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Smart City Planning with Geomatic Modeling of Lahar Evacuation Routes in the Northern Populated Area of Cotopaxi Volcano, Ecuador

Abstract:

The Cotopaxi Volcano is one of the most dangerous volcanoes world- wide due to its potential of the generation of voluminous lahars of dozens of mil- lions of cubic meters capable of destroying infrastructure and endangering a lot of people living near major river drainages of this volcano. Our study describes such circumstances in the northern side of Cotopaxi Volcano and how we pro- pose to reduce the vulnerability of the public with new evacuation methods. Therefore, we have used geomatic tools, in order to shorten evacuation ways and directions. Based on the results, we determined different spatial variables or geographic coverage of the described and highlighted the main points of interest in each of them. The location of initial evacuation points of the population was determined within the lahar travel area being along the road axes. With these points we calculated security checkpoints outside the area lahar with additional margin. For this process the impedance was determined according to the average speed of a person in case of evacuation. In areas where the evacuation time has been longer than the arrival time of the lahar, vertical rather than horizontal evacuation points were determined by evaluating its coverage area depending on the time needed for the population to be safe.