Application of Spatial Exploratory Global Uncertainty-Sensitivity Analysis for Flood Protection Scenarios
My proposal on “Application of Spatial Exploratory Global Uncertainty-Sensitivity Analysis for Flood Protection Scenarios” has been accepted from Marshall Plan Scholarship, so that my journey to Austria began on the 1st of June! I was pretty sure that it would be a rewarding summer in terms of both research and fun, and neither CUAS nor Villach falsified me.
I am currently a geography PhD student in a joint doctoral program between San Diego State University and University of California, Santa Barbara. I have been studying my PhD since 2013 and my major subject area is Geographic Information Science. Specifically, I am a research assistant in a National Research Funded project called “A Spatiotemporal Approach to Sensitivity Analysis in Human Environment Systems Models”. Align with this project; my main research area is uncertainty and sensitivity analysis (U-SA) for spatially explicitly models. Therefore, my proposed study in CUAS is focused on an environmental model, flood damage estimation, considering the importance of the model output and how effective it is in decision making process. Eco-hydrological modeling of flood damage assessment often employs spatially explicit models, which are prone to uncertainty in their input and output data. A modeling approach, which quantifies both uncertainty and sensitivity, is a mandatory step to increase the quality of decision making in spatially explicit models. This research on spatially-explicit models, aims to provide an effective tool for assessment of the quality in output and therefore leading an optimization for the land suitability and resource allocation problems. Considering the environmental conditions in Austria, this makes a suitable candidate region to implement the proposed research methodology.
During my stay in Villach, the technical meetings and discussing that I made with the faculty helped me to form my model and understand the existing conventional methods applied for flood damage estimation. Especially, the help and guidance of Dr. Gernot Paulus has a paramount importance in my research. Moreover, I also had chance to deal with another research subject with Christopher Erlacher which is quite parallel to my PhD subject interest and has very fruitful results. Therefore, these three months period help me to deal two different research problems with the generous support of CUAS faculty.
Besides involving in research, I was also happy to take the advantage of being in the center of Eastern Europe. Especially, being able to travel three countries in a day without having a jetlag was very enjoyable. I made short trips to Udine, Graz, and Salzburg since I enjoy the history and architecture in a city a lot. Moreover, I visited Ljubljana and Lake Bled in Slovenia for my birthday. Although I was alone, the beauty of the nature and foods cheered me up! In this summer, the most different experience in Villach was Kirchtag for me. It was a traditional festival where people eat special food and dance in their traditional clothes. I had also chance of trying one dress, thanks to my roommate. Finally, I finished my summer time in Budapest and Vienna, which are the best places to farewell the Austria and Europe.
I am grateful for my unforgettable memories in Austria, especially to the people that I met at FH and my roommates who helped me to survive and ease my life in Villach. I am pretty sure that those people will turn to lifelong friends.