The Life Garachico project, which has just completed its first phase, has presented a new online tool that serves to improve surveillance and knowledge about the risk of flooding due to maritime storms in the urban area of Garachico, on the Lower Island. This is the so-called GIS Viewer, an interactive map that allows you to explore, street by street and property by property, the situation of Garachico in the face of possible storms that generate coastal flooding.
The Canarian public company Grafcan has published and allows free access via the internet to the GIS Viewer, “an innovative tool that offers detailed information on danger, exposure and vulnerability to coastal events in the urban area of Garachico”, as defined by the promoters of this project. Access is available at the web link https://lifegarachico.grafcan.es and on the website of this European project (https://lifegarachico.eu/).
This interactive platform allows citizens to explore the results of the analysis of hazard, exposure and vulnerability to coastal events in the urban area of Garachico. Some studies that have allowed the characterization of the risk due to coastal flooding, as well as the perceived risk, which was captured among the local population at the International Environmental Film Festival of Canary Islands 2022.
From the project it is highlighted that «one of the main advantages of the GIS Viewer is its simplicity of navigation. It is organized into four categories: hazard, exposure, vulnerability and risk. In addition, in the exposure layers, users can delve into the elements that were taken into account in the analysis, classified into 6 thematic groups: population, land use, buildings, furniture, cultural heritage and natural heritage.
The GIS Viewer contains the hazard and risk analyzes for three different scenarios: the current one, with the current emissions situation; a moderate scenario, with greenhouse gas concentrations stabilizing before the year 2100, and a much more pessimistic scenario, with high greenhouse gas concentrations without stabilization by the end of the century. By combining these scenarios with different time periods (2 and 100 years) and different time scales (mid-century and end-of-the-century), it will be possible to choose between a dozen combinations.
The most pessimistic scenario takes the rise of the sea to places like the interior of the Puerta de Tierra Park; the Glorieta de San Francisco, at the foot of the Town Hall, or at the gates of the IES Garachico Alcalde Lorenzo Dorta. In all scenarios, most of the avenue, the municipal swimming pool, the esplanade of the old dock and the car park located in the old soccer They are designated as areas with high risk of flooding.
The GIS Viewer also provides the possibility of activating layers simultaneously, taking measurements, browsing in two windows at the same time, and even loading its own layers, “with the aim of exploring the situation of Garachico in the face of coastal flooding events” . Its promoters highlight its usefulness “for the population to acquire a more accurate perception of the risks” and to “promote the resilience of the municipality in the face of the storm surge.”
This new tool will contribute to the development of the implementation phase of the project in which soft and hard measures will be evaluated and applied for the adaptation of Garachico in the face of adverse coastal events. Some of these preventive measures are the protocols for access and circulation of urban traffic, or the protocols for pedestrian access to the waterfront and for the evacuation plan. The maintenance of the maritime front or the identification of safe points of observation of the waves. Life Garachico also foresees constructive measures, such as the installation of anti-impact benches; a new drainage system on the avenue; the elimination of car parks, or assistance in the reinforcement of private furniture.
