cmap.dev
Real-time Loss Prediction
For the real-time loss prediction analysis, it is important to note that only the past observed data is used for the number of damaged buildings. The forecast data is not used.
| No | Content |
|---|---|
| ① | The current animated wind distribution can be seen on the map. |
| ② | You can change the language between English (EN) and Japanese (JP) |
| ③ | Present: Displays the estimated number of damaged buildings within 4-day period for Weather Perils and 2-day period for Earthquake (modelling results) Past: Displays the estimated number of damaged buildings caused by past major disasters (modelling results) Weather: Displays the estimated number of damaged buildings caused by weather-related perils, such as typhoons or heavy rain Earthquake: Displays the estimated number of damaged buildings by the ground motion of an earthquake Clear: Clears the displayed information such as: labels, lines, and bar charts. Can be selected to display only the background. Cnt. Label: Shows / hides the labels of the number of damaged buildings. Can be unchecked in case it is difficult to see the bar graphs from the multiple labels. City Label: Displays the city names on the map |
| ④ | The current weather information of the cities can be displayed on the zoom level 7 or higher. |
| ⑤ | Pressing the Close button will hide the panels 3 and 4. This can be useful on smaller screens where it's harder to see the map. |
| ⑥ | The zoom level can be changed between the values of 2 and 17. The number of damaged buildings by the city level is displayed if the zoom level is 11 or higher. |
| ⑦ | The background of the analysis, the brief methodology, and Twitter information can be displayed. |
| ⑧ | Address search can be performed from this bar. |
| JMA | cmap.dev | |
|---|---|---|
| Time | Before a disaster occurs | After a disaster occurs |
| Info | Warning and advisory is issued on weather and other perils. | Real-time loss prediction to the public. |
| Obj. | Emergency disaster prevention and mitigation (best action to protect lives) | Early understanding of the scale and affected areas of a disaster, to aid in rescue activities |
| Peril | Conditions of excuting the calculation | Update time |
|---|---|---|
| TY | Gust wind speeds of 30 [m/s] or more is observed from the AMeDAS data | Update hourly on the hour |
| Heavy Rain | Daily precipitation above a certain threshold is observed from the AMeDAS data | Update hourly on the hour |
| EQ | Seismic intensity of 5- or more | About 10 minutes after an earthquake occurs |
The current animated wind distribution can be seen on the map. Further weather information such as precipitation can be seen if you click the checkbox placed on the right panel.
Data such as; expected losses, number of damaged buildings can be seen when a typhoon, an earthquake, or a heavy rainfall occurs by the prefecture and city level.
By clicking the Past checkbox on the right panel, you can see the past events with information such as the number of damaged buildings caused by perils like typhoons or earthquakes that have happened in the past.
Background
Many disasters occurred during the year 2018 in Japan, -including heavy rains in July, landfalls of five typhoons, and the Earthquakes of Northern Osaka and Eastern Hokkaido. The number of claims for insurance companies due to these series of disasters were approximately around 1.38 million, which is almost 1.6 times the insurance payments due to Great East Japan Earthquake that has occurred back in 2011.
The claims adjusters for the non-life and mutual insurance companies were overwhelmed by the claims. The staff from other prefectures and claims adjusters moved to the other areas to support these offices.
Since the response time is extremely important immediately after a disaster, some insurance companies run simulations to assess the loss claims and make various decisions based on these modeling results. In the past, the modelling results were only shared within the claims department of an insurance company as there is uncertainty in the predictions.
However, while the predictions are not 100% accurate, they can be of use to many stakeholders such as; logistics companies, construction companies that has on-going constructions, city offices, insurance agencies, and individuals. Thus we decided to widely share these predictions with the public.
References
Nikkei newspaper: Insurance payout this year is JPY 1.3 trillion, which the highest in the past 7 years, 21 Dec. 2018
Methodology
The perils we implemented for loss prediction are heavy rain, typhoons, and earthquakes.
The Weather checkbox on the upper right corner shows the combination of Heavy Rain and Typhoons.
Heavy Rain
The Heavy Rain option includes the damage caused by; heavy rain and landslides, and excludes the storm surges, snow, and lightning.
The assessment of losses is based on the precipitation data gathered from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). The maximum precipitation data that was gathered from the 4-day data is used from each observatory.
The observation data is then used in conjunction with our building database to assess the number of damaged buildings using various calculation processes. The number of damaged buildings is calculated only when daily precipitation exceeds a certain threshold. This threshold varies depending on the observation point, and the smallest threshold is about 80 mm.
The loss prediction of heavy rain using real-time precipitation may be updated from time to time based on the assumption of an inundation map as the accuracy of the prediction is reduced due to river breach.
