Applications in GIS (GIS5100): Lab 8

In this week's lab, we had to due damage assessment on areas in Ocean County, NJ that were affected by Hurricane Sandy. We had to prepared the data for the assessment, had to use before and after storm picture to assess the structure damage to each parcel, determine the distance from the coastline where most buildings were impacted by the storm, and combine parcel data with the damage assessment layer. 


I mostly rely on the structure damage scale to help me assessment the damage of the building structures on the parcels. The buildings that were completely tore down I defined as Destroyed, buildings that were missing major parts of their structure as Major Damage, buildings with minor parts of their structure damage as Minor Damage, buildings with debris across the parcel as Affected, and buildings that seems like they were not affected as No Damage. The difficult decision for me was determining what structure type the buildings were. If I was able to have information about what each parcel was used from, it would help me out tremendously with identify the structure types. Also, if the post Hurricane Sandy imagery was taken at the same time of day and had similar lighting, it would help with making better deductions of the parcel damages. 

From the findings, I was able to note that worst damage that occur to the building structures happen within 100 meters of the coastline and the farther away the buildings were from the coastline; the less damage the buildings had. 100% of the buildings within 100 meters of the coastline were damaged and 95% of buildings within 100 to 200 meters of the coastline were damaged. 19% of buildings within the 200 to 300 meters of the coastline were damaged. The findings seem accurate enough to be used in other areas nearby the study location.