EXPOS: Modeling Topographic Exposure to Wind

• Investigators: Emery Boose
• Contact: Emery Boose
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• Keywords: hurricane, landscape patterns, modeling, topographic exposure, wind damage
• Abstract:

  EXPOS is a simple model of topographic exposure to wind that utilizes digital elevation data to predict which points on a landscape are exposed to or protected from a given wind direction. The model was developed to approximate the effects of topography on hurricane wind flow at a landscape scale (~ 10 km).

  The model requires an accurate digital elevation map and a specified wind direction. Each point on the elevation map is then classified as protected or exposed, depending on whether or not it falls within the wind shadow cast by points upwind. The wind shadow is estimated by assuming that the wind bends downward no more than a fixed inflection angle from the horizontal as it passes over a height of land. The effects of topographic features beyond the margins of the input elevation map are of course not predicted by the model.

  For a given landscape and wind direction, predicted protected areas decrease in size as the inflection angle increases. Application of the model in studies of two recent hurricanes suggests that the probability of wind damage in protected areas also decreases as the inflection angle increases. An inflection angle of about 5 to 10 degrees was found to give good results.

  For more information on the EXPOS model, please see the published paper (Boose, E. R., D. R. Foster, and M. Fluet. 1994. Hurricane impacts to tropical and temperate forest landscapes. Ecological Monographs 64: 369-400). Additional information is contained in the documentation that accompanies the program.

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• Related datasets: HF010 HF011 HF012