In terms of the prefecture and city code, we use the latest one released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) as of March 2019.
References
Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA): Daily precipitation
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC): Prefecture and city code
Typhoons
Typhoon category shows the damage caused by strong winds, low pressures, and tornadoes. The damage caused by floods and landslides is evaluated by the Heavy Rain category.
We assess losses based on the observed wind speeds provided by JMA. The maximum gust wind speed observed within 4-day period is collected to calculate the maximum gust wind speeds in each observatory.
The observation data is then used in conjunction with our building database to assess the number of damaged buildings using various calculation processes.
The number of damaged buildings is calculated only when maximum gust wind speed exceeds a certain threshold, which is about 30 [m/s].
Since the 10 meter standard height is used for the calculation process, the gust wind speeds announced by JMA does not necessarily match with the wind speeds used within the model.
References
Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA): Daily gust wind speed
Earthquakes
Earthquake option displays the damage caused by ground shaking only. The damage caused by Tsunami or Fire Following is not displayed.
The losses are assessed based on the seismic intensity data provided by JMA. The list of latest earthquakes with seismic intensity is obtained from the National Institute of Informatics (NII), which shows the data on Disaster Prevention Information Telegram XML (seismic intensity bulletin) provided by JMA.
The earthquake with seismic intensity 3 or more is selected that has occurred within the past 2 days to present time. In the case of multiple earthquakes with similar maximum seismic intensity, the latest one is selected.
The number of damaged buildings is calculated using the observed seismic intensities within our building database. The soil data with 250 [m] mesh size is used for the calculation while the ground conditions such as landfill sites, mountains, or plateau zones are considered.
JMA operates approximately 4,200 seismometers. The number of seismometers used for assessment depends on the size of the earthquake. The list of seismometers that is used for the analysis was last updated in March 2019.
The number of damaged buildings is only analyzed when the JMA seismic intensity is 5- or more.
If the JMA intensity is less than 5-, no analysis is conducted and the number is not displayed, however our assumption does not assure the number of damaged buildings to be 0.
References
National Institute of Informatics: JMA's Disaster Prevention Information Telegram XML
Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA): Seismic intensity mesuarement and seismic intensity observation system
Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA): Seismic Intensity Station List
Contents on the Map
Please note the following when displaying the below contents:
Weather (Heavy Rain and Typhoons)
- The Weather option within the control panel displays the number of damaged buildings using wind speeds or precipitations within 4-day period. It is important to note that only the past observed data is used for the analysis of the number of damaged buildings, not the forecast data.
- The displayed wind flow on the map is obtained from the numerical simulation conducted by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This wind data is not used for any loss prediction, thus, you might see increased wind speeds displayed while the number of damaged buildings remain the same.
- Since the displayed wind speeds are 10 meters from the ground, the felt speeds in the same area can be different. This is the standard used by NOAA, and it is a standard height formula used by World Meteorological Organization (WMO). JMA shares the same standard.
- The windspeeds obtained from NOAA are updated every hour on the hour. It takes a few minutes to download and convert the data format, so the wind speeds on the server are updated between 1 to 5 minutes. The modelling results of Weather are also updated every hour on the hour. You need to click the reload button as the information on the map are not updated automatically.
- Since the JMA observatory data is published 50 minutes after recording, the loss-prediction analysis is performed using the wind speeds from 1 hour and 49 minutes and 50 minutes ago.
- While the displayed typhoon tracks are sourced from JMA, the wind flow data is from the numerical simulation of NOAA. As two different data sources are used on the same map, there might be a small gap between the typhoon track and the position of the typhoons eye.
- The displayed typhoons using the Past Weather checkbox are as follows: No. 15 Goni from 2015, No. 18 Etau from 2015, No. 10 Lionrock from 2016, No. 18 Talim from 2017, No. 21 Lan from 2017, No. 21 Jebi from 2018, No. 24 Trami from 2018, and No. 15 Vera from 1959.
- While the loss counts caused by typhoons may seem large, most of the losses are partial-loss claims.
- The typical partial loss claims caused by winds are; cracked roof tiles, broken drain pipes, and bent antennas.
- The number of damaged buildings when the Weather option is selected is the total number of damaged buildings caused by heavy rain and typhoons. The full breakdown of the losses is not shown.
References
NOAA: NCEP GFS Real-time Dataset, 0.25 degree grid g2sub V1.1
Earthquake
- By checking the Present Earthquake, you can see the earthquakes with highest intensity among the earthquakes with seismic intensity of 3 or more that has occurred within the past 2 days to present time.
- It takes about 10 minutes for the modeling results to be displayed on the map after an earthquake occurs. It takes around 4 to 8 minutes to update the latest event data on the NII website. It takes 2 to 6 minutes to analyze the number of damaged buildings on the server.
- During the loss-prediction analysis, individual building type is considered along with the ground condition. The python algorithm was improved to speed up the process.
Common in Weather and Earthquakes
- The numbers of damaged buildings displayed are from modelling results. They are not taken from any published statistical data.
- The modelling results were validated by using vast amounts of loss-claim data from the insurance industry
- If the total number of damaged buildings exceeds 30,000 nationwide, the bar chart is only displayed when the number of buildings is 1,000 or more within a prefecture, or 100 or more within a city. This decision was taken due to the way it affects the display speed of the data. Thus, even if the bar chart is not displayed, the number of damaged buildings is not necessarily 0.
- The numbers displayed are purely based on building count, not the number of households within one. Therefore, an apartment complex is counted same as a detached residential house.
- The displayed damaged building counts include; partial-loss, half-loss, and total-loss counts.
- You can see the values on the city level when the zoom level is 11 or more. The zoom level is displayed on the upper left side.
- You can uncheck the checkbox of the "Cnt. Label" on the upper right panel to hide the bar chart labels.
- The equipment errors or defects from the observatories may cause over or under-estimation in results. Ground motions with a JMA seismic intensity of 6 or more may break or cause malfunction in seismographs in observatories.
Weather Information
- You can display various weather information if you check the boxes under Weather Info. The information is taken from OpenWeatherMap.
- The weather information displayed on the map is updated every 3-hours. Therefore, there might be a lag between the updates with NOAA wind speed data. Since the OpenWeatherMap considers results of multiple weather models, the data may not match with the wind speed data from NOAA.
- The weather information in cities can be displayed when the zoom level is 7 or more. The language can only be displayed in English.
- You may need to re-check the Weather Information checkbox to update some of the information.
- For the Precipitation data, Yahoo Japan weather information API is used. The information is updated every 10-minutes, however, you need to re-check the box to update the information.
References
OpenWeatherMap: Model Technology
Yahoo Japan: Precipitation API
Location Search
Esri's geocoder called esri-leaflet-geocode was implemented.
Zoom Level
- The zoom level is displayed on the upper left side of the map. It can be changed between the values of 2 and 17.
- The number of damaged buildings by the city level is displayed if the zoom level is 11 or higher.
Other
- You can change the language between English and Japanese by the field on the upper right.
- The display information such as: labels, lines, and bar charts are removed if you click the “Clear” button on the upper right side.
- Simply click your browsers refresh button if you encounter any errors.
Image Sources
Satellite Imagery Worldwide: Esri, i-cubed, USDA, USGS, AEX, GeoEye, Getmapping, Aerogrid, IGN, IGP, UPR-EGP, and the GIS User Community
City Label: Esri Leaflet, Basemap with labels
Colored Elevation: Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI), MLIT
Shaded Relief: Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI), MLIT
These imageries are used according to the content terms and conditions of GSI.
Usage Limitations
Limitations
The modelling results can include errors due to the observatory equipment failure or problem with the data sources. This website is also not intended to be used to predict all types of perils (such as tsunami or fire-following earthquake) so the users of this website should make decisions at their own risk, and most importantly follow government warnings in case of a disaster.
Modelling Results
- The results of the modelling are simply simulated predictions: There is no guarantee that the results will match with the actual number of damaged buildings.
- The equipment errors or defects from the observatories may cause over or under-estimation in results.
- These modelling results can’t be used for weather warnings or disaster evacuation purposes. Please use JMA website or follow government warnings in case of a disaster.
Weather Service Law
The loss prediction displayed on this site is not in conflict with the Meteorological Service Law that is in effect in Japan. The law is simply limited to the forecasting of weather, which is different from the loss prediction simulation of this website which is related to number of damaged buildings. The weather information is taken from JMA or other overseas meteorological agencies such as NOAA without any modifications as part of the functionality of the site.
The loss prediction simulation should not be confused with warnings issued by JMA. The JMA warnings are for when a major catastrophe is on its way. This website does not issue any warnings or weather forecasts.
Quotation/Reprint
Certain contents displayed in this site are copyrighted by the private companies and governmental organizations, and the usage rights were obtained accordingly.
Indemnities
The modelling results and simulations are simply for informational purposes and are not intended for disaster evacuation purposes. The developer of this website is not liable for any of the information displayed in this website.
about cmap.dev
Name of Website
The name of this website comes from Catastrophes. In the insurance industry, disasters are often called catastrophes, hence the “C” in cmap.dev.