Developing Interactive Landslide Simulator (Report)

PROJECT REPORT
(SIX WEEK SUMMER INTERNSHIP)
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERACTIVE LANDSLIDE
SIMULATOR
Submitted by
Akshit Arora
Roll No. 101303012
Under the Guidance of
Dr. Varun Dutt
Assistant Professor
School of Computing and Electrical Engineering
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, MANDI (IIT MANDI)
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
THAPAR UNIVERSITY, PATIALA
June – July 2015

Developing Interactive Landslide Simulator | Akshit Arora
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DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the research project work entitled “Interactive Landslide Simulator
(www.pratik.acslab.org)” is an authentic record of my own work carried out at I.I.T. Mandi as
requirements of 7 weeks summer training for the award of B.E. (Computer Science and
Engineering), Thapar University, Patiala, under the guidance of Dr. Varun Dutt, during 1st
June
to 13th
July, 2015.
I further declare that no part of this report is copied from Internet or any other source.
__________________________
Akshit Arora
101303012
Date: Wednesday, 12 August 2015
Project Video Link: http://bit.do/akshit_arora_101303012

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ABSTRACT
Previous research shows that people living in landslide prone area have a poor understanding
about causes of landslides and what they can do to minimize the damage.
The model we developed involves public contribution for landslide aversion. We also
developed a web-based game, which makes people invest against landslides and experience the
resulting consequences via messages and imagery.
This game can be used to improve public understanding about landslides, for effective policy-
making on natural hazards like landslides and for educating children in school.
Future work in the simulator involves:
1) Making it a multi-player game instead of the current single-player version.
2) Incorporating regional languages into the simulator
3) Making the simulation culture independent.
Preliminary model has been implemented as an interactive landslide simulator of the following
website: http://pratik.acslab.org

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This project was my first hands-on experience in research and I have learnt a lot in the last 3
months. This would not have been possible without the support of many individuals and
organizations, and I am extremely thankful to them for their help.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Varun Dutt and Pratik Chaturvedi, my
internship supervisors, for their patient guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and useful
critiques of this work. I would also like to thank Dr. Deepak Garg and Dr. Shivani Goel, for
their and encouragement throughout this project.
My grateful thanks is also extended to my senior Ruminder Singh (Computer Engineering,
Thapar University Patiala) for helping me understand the basic concepts of web
development. I would also like thank my fellow intern and my roommate Mohd Zaki (Civil
Engineering, MNIT Allahabad) for making my stay at IIT, a pleasant one.
Finally, I wish to thank my parents for their support and encouragement throughout my
internship period and Thapar University and IIT Mandi for giving me the wonderful
opportunity.
Akshit Arora
(101303012)
B.E. Computer Science and Engineering
Class of 2017
Thapar University, Patiala

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CONTENTS
1. INSTITUTE PROFILE
2. INTRODUCTION
3. BACKGROUND
4. CHAPTER 1: MATHEMATICAL MODEL
5. CHAPTER 2: MODEL SIMULATIONS
6. CHAPTER 3: SIMULATOR WEBSITE
7. CHAPTER 4: DATABASE DESIGN
8. LIMITATIONS
9. CONCLUSION
10. FUTURE WORK
11. REFERENCES

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INSTITUTE PROFILE
Indian Institute Technology Mandi
(IIT Mandi)
It is an autonomous premier engineering and
technological university located in Mandi. It is one of
the eight new Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs)
established by the Ministry of Human Resource
Development. (For more information: iitmandi.ac.in)
Dr. Varun Dutt (Faculty Advisor)
Assistant Professor at IIT Mandi in School of Computing and
Electrical Engineering and School of Humanities and Social
Sciences, Applied Cognitive Science Lab. His research interests
include:
 Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Modelling
 Human-Computer Interaction
 Situation Awareness
 Judgment and Decision Making
 Environmental Decision Making
(For more information: http://faculty.iitmandi.ac.in/~varun/)
Mr. Pratik Chaturvedi (Project Associate)
Ph.D. Student currently working under Dr. Varun Dutt. Also working
as Scientist ‘D’ at Defence Terrain Research Laboratory, Defence
Research and Development Organization (New Delhi) on ‘Landslide
risk assessment, monitoring and prediction’.
(For more information: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pratik_Chaturvedi)

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INTRODUCTION
Landslides are widespread,
frequent and sudden hazards that
strike human lives, livestock,
livelihood, living places and
environment in an adverse manner
leading to colossal losses and
damages directly or indirectly in a
cumulative way (Prakash, 2011)[1]
.
As shown in Figure 1, the
destruction caused due to landslides
in India is very high. An
examination of the available data
indicates that 3971 people have
been reported as killed in 248 fatal
events out of 371 socio-
economically significant landslides
over a period of about 300 years in
India (S. Prakash, 2011)[1]
.
The entire landslide affected areas
have been classified in 3
geographical areas that include (i)
West and Northwest Himalaya, (ii)
East and Northeast India and (iii)
South India including Maharashtra
(S. Prakash, 2011)[1]
.
Many organizations across the globe have tried to minimize the damage caused by natural
disasters, by educating people through games and simulations involving people to use disaster
aversion techniques to lower the probability of disaster and protect themselves. These include:
Figure 1: Historical Records of Socio-economically
Significant Landslides in India (Surya Prakash, 2011)
Table 1: Historical Records of Socio-economically
Significant Landslides in India (Surya Prakash, 2011)

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 United Nations - International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
For earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires and floods
 Simulation: Inside the Haiti Earthquake
( http://www.insidedisaster.com/experience/Main.html ) Inside the Haiti Earthquake is
a first-person simulation based on documentary footage from Haiti and real-life
decision scenarios.
Considering the huge damage caused by landslides every year and a very high percentage of
land in India prone to landslides, it is very expensive to deploy early warning systems. The
kind of games shown above can help people understand the importance of investing in landslide
aversion techniques and also train them for any future landslide event. A survey was conducted
for people living in landslide prone area (Chaturvedi P. & Dutt V., 2015) and it was noticed that a
lot of misconceptions about causes of landslides existed. This also had to be handled via this
simulator.
UN/ISDR: http://www.stopdisastersgame.org

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Developing such a game / simulator was the main objective of the internship.
 First of all, a game model was developed on an Excel Spreadsheet by mathematically
modelling the probability of landslide due to investment, probability of landslide due
to rainfall and types of damages (fatality, injury and property) caused in the event of a
landslide. (For more details, please see: CHAPTER 1: MATHEMATICAL MODEL)
 The extreme scenarios have been discussed in CHAPTER 2: SIMULATION
SCENARIO
 Then, website game was developed, keeping concepts of human computer interaction
in mind, using PHP and MySQL as back end and HTML5, Bootstrap, CSS and JS as
front end. (For more details, please see: CHAPTER 3: SIMULATOR WEBSITE)
 Database captures every parameter values while the player is playing the game. The
parameter values for scenarios and messages (based on probability of landslide and day
wise) are also stored in the database. (For more details, please see: CHAPTER 4:
DATABASE DESIGN)

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BACKGROUND
Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh is extremely vulnerable to natural disasters due to its fragile
geology, active tectonics, high relief, critical slopes and intense rainfall.
Previous research shows that public’s understanding of causes and consequences of landslide
disaster and their landslide risk perception is very different from what it ought to be.
A survey conducted recently in Khaliar area of Mandi District, indicated that people living in
landslide prone area had a lot of misconceptions about causes of landslides. Also, people had
very little knowledge about what to do in an event of a landslide. (Chaturvedi & Dutt, 2015)
SURVEY RESULTS (Khaliar Area, Mandi
District, H.P., India)
Though there have been many games / simulations designed on earthquakes, floods, hurricanes
etc., but, there hasn’t been any such work on landslides yet, that involves people directly with
nature and perform transactions in terms of investment on aversion techniques and get rewards
from nature (by getting protected against landslides).
Similar problems involving people interacting with the natural system directly through their
investment have been solved on other risks like Climate Change (V. Dutt, C. Gonzalez, 2012)
[2]
and Cyber Security (V. Dutt, Y.S. Ahn, C. Gonzalez, 2011)[3]
The purpose of this research is to develop such a model.

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CHAPTER 1: MATHEMATICAL MODEL
The model focusses on calculation of total probability of landslides (due to natural factors and
due to investment made in landslide aversion) and also on assessing the types of damages
caused by
landslides and
their effects on
player’s economic
status.
DFD diagrams:
DFD Level 0 and
Level 1

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Explanation of processes:
(A)The calculation of total probability of landslides
It involves calculation of two probabilities:
a) Probability of landslide due to investment
The calculation used here is based on expected payoff equation used in Hasson,
2009. [4]
Expected payoff equation:
E = Initial Endowment
B = Budget towards addressing climate change
n = group size
x i = Investment in Mitigation, x i ≤ B
a i = Investment in Adaption, a i = B − x i
B = x i + a i
m = Return to Mitigation
d = Return to adaptation
S = Severity of Disaster
P = Probability of Disaster
b) Probability of landslide due to natural factors
Natural factors include rainfall, soil type, slope profile, etc. These can be
categorized into two parts:
 Probability of landslide due to rainfall (temporal probability)
 Probability of landslide due to soil type, slope profile etc. (spatial
probability)
The approach used to calculate both of them is based on a research paper by
Geosciences Group, July 2015[5]
. Equation used for calculation of probability of
landslide due to rainfall:

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The logistic regression retained the daily (DR), 3-day cumulative (3DCR) and 30-day
antecedent rainfall (30DAR) as significant predictors influencing slope failure.
The rainfall data was collected as raw data from NASA TRMM project, from January
1, 2004 to April 30, 2013.
(B) Damage Modelling
The damage caused can be classified into 3 categories:
a) Property Loss
b) Fatality
c) Injury
All 3 of them have different kinds of effects on the player’s wealth an income in the
simulator. The data used for calculating probabilities of the above damage has been
obtained from S. Prakash, December 2011. [1]
The stochastic nature of landslide occurrence and damages caused by it have been considered
too.

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CHAPTER 2: SIMULATION SCENARIOS
After the development of the model, analysis was done. Around 10,000 simulations were run
to get average, maximum and minimum values of output parameters. Below are some of the
results in extreme scenarios with respect to investment made by player in the simulation, and
the only output parameter considered is number of landslides in the simulator.
1. Number of landslides when the investment on landslide aversion techniques made by
the player in the simulator is 0% of his income available for investment:
Mean: 48.8128
Max: 59
Min: 35
These results
indicate that the
worst case
scenario of the
game is 59
landslides out of
60 days of the
simulator.
the player in the simulator is 100% of his income available for investment:
Mean: 21.4892
Max: 40
Min: 5
These results
indicate that the
best case scenario
is at least 5
landslides out of 60

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the player in the simulator is 0% - 100% of his income available for investment:
Mean: 37.7
Max: 54
Min: 19
These results indicate
that in an average
scenario gives
approximately 37
landslides out of 60
days of simulator.

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CHAPTER 3: SIMULATOR WEBSITE
(Project is available live at: www.pratik.acslab.org)
Starting up with the activity diagram, the technologies used in the website have been
explained along with sequence of web pages have been discussed in this chapter.
Activity Diagram:

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The technologies used in making the simulator website are:
1) Bootstrap - The most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing
responsive, mobile first projects on the web. (http://getbootstrap.com/)
Reason to use - For fast and decent front-end development of website using grid system
of bootstrap which also considers mobile platform.
2) HTML5, CSS – It is a core technology mark-up language of the Internet used for
structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the look and formatting of a
document written in a mark-up language. (http://www.w3schools.com/html/)
Reason to use – The alternative option was using Adobe Flash, but it requires Adobe
Flash player in the browser which is normally not available on many Linux platforms
and does not come pre-installed on iOS devices. Using Flash, the accessibility of the
game could be compromised and hence making it difficult to implement at any place.
Screenshot 1: Home page (www.pratik.acslab.org) using Grid System of Bootstrap.

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3) Impress JS – It's an open source presentation framework based on the power of CSS3
transforms and transitions in modern browsers and inspired by the idea behind
prezi.com. (http://impress.github.io/impress.js/#/bored)
Reason to use – To present information on home page in an attractive way. Other
alternatives like Deck JS (another open source presentation framework based on CSS
transforms) could be used too.
4) PHP, MySQL – Both of them have been used for back-end of the simulator website.
PHP is a server-side scripting language created in 1995 and designed for web
development but also used as a general-purpose programming language. MySQL is
the most popular open source database and PHP mysqli functions offers connection
between PHP and MySQL. (https://www.mysql.com/ , https://www.php.net/)
5) Highcharts API – It is a product of HIGHSOFT, used for data visualizations on
websites. On the simulator website this has been used for showing the player the
variation probability of landslide as he plays in an interactive way.
(http://www.highcharts.com/) Data Visualization for player using Highcharts API
Screen shot of a slide presented on Home page using Impress JS

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Reason to use – It offers variety of
charts along with automatic tooltip
features. It is compatible with most of
the desktop browsers and mobile /
tablet platforms too. It is based on
native browser technologies, no
plugins needed. It is free for non-
commercial purposes.
6) Qualtrics – Qualtrics is the world’s
leading insight technology provider. A
tool used for conducting surveys. To
collect survey responses from user at
the end of the game.
(http://www.qualtrics.com/)
Reason to use – Scalable, Flexible,
Easy to use. User can control survey flow, Qualtrics can capture URL parameters.
Some screenshots of the website are:
 www.pratik.acslab.org – Home page, please see Screenshot 1.
 http://pratik.acslab.org/instruction.php
- Instructions page (the one accessible
directly from top navigation bar)
Screenshot 2.
 http://pratik.acslab.org/contact.php -
Team page and Contact Form. The e-
mail generated when the user clicks
send button is sent directly to Akshit
Arora and Pratik Chaturvedi,
Screenshot 3.
Screenshot 2: Instructions
Screenshot 3: The Team page and Contact Form

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 http://pratik.acslab.org/consent.php?id=26237a9b6da8d87c4336264358974bdf -
Consent form (Screenshot 4). This page is intended to verify if user is legally eligible
to participate or not. In the URL of this page is the md5 version of unique user ID that
is being generated at the back end and is a session variable for the rest of the time user
is using the simulator. This unique ID enables us to uniquely identify each user that is
visiting the website and match it with the qualtrics database obtained from the qualtrics
survey presented to that user in the end.
- If user answers NO to any question, an alert (Screenshot 5) is generated displaying
that he / she is not eligible to participate. Otherwise he / she is redirected to
Demographics form.
- If user directly tries to access consent
page or any page after consent page
(like game page / demographics page), without going through the home page first,
the user id will not be generated and hence he / she will be displayed an error
message (Screenshot 6), therefore, diverting him / her to the code that generates the
unique id.
o http://pratik.acslab.org/demographic.php?id=d7758e45d1700a9c1b832d5440e49f85&con
nect=true - Demographics Profile. This page is intended to collect basic demographic
information about the user. It is displayed to the user after the consent page. (Screenshot 7)
Screenshot 4: Bottom Section of Consent Form
Screenshot 5: If user answers no. Screenshot 6: when user directly
accesses consent page,
http://pratik.acslab.org/consent.php

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The form validation for e-mail and age field have also been implemented at the back-end
using Java Script and form as also been protected against SQL Injection.
o http://pratik.acslab.org/instruction.php?id=d7758e45d1sfjfa9c1b832d5440e49f85&conne
ct=true&demo=true – Welcome page. It is intended to give a thorough scenario to user in
text form about the simulation he is about to begin. User is presented the same instruction
set as is there in Screenshot 2. Besides instruction set, initial game parameters are also
displayed to him / her. (Screenshot 8)
Screenshot 7: Demographics Profile Form.
Demo
Screenshot
8: Starting
Game
parameters
displayed to
user at the
bottom of
Welcome
Page

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A scenario is a set of parameters that initialize the simulation. Before the welcome page is
loaded, a scenario is chosen randomly from multiple pre-defined scenarios in the database
at the back - end.
o http://pratik.acslab.org/landslide_positive.php - Landslide Occured Page displayed when
user encounters a landslide.
The images appear on this page depend upon 3 factors:
1) Whether property loss has occurred or not
2) Whether injury occurred or not
3) Whether property damage has occurred or not.
Every damage, has it’s own kind of effect on the wealth of the player. To generate maximum
experience for user, GIF animations have been used. (Example of gif file animation:
http://gph.is/1ncvFvX )
Images of each category are selected from random sets of images provided in the database.
Screenshot 9: Page Displayed when landslide occurs and fatality, injury and property
damage have occured

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o http://pratik.acslab.org/game.php - Game Page (Screenshot 10)
This page is the main game page of he user, the logic used behind the calculations of the
game parameters tabele matches the mathematical model discussed earlier in CHAPTER
1: MATHEMATICAL MODEL. The user can click on the help button any time during the
simulation.
Screenshot 10: The game page
Screenshot 11: The help section of game page, visible only when user clicks the help button.

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The messages being displayed in pictorial form are of 2 categories
1) PROBABILITY WISE MESSAGES: Set of messages that displayed when probability
of landslide lies in certain pre-defined range of values in a given scenario.
2) DAY WISE MESSAGES: Set of messages pre-defined in the database to be displayed
at particular day in a given scenario.
For powerful presentation, images used here are not only static ones, but some animations
(GIF files) have also been used to convey the message clearly. Example of animation:
(http://gph.is/1ncvFvX).
1. http://pratik.acslab.org/end.php - At the end of simulation. (Screenshot 12)
On clicking “Continue to Survey” button, user is redirected to:
http://cmu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3a8WJooCRf5b93v?id=55b3nfdsjed181e53.26935423
Qualtrics Survey link, along with URL parameter unique ID created on the Consent Form. This
parameter is captured and stored with the result of survey in qualtrics database.
Screenshot 12: End of simulation

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CHAPTER 4: DATABASE DESIGN
The current website has been hosted on www.apisnetworks.org
The database on the back-end consists of 9 tables as shown in the phpMyAdmin table below:
1) Death Images: It contains the images to be displayed when in an event of landslide a
death occurs.
2) Demographics: It captures the demographic information filled by the user on the
demographic page.
3) Game: It stores every input given by the user during the simulation and every game
parameter associated with it.
4) Injury Images: It contains the set of images, on of which is to be displayed when in an
event of landslide an injury occurs.
5) Message Day: It contains the images which are to be displayed on the game page on
specfied days in a given scenario.
6) Message Probability: It contains the images which are to be displayed on the game page
when specific range of probability of landslide is achieved in a given scenario.
7) Param: It is the parameter table that consists of different pre-defined scenarios and the
values associated with game parameters needed to initialize the simulation.
8) Property Images: It contains the set of images, on of which is to be displayed when in
an event of landslide a property damage occurs.
9) Reference: It consists of rainfall data being used for calculation of probability of
landslide due to natural factors.

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LIMITATIONS
The limitations of the simulator are:
1. Culture Specific: The kind of assumptions made in the mathematical model are
specific to the culture of north India. These values may change from region to region.
2. Not a multi-player simulator: In reality it is not necessary that investment has to be
made individually. Such investments are usually made on community basis and
therefore, this idea of public goods game can be incorporated into the current
mathematical model.
3. Language: Currently the game is available only in English. But to be able to implement
it on a wider community, multiple languages (Hindi, etc.) will have to be made
available.

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CONCLUSIONS
In the conclusion it can be said that the simulator is fulfilling the objective it was designed for.
Simulator can be applied in many ways:
o Designing better disaster management systems: The model working behind this game
will help understanding the risk taking capacity people living in a particular area and how
much they want to invest in landslide aversion, therefore, generating a risk perception
profile of that area. Such profiles can be useful in designing better disaster management
systems.
o One of a kind landslide model since it considers investment factor: Most of the existing
models around landslides are taking into account only the natural factors. The model behind
this game takes into account not only them but investment made in landslide aversion too.
o Realistic Simulation: Since the model being used has been scientifically designed using
accurate historical data, this game simulates a realistic environment that a player living in
landslide prone area can directly relate to.
o Creating an awareness in the community: This kind of an arrangement allows the player
to directly relate to the game and see the consequences of the decisions they make in terms
of investment. The messages shown in the game page help to give important disaster
mitigation and preparedness information, thus telling them what to do in an event of
landslide.
o Feedback Mechanism: The survey conducted before [1]
has proved that people have no
clear understanding about causes of landslides. This survey has been put at the end of this
game too, so that the difference the game has made in public understanding can be recorded
and compared with the observations made last time. This serves as a feedback mechanism,
which can help us further improve the simulation.
o Designing better area specific policies: For policy makers in the government, it is vital to
know as much as they can about how people living in disaster prone areas, think, so that
better policies can be made.

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FUTURE WORK
This model can be further developed for following purposes:
1. As a part of School Curriculum: The model can be modified to use the simulation as
a game for school students, to make them aware about common terms related to disaster
management (mitigation, preparedness and aversion) and let them experience the effect
of their direct investment on disaster aversion.
2. Developed for multiple language: The website front-end can be modified to make the
content available in other languages.
3. Multi-player game: The concept of public goods game can be added to the current
model, in order to make it more realistic and fun.
Project Video Link: http://bit.do/akshit_arora_101303012
REFERENCES
1. Prakash S. (December 2012). Historical Records of Socio-economically Significant
Landslides in India [pdf]. Retrieved from
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/272905239_Historical_Records_of_Socio-
economically_Significant_Landslides_in_India
2. Dutt V., Gonzalez C. (April, 2012). Human Control of Climate Change [pdf]. Retrieved
from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-011-0202-x#page-1
3. Dutt V., Ahn Y.S., Gonzalez C. (January, 2011). Cyber Situation Awareness: Modeling
the Security Analyst in a Cyber-Attack Scenario through Instance-Based Learning
[pdf]. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-22348-8_24
4. Hasson R. (2010). Climate Change in a Public Goods Game: Investment Decision in
Mitigation versus Adaptation [pdf]. Retrieved from:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800910003459
5. Geosciences Group (July, 2015). Experimental Landslide Early Warning System for
Rainfall Triggered Landslides along Rishikesh-Badrinath, Rishikesh-Uttarkashi-
Gaumukh, Chamoli-Okhimath, Rudraprayag-Kedarnath and Pithoragarh-Malpa route
corridors, Uttarakhand: Approach document [pdf]. Retrieved from: http://bhuvan-
noeda.nrsc.gov.in/disaster/disaster/tools/landslide/doc/landslide_warning.pdf

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