Gis applications in emergency management

Maps and data may be layered, displayed, edited, and analyzed in literally thousands of different ways by careful selection of data-points being considered by the user.

GIS is a very useful tool for many aspects of emergency management including emergency response, planning, mitigation, exercises, homeland security, response, and recovery.

GIS has robust modeling capabilities, allowing its users to adjust data and scenarios for prediction, planning, and estimation.

GIS capability is enhanced when FEMA’s Hazus software and other tools are incorporated.

GIS provides emergency management personnel and decision makers the information they need to make accurate and timely decisions.

Maps and data may be layered, displayed, edited, and analyzed in literally thousands of different ways by careful selection of data-points being considered by the user.

GIS is a very useful tool for many aspects of emergency management including emergency response, planning, mitigation, exercises, homeland security, response, and recovery.

GIS has robust modeling capabilities, allowing its users to adjust data and scenarios for prediction, planning, and estimation.

GIS capability is enhanced when FEMA’s Hazus software and other tools are incorporated. Hazus is a GIS program which produces economic loss and social impacts for earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and tsunamis.

GIS provides emergency management personnel and decisionmakers the information they need to make accurate and timely decisions.

• GIS fundamentals and history
• How GIS is used in emergency management
• Tools available to enhance GIS usefulness

This course is designed for individuals who use GIS to support emergency management mitigation, planning, response, and recovery operations.

After completing the course you should be able to:

• Define basic GIS terms and concepts.
• Describe how GIS is used in emergency management.
• Identify two tools that can be used to enhance GIS information.

While the course will not promote specific GIS solutions, it will:

• Provide an overview of the types of technology options that are currently available.
• Equip you with a list of questions and issues that you should consider when choosing the best solution for your organization.

The course content is divided into six lessons. To help you keep track of your place within the course, the current lesson title will be displayed in the upper left corner of each screen.

• Define basic GIS terms and concepts.
• Describe how GIS is used in emergency management.
• Identify two tools that can be used to enhance GIS information.

• The hardware, software, and methods that allow people to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present geographically referenced data.
• A spatial data-management tool made up of “intelligent” computer maps linked to databases that describe map features.

GIS functions include the ability to:

• Create and/or input data.
• Modify data.
• Store data.
• Analyze data.
• Output information and maps.
• Distribute data and information.

Each of these functions will be covered in more detail later in this course.

• Identifying the potential impacts due to an earthquake and assigning inspectors to specific neighborhoods.
• Modeling the positive benefits of mitigation to a hurricane-prone community.
• Developing secure GIS layers of local city/county critical infrastructure data, including a web application for data viewing and printing.

• Data sets that ensure the ability to provide customers with critical information.
• GIS models that produce maps and other outputs, including damage assessment data.

• Customized data sets of local resources.
• Maps produced to model impacts from likely event scenarios.
• Data collection tools for damage assessment, recording field conditions, tracking the movements of DSAT teams and helping to register disaster survivors.

• What GIS is and how it has evolved over time.
• Some ways in which GIS is used in emergency management.
• Some of the tools that are available to enhance GIS usefulness.

Lesson 2 Overview and Objectives

Course Welcome

This lesson introduces basic information about GIS capabilities.

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Define GIS components.
• Name and describe two GIS data types.
• Name and describe two GIS data features.
• Analyze a scenario to identify the GIS capabilities described.

Remember that Dr. John Snow first used GIS to track a cholera outbreak in London. The same components that Dr. Snow used to solve his problem remain the basis of GIS today. Fortunately, computers allow a much greater application of each component.

This lesson will describe how modern GIS uses three main components:

• Aerial Imagery
• Water features (Hydrography)
• Jurisdictional boundaries
• Infrastructure, such as streets, buildings, rail -- anything that could be considered a key feature or critical infrastructure
• Other information, such as zoning boundaries, contours, soil types, anything that has spatial qualities and may be useful for analysis.

Input data can be collected on almost anything and can be linked to at least one, and usually several, geographic locations. Most input data have already been georeferenced—that is, the data have been linked digitally to a geographic location.

GIS data can be grouped into two categories:

• Raster data
• Vector data

There are three types of vector data:

• Point data
• Polygon data
• Line data

These data types are described on the next screens.

GIS data can be grouped into one of two categories:

• Raster data are made up of thousands of individual pixels merged to create a digital image (e.g., a photograph). The smaller the pixel, the higher or more detailed the resolution of the image becomes. Raster data is best used for continuous information, such as creating surface elevations or showing the differences in rainfall amounts over an area, and imagery.
• Vector data includes the points, lines, and polygons that represent the locations and/or boundaries of map features. Vector data would be used for applications that require more precision:
  • Property boundaries.
  • Showing detailed twists and turns, as in streams.
  • Depicting roads or utilities.
  • Identifying exact intersections.
  • Pinpointing the exact location of an elevation measurement.
  Point Data

  Point data include any features that have a specific location on a map. Examples of point data may include:

  • Locations of key infrastructure (e.g., fire halls, precinct houses, hospitals, shelters).
  • Community assets (e.g., the locations of road salt or earth-moving equipment).
  Polygon (Aggregate) Data

  Polygons are depictions of areas, just as in geometry, and are used to depict things such as state and county boundaries, lakes and bodies of water, and areas that have the same properties (soil types, boundaries of tornado damage swaths, areas that flood).

  Polygons can be used to aggregate point data by any geography (e.g., census block, city boundary). This results in polygon data that counts the number of data points within each polygon, as opposed to specific locations. This methodology can be used to protect an individual’s privacy by such as when:

  • Mapping repetitive-loss facilities (protected data) by a unit such as county, so individual locations do not show.
  • There is not enough information available to represent the data with pinpoint accuracy (such as when mapping patients during an outbreak where patient addresses cannot be used so information analysis, such as by zip code, would be necessary).
  GIS Characteristics

  GIS exhibits three main characteristics:

  • Location
  • Temporality
  • Accuracy

  These characteristics are described on the next screens.

  GIS Characteristics: Map Projection

  When representing the surface of a sphere or other three-dimensional shape on a flat surface, distortion necessarily occurs. To correct for the distortion and create an accurate map, the map projection used to develop each layer must be known.

  Regardless of the map projection, all features on each map layer are correlated to those on other layers and can be corrected to visually overlay accurately.

  GIS Characteristics: Accuracy

  GIS Characteristics: Data Quality

  Data quality refers to the credibility and accuracy of the data, and may be quantitative or qualitative

  Quantitative refers to the measurable components:

  • Spatial Accuracy of vector data is defined by scale. The larger the scale, the more accurate the location of any given point in the map is expected to be.
  • Spatial Resolution refers to the cell size in raster data. The smaller the cell size, the more accurate the data.
  • Data values (cell values in raster, database values in vector) can be tested for levels of accuracy.

  Qualitative quality usually is a measure of how reliable the user believes the data to be. Is it from a trusted source? Has it undergone any quality assurance in it's development?

  GIS Characteristics: Digital Orthophotography (3 of 3) GIS Characteristics: Digital Orthophotography (3 of 3)

  REMOVE THIS SLIDE

  1 meter

  1 foot

  6 inch

  Using Digital Orthophotography

  The process of creating new layers by tracing on top of the photography is called