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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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October/November
2007
Volume 13 - Number
1/2 |
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Successful Response Starts with Understanding Data… then a Map By Noah Goodman Those of us in the geospatial arena, whether you
are a GIS geek or have a basic knowledge of spatial technologies, have probably
heard about a recent publication from the National Academy of Sciences –
‘Successful Response Starts with a Map’. This publication along with
a more recent article in the Economist titled “The World on your Desktop”
begins to address the use of the ‘geoweb’ in emergency management; the Google
Earths’ and geo-mash up phenomenon.
The use of technology in emergency management is an evolving field; as the complexity of events increases, so does the need for advanced technology in helping manage these events. This holds true for the use of spatial technologies in emergency management. The response to hurricane Katrina put the use of the geoweb in the public eye – TV reports used Google Earth to do fly-over’s of areas, reporting and response agencies became enthralled with the power of satellite imagery, and the use of publicly available data and technologies made the information sharing world much easier. The geoweb’s ability, as discussed in “The World on your Desktop”, to bring a real world picture to the desktop of decision makers and the public is only going to advance with faster data processing and more use of open source technologies. Furthermore, the scalability and accessibility will lessen the economic resources of hardware/software requirements, adding to the benefits of this technology. This pairing of technology and economic benefits of the geoweb is still in it’s infancy for emergency management and needs to be understood as such. The publications mentioned begin to address this need of understanding geoweb technology but still lack the understanding of data which makes the geoweb so powerful. The issue of understanding data through the geoweb needs to address the following: how relevant is this data, how reliable is the source, what is the time period of this data. To a decision maker in an emergency management role, these questions need to be answered prior to the use of this data. As we are seeing with the geoweb, anyone can open a web browser and have a picture of their area, overlaid with other spatial information and can begin to make queries or ask questions of this data on proximity, area, direction. With the geoweb’s ‘ease of use factor’, tools and data at your fingertips, users become instant practitioners of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), in a dummied-down environment. This statement is not a knock on the geoweb nor is it glorifying us GIS-er’s, rather it is addressing the key point of this article – the lack of data understanding renders the system useless. With the instantaneousness of the geoweb, users become reliant on the application with little regard to the information they are faced with. For example, Hurricane Katrina was a fast moving system; made landfall and cleared out rather quickly. This short time elapse allowed for the quick collection and dissemination of remotely sensed data, imagery and imagery derived products, via the geoweb and was crucial in the response activities. Take the same hurricane but slow it down, what happens to the heavily relied upon imagery data? Satellite imagery, for the sake of imagery and imagery products, cannot penetrate cloud cover. Users reliant on the geoweb would now be faced with a serious time delay in data flow which is unacceptable in response activities, thus making the system useless. This is just one of any number of circumstances by which the knowledge and reliance of data through the geoweb has to be addressed. Successful response starts with understanding data…. Reference: Successful Response Starts with a Map: Improving Geospatial Support for Disaster Management Committee on Planning for Catastrophe: A Blueprint for Improving Geospatial Data, Tools, and Infrastructure, National Research Council http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11793 The Economist: The World on your Desktop http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9719045 |