ABSTRACT
Conflict-affected countries often experience heightened vulnerability to natural hazards. Advances in environmental modeling, high-performance computing, and increasing capacity to collect fine scale geospatial data at low cost make it possible to envision local level, fine-scale hazard models simulating events at spatial, and temporal scales comparable to how people experience them. This provides new opportunities to improve the targeted communication of disaster risks and accelerate a much needed shift in adoption of vulnerability reduction measures. Here, we use the example of flood risk to show how the process of modeling flood hazards can be completed collaboratively with end users of flood hazard information resulting in hazard maps tailored to local decision-making needs and widely accessible through an online visualization system. The codevelopment of risk models with community level stakeholders could dramatically enhance the ability of high-risk communities to build resilience early in the peacebuilding process.
