it must be made possible to show overlapping event-areas. (Or als alternative: skip National View, and open on 1st event.)

5. Duration in timeline

  • For floods and drought the timeline indicates duration by also visualizing alert data (warning or trigger) for lead times other than the event starting lead time.
  • This is not per se a direction that all disaster types will move to. E.g. typhoon and flash floods already have a different working timeline again, namely we only show one button per day there, even though the lead times are defined per hour. Except again if there are multiple event starting lead times on the same day, then they show as separate timeline elements.

6. Set trigger

  • This is a disaster-type configuration, currenty only enabled for drought
  • If enabled, then warnings uploaded by a pipeline can be manually "set" to a trigger in the IBF portal, by a user with the 'local-admin' role (See user roles)
  • In the drought pipeline it can be configured per country again if the pipeline indeeds uploads warnings or if it already uploads triggers (which cannot be "set" or "unset" any more).

7. Line or polygon layers

  • In addition to point layers, it is also possible to visualize lines or polygon layers such as 'roads' and 'buildings'.
  • Contrary to point layers, the data for this is not directly retrieved from the database, but is rendered via Geoserver due to performance reasons, similar to raster layers. (Whereas raster Geoserver-layers point to a .tif file, these lines Geoserver layers point to a PostGIS database view, which is combining static data on line/polygon coordinates, with dynamic data on exposure status of the line/polygon.)
  • In Geoserver styling can be applied based on available attributes in the database view. Currently e.g. roads and buildings are colored red or green based on exposure status. And e.g. 'highway' roads have a larger width than normal roads. Based on requirements other styling can be configured.
  • Currently, such layers are only configured for flash-floods, but in principal this can be applied for any disaster-type.

8. Early Actions

  • Early actions can be seen and checked off per area of an event in the portal.
  • Early actions can also be checked off via Kobo-form, if configured
  • Early actions can also be switched off, if configured

9. Community notifications

  • Upload community notifications via Kobo to IBF-portal, including geolocation and photo.
  • See (and dismiss) notifications on map in the portal
  • Can be configured per country
  • See also Community notifications

10. Email notifications

  • Events potentially leads to automatic email notifications, depending on severity (not for some warnings) and leadTime (not for ongoing).
  • Handled via Mailchimp
  • When do we notify the user?
flowchart
A[/pipeline run/] -->|data update| B[update events table with new data]
B -->|for each event with new data| C{is the event ongoing?}
C -->|yes: the event is ongoing| D(fa:fa-bell inform the user)
C -->|no: the event is upcoming| D
B -->|find open events with no new data| E[/events table/]
E --> F[close open events with no new data]
F --> G{is the event ongoing?}
G -->|yes: the event has ended| D
G -->|no: the event is below threshold| D
H[/set trigger/] --> D

11. WhatsApp notifications

12. Trigger log

  • Table overview of all past events
  • Can be accessed for specific country and disaster-type from the IBF-portal
  • Or for all countries and disaster-type, from admin-menu in IBF-portal

13. Multiple admin-levels

  • It is possible to configure multiple administrative levels (admin-level, e.g. Provinces, Municipalities, Neighbourhoods) on country/disaster-type level
  • It is only possible to configure deeper levels than the default admin-level.
  • The default admin-level is the only level on which early actions are managed.
  • If multiple admin-levels are configured, then after zooming in from National View to Event View to Area View, it allows you to zoom in to a deeper area view, by clicking an area in the map or the list. And so on, for additionally configured admin-levels.
  • This shows dynamic and/or static data on deeper level.
  • The pipeline needs to produce forecast data for all deeper-level admin-areas if configured
  • This is currently only configured for floods in some countries.