User Stories
A user story helps understanding and communication, particularly of a system and its context. At the GFP meeting in 2018, a user stories workshop was held to capture informal descriptions of global flood partnership member’s views and needs regarding the outputs of global flood products and systems.
More detail can be found in the 2018 GFP meeting report.
Below is a short anonymised summary of each user story captured. These provide a good idea of the breadth and range of users of GFP outputs, and some understanding of their needs and the applications of the data.
My name is Habib,
I’m a watershed manager on the Nile. I send out HEC-RAS based flash flood alerts. I want to use historic flood maps to improve my HEC-RAS output so that early warning evacuations are more successful.
Humanitarian
My name is Luke,
I am a strategist for the Rockefeller Foundation disasters program. I want to know which regions to prioritize for flood protection based on population exposed to asset loss so I can optimize the program funding.
Humanitarian
I’m Mark and I’m a building inspector.
I analyse the risk to future infrastructure and either issue or deny planning permission depending on the risk. I need data about the flood risk for a region so that I can make an informed decision about whether or not to grant permission.
Planning
I’m John and I’m a police officer
looking to build my own house. I want to make sure that the land I buy is not at risk of flooding. I want to use flood hazard maps to help me decide which plot of land to build my home on.
Planning
My name is Andy
and I work for an insurance company with agricultural focus. I want to know what the risk is for agricultural flooding and how it might change in the future. I’ll use this data to calculate the premium for clients.
Agricultural insurance
I’m Sandra and I’m an underwriter for Willis Reinsurance.
I need to analyse the flood model that we have purchased. To do this I need to use Dartmouth Flood Observatory event maps to identify areas of model failure and calibrate the models so they perform better.
Insurance
My name is Leo,
I work in insurance. I am evaluation the exposure to flood risk of the company portfolio. Some river basins I am looking at don’t have any local flood maps. I need to use global flood hazard maps to get an idea of the flood risk in these basins.
Insurance
I’m Laura and I’m a GIS analyst at FEMA.
I need to help identify flooded areas for an ongoing flood event. I need to compile existing flood maps on a daily basis to provide a daily map product to management for relief action. I also need to be able to evaluate the data to determine where false negatives and positives may impact my assessment.
Humanitarian
My name is Elizabeth
and I work for an NGO with limited resources. I need to decide which regions to prioritise for resource allocation. I need maps with critical information such as infrastructure, flood duration, exposed population and flood duration so that we can be prepared for future flooding.
Humanitarian
I’m Jessica and I am a researcher.
I want to validate my flood model so that I know where it performs well and where it doesn’t. To do this I need historic flood extent data.
Research
My name is Amanda
and I’m a local member of the zoning board. I need updated and reliable flood plain maps so that we can update our existing maps and rezone the areas. These maps will help us make informed decisions about future construction.
Policy Makers
I’m Jack and I’m an urban planner.
I’m in charge of planning a new urban area in a delta. I need flood maps with various return periods for this delta so that critical infrastructure can be kept away from areas of high flood risk.
Planning