jailcd2015067: Flood Disaster Prevention in Kabul, Afghanistan Focusing on the Investment Efficiency

Abstract

Afghanistan, about 70% of land covered by mountains, is surrounded by Hindo Kush, Pamir, Safed Koh, Koh Baba mountain chains. This geological condition causes various disasters in different times and different types. They are floods, earthquakes, snow slides, blasts and land sliding and so on. Among them, flood is frequent and giving more serious damages in social, economic and environmental aspects. Especially the highway connecting Torkham Border to Kabul city, which is one of the most important access of the country, is owning about 60% of country import mainly from Pakistan. However the road is easily damaged by flood because of many crossings over the valleys. The shortage of oil, gas and foods seriously affect citizens’ daily life. In addition, inner city of Kabul has no proper drainage system in preparing flood coming from the hilly and mountain geological condition. As a result, the city has been suffering from serous traffic jam which is affecting all the urban activities. To avoid the disastrous inefficiency, this paper focuses on real time social network system (SNS) to collect photos indicating locations and current states of flood/traffic jams. The system is open to everybody and photos are supplied by the citizens including car drivers.