App for Earthquake compensation process
Introduction
This was a group project aimed to analyse the earthquakes experienced in Groningen due to gas extraction and finding an intervention for the residents affected.
The Groningen Gas Field was discovered in 1959 and the gas has been extracted by NAM from 1963 until today. The first earthquake in Groningen occurred in 1986, and there have been more over the year.
The earthquakes were experienced mainly in two villages-Steendam and Tjuchem.
Methodology
The methodology carried out in this project is as shown below.
Stakeholder analysis
The earthquakes caused property, economic and psychological damages. NAM took liability for the damages, and the government was involved in compensating the citizens.
Due to conflicting interests, independent institutions were set up to handle the compensation, but these institutions changed over time.
The involvement of many institutions, the lack of communication, and the lack of speed in the process have led to residents becoming more and more frustrated.
Problem analysis
The aim of our project was to find an intervention for the residents affected by the earthquakes. Therefore, we sent our questionnaires to some of the residents in order to get their opinion on what were their biggest challenges. The biggest source of frustration that was often mentioned (in the questionnaire) was the compensation and damage assessment procedure.
As our intervention, we suggested the development of an app since it would make the damage assessment and compensation more clear to the residents. The compensation would then have three phases.
Phase I would be carried out by the resident to report damages, the location of the house, and proof of damage by photography.
Phase II would be based on InSAR analysis to assess the surface deformation caused by the earthquake then apply GIS analysis to overlay the location of the houses with the deformation map. The result of the data analysis should give an overview of the houses which experienced damage.
Phase III is to communicate with the residents and stakeholders. Through the app, the residents will be up to date with the compensation stage of their damage claim and receive earthquake warnings and general information on the compensation such as the budget. The stakeholders working together will also communicate through the app for faster processing.
References
Kruiver, P. P., Wiersma, A., Kloosterman, F. H., De Lange, G., Korff, M., Stafleu, J., ... Doornhof, Di. (2017). Characterisation of the Groningen subsur-face for seismic hazard and risk modelling. Geologie En Mijnbouw/Netherlands Journal of Geosciences, 96(5), s215–s233. https://-doi.org/10.1017/njg.2017.11
Van Dunne, J. (2018). Liability issues in gas and coal mining for damage caused by soil subsidence, earthquakes, and groundwater management under Dutch law or: A tale of two provinces - Groningen and Limburg. Uniform Law Review, 23(2), 354–372. https://doi.org/10.1093/ulr/uny019