about 9 years ago

Problem Statement and Resource Links

Morning hackers! Ready for the challenge? Here is the problem statement and resource links - data will be coming soon!

PROBLEM STATEMENT

In the insurance industry, information and data are critical to the work that underwriters perform. The ability to quickly analyze and make intelligent decisions from information and data can be the difference between underwriting at profit or taking a major loss for your company. AXIS Re and the University of Illinois Office of Risk Management and Insurance Research (ORMIR) are working together to provide a visualization tool for underwriters to: drill down on a geographic map of a region and quickly display key characteristics and financial impacts of risks found in that region. These risks include floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and other natural and manmade disasters, which can cause catastrophic damage in a region and which require specialized data analysis in order for insurance underwriters to assess the likely financial impact of each risk.

Using data provided by AXIS Re and ORMIR, we are looking for a visualization tool which automatically aggregates exposures in different locations within a risk boundary. The tool should also allow insurance underwriters to shift a boundary file (e.g., move the geographic boundary 50 minutes north) and see how the impact of a similar risk (such as a hurricane) would compare across different regions on a map.

Boundary Files:

NHC Hurricane Data: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gis/ (USE Hurricane Matthew)
Storm Prediction Center: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/gis/svrgis/ (USE Joplin tornado)
USGS Earthquake footprints: (USE Northridge 1994)
- https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/kml.php
Wildfire Data:
- https://earthdata.nasa.gov/earth-observation-data/near-real-time/firms/active-fire-data
- http://frap.fire.ca.gov/data/frapgisdata-sw-fireperimeters_download
European Windstorm
- http://www.europeanwindstorms.org/cgi-bin/storms/storms.cgi
ArcGIS Vector Basemaps. High quality ESRI basemaps
- http://www.arcgis.com/home/group.html?id=30de8da907d240a0bccd5ad3ff25ef4a&focus=all
Open Street Map shapefiles for land/water polygons. Mostly generalized
- http://openstreetmapdata.com/

Keyhole Markup Language (KML)

https://developers.google.com/kml/documentation/kmlreference