Beira-Mozambique, After the Storm. A GIS-based application of multisource data collection and Tropical Cyclone Idai damage assessment.

On the 14th of March 2019 Tropical Cyclone Idai hit the coast of Beira, in the Southwest Indian Ocean, Mozambique, later being renamed <<Global South strongest hit>>. The damages caused by the event were devastating and contributed to increase pre-existing vulnerabilities of a highly fragile country, characterized by a complex planning system, dynamics of informality and climate vulnerability. The interdisciplinary master thesis laboratory of Polytechnic of Turin, along with the partnership of the Community of Sant’Egidio has launched a master thesis laboratory aimed at studying the event and presenting future scenarios for the city of Beira. As a young urban planner, with personal interest in hazardous events and emergency mapping, multiple questions started to arise while studying the event and getting to learn about it. Mostly one over the others on how to provide a relatable spatial analysis of the Cyclone’s impacts through the multitude of data available spread among the different platforms. For instance, the city of Beira and the Government of Mozambique have long-time cooperated with a conspicuous variety of international stakeholders – United Nations (UN) and United Nations for Training and Research (UNITAR), World Food Programme (WFP), Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), Red Cross, Earth Observation (EO) Browser and Copernicus Emergency Management Service, towards resources management and projects’ development. The presence of the latter is unquestionably fundamental during emergency preparedness and post-disaster assistance. Nevertheless, the multitude of actors necessarily results in a multitude of different intervention’ approaches, hence various platforms for data collection to provide emergency mapping and support. The aim of this research study is therefore the harmonization of data through the collection and implementation of the several data formats into one comprehensive geodatabase that will be utilized to identify the spatial impacts over the built environment and the infrastructural system of 2019 Cyclone Idai, eventually outlining the importance of a global geodatabase that can foster not only the extraordinary mapping – with the implementation of 2021 Cyclone Eloise data – but can serve as a key tool also in ordinary mapping. Following an overview of the city of Beira and its unique configurations, the research will later investigate its vulnerability towards tropical cyclones, taking into account studies and analyses that have been developed throughout the years by private agencies and non-governative organizations. The study will then present the replicability of the methodology adopted that has been put in place to support ordinary and extraordinary mapping in Malawi through the UNICEF’s capacity building UP4DREAM project, where also data gathered by drones has been implemented. The research will eventually reveal some obstacles while collecting data, in relation to the number of data platforms, the quite often lack of cohesion between the data formats, and consequently the reliability of each datum that might have been collected in different time and space periods. Regardless these limitations, the survey will highlight the importance for a comprehensive geodatabase as a mean to enhance ordinary and extraordinary mapping, meanwhile increase global cooperation.