I am working with the Red Cross to improve their impact-based forecasting (IBF) model for typhoon damage in the Philippines. The goal is to make the model sensitive to errors in decision-making such differences in failing to protect an impacted municipality vs. spending money to unnecessarily protect an unaffected municipality.

Project Overview

Motivation	The current model for predicting cyclone damage in the Philippines recommends actions based on a damage threshold that is not sensitive to the costs of forecast errors
Model	A cost-sensitive model that considers the differences in value for failing to protect an impacted municipality or spending money to unnecessarily protect an unaffected municipality
Client	International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC)
Status	In Progress
Outcome	TBD

The Philippines are struck by 20 typhoons a year on average. Climate change is intensifying the effects of these storms and several reach the category of ’super typhoon’. Impact-based forecasting (IBF) is one of the mechanisms used for triggering early actions. IBF means turning forecasts and warnings from descriptions of what the weather will be into assessments of what the weather will do.