Modelling shallow landslides within the context of a distributed framework for multi-risk assessment of forest fire hazards

The MEDIGRID project aims to use distributed GRID technology to integrate natural hazard models, maintained independently at different centres in Europe, into a single system, accessible to users over the internet. As an example, the SHETRAN hydrology, soil erosion and landslide model can receive input from a separate fire propagation model and in turn can provide data to a vegetation regeneration model. The individual models are located at process nodes while data relevant to forest fire impact modelling are provided at data storage nodes. Each node has been fitted with the Globus Toolkit, which provides the shared, specific computing environment required for the system construction. Users access the system through a series of portals and portlets, which provide a personalised interface to the Grid. Integration of the individual models required them to be modified so as to be run remotely over the internet as web services. As the models have different data characteristics, a common data format was created to allow exchange of data between the models. The MEDIGRID system marks an advance in the integration of independently constructed models to provide improved hazard assessment technology.