the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Inform@Risk. The Development of a Prototype for an Integrated Landslide Early Warning System in an Informal Settlement: the Case of Bello Oriente in Medellín, Colombia
Christian Werthmann
Marta Sapena
Marlene Kühnl
John Singer
Carolina Garcia
Bettina Menschik
Heike Schäfer
Sebastian Schröck
Lisa Seiler
Kurosch Thuro
Hannes Taubenböck
Abstract. The global number of vulnerable citizens in areas of landslide risk is expected to increase due to the twin forces of climate change and growing urbanization. Self-constructed or informal settlements are, due to shortage of urban land, frequently built in hazardous terrain such as landslide-prone slopes. They are characterized by high dynamics of growth, simple construction methods, strong social dynamics, and are exposed to unsteady political approaches. Landslide Early Warning Systems (LEWS) can contribute to decrease their vulnerability, but precise, affordable and culturally integrated LEWS need to be further developed. In this paper, we present a four-year living lab research project that aimed to design, implement, and evaluate a LEWS in the neighborhood of Bello Oriente, located in the urban-rural border of Medellín, Colombia. Its research team is composed of landscape architects, geo-engineers, remote sensing and geo-informatic experts. The research team collaborated with a multitude of stakeholders: civil society, private enterprises, non-governmental agencies and various branches of government. A prototypical LEWS has been designed, implemented and handed over to the government. It has entered a test and calibration phase. First findings indicate that the integrative development of technical aspects of a LEWS in informal settlements can be challenging, but manageable; whereas, the social and political support can vary and be beyond the control of the designer. It can be concluded that a resilient LEWS for informal settlements has to achieve sufficient social and technical redundancy to maintain basic functionality even in a reduced support scenario.
Christian Werthmann et al.
Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2023-53', Anonymous Referee #1, 02 May 2023
A very nice paper, well structured and amazing state of the art being achieved. My only main critique is that the paper reads like a summarised descriptive project report.
Maybe it would be goo to add guiding research questions in the beginning and discuss later on which of these have been achieved by which methodology or scientific approach.
Other than that, just some minor comments below.Inform@Risk in the title is not clear enough that this is a project acronym. It could be confused with a commercial advertisement, so I suggest deleting it in the title.
Page 2, line 60 spell out LEWS earlier on in the introduction
Page 3, 75: this part of the sentence needs more explanation: "especially in areas with critical infrastructure." Why are there more sensors in theses areas (because geosensors allow better monitoring ?!?) and what do the authors understand under CI?Why did the project have these goals? Following literature, or selected by experts or...?
Fig1: How were these capacities derived? Literature? Project internal discussion... Add sentence on explanation
Page 14, 64: can you kindly add a source or is this maybe "common expert jargon"?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2023-53-RC1 - RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2023-53', Harald Spahn, 03 May 2023
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RC3: 'Comment on nhess-2023-53', Anonymous Referee #3, 15 May 2023
Referee comment on the manuscript “Inform@Risk. The Development of a Prototype for an Integrated Landslide Early Warning System in an Informal Settlement: the Case of Bello Oriente in Medellín, Colombia” submitted to NHESS
GENERAL COMMENTS
In their manuscript, the authors summarize the preliminary findings of a living lab project for the implementation of a landslide early warning system in the community of Bello Oriente in Medellín, Colombia. The paper presents an impressive account of different dimensions of challenges that come with implementing a landslide early warning system (LEWS), addressing a timely and relevant topic.
It is well written in good English with a straight-forward structure. I particularly appreciate the open and critical way in which the authors discuss the challenges, successes, and failures of the project. Please find below some more particular comments, questions, and suggestions for the modification of the manuscript.
I would recommend the publication of the manuscript after these comments have been addressed, revisions have been made, and especially the maps have been improved as suggested below.
SPECIFIC COMMENTS
Lines 50 and 52: EWS and LEWS should be introduced here.
Line 56 and others: How is the project related to the local disaster risk reduction (DRR) organizations, such as SIATA, DAGRD, etc.? Are there any redundancies between the project and existing systems and/or what is the gap where your project fits into these local structures?
Lines 72 and 100: “spatially” or “socio-spatially” integrated?
Line 175: What is the name of the risk management authority of the city of Medellín?
Section 3.1.1, e.g. line 194: How exactly did you “map” the landslide susceptible areas based on the POT 2014? Are there no other previous works by other authors that analyzed landslide hazard or susceptibility in Medellín that you considered or that are worth mentioning?
Section 3.1.2: Who did the geological field mapping? Foreign geologists or also local geologists? I understand that for the project a very detailed assessment was required, but were there no geotechnical maps available as a reference?
Lines 260 to 264: Could you provide some references for these approaches?
Line 307: What is MEMS?
Line 381: What exactly are micro gardens? Are they for growing food?
Lines 451 and 452: Who operates the alarm system and takes the decisions?
Lines 541 to 554: Will the warnings be based on the sensor signals only? Or do you plan to have local experts or residents check the situation on the ground before issuing a warning?
Lines 590 and following, lines 657 and following, and others: You emphasize the effort for coordination with the different stakeholders and especially the work with the community residents. Did you have any local project members working on the ground permanently? If so, how important were they for the success of the project?
Line 670: Should be point 4), and 5) in line 674?
Figure 3 and 5, 6, 7, 8: I agree with Reviewer #2 that the different map extents and scales are confusing. An overview map showing the different map outlines or a common reference, such as the outlines of the project area, would be very helpful. Moreover, Fig. 3 has no scale and in Fig. 6 the coordinates are illegible. Why are there “islands” floating around in Fig. 5?
References:
Basher et al. 2016 and Kühnl et al. 2022 were not quoted in the text
Hossain et al. 2019 appears twice
Padilla Galicia et al. 2009 is incomplete
The references should be sorted alphabetically
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2023-53-RC3
Christian Werthmann et al.
Christian Werthmann et al.
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