A modeling method for a disaster chain–Taking the coal mining subsidence chain as an example

ABSTRACT

The research of a disaster chain can help to determine the mechanism of disaster and the mechanism of mutual transformation between disasters; but at present, a unified and comprehensive modeling mechanism for the disaster chain evolution process has not been formed. Based on hierarchical modeling theory, a top-down refinement method for modeling the complex disaster chain evolution process was proposed in this article—the Spatio-temporal evolution process Multi-level description Framework for a Disaster Chain (STMFDC). The semantic description of the disaster chain is realized at the phenomenon level, changing element level, abstract semantics association level, and resource implementation level. In the spatio-temporal semantic constraint, combining the data integration methods, the evolution process model was also built to analyze the catastrophic process of the disaster chain. Finally, the mining subsidence disaster chain caused by human engineering activity was taken as an example to analyze the evolution process of a subsidence disaster chain based on the STMFDC to verify its generality. The study will thus form a new way of researching a disaster chain by building off the STMFDC approach.

KEYWORDS:

• STMFDC
• universal model
• mining subsidence disaster chain
• damage assessment visualization

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express sincere thanks to the editors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and insightful feedback.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41371373) and the National Key Research and Development Program (Grant No. 2016YFB0502601).