Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

‘Buried Beneath The Waves’: Using Gis To Examine The Physical And Social Impact Of A Historical Flood, Mathew Novak, Jason Gilliland

Geography & Environment Publications

Natural disasters such as floods can periodically disturb and destroy the built and social fabric of communities. Despite their importance, specific ramifications of natural disasters can be overlooked in local histories due to a paucity of data. In this article we bring together several disparate sources of data within a historical geographic information system (HGIS) to study certain physical and social details of the flood which devastated the Town of London West, Canada on 11 July 1883. The integration of historical and contemporary data sources allow for the construction of a three-dimensional model of where the flood likely occurred. With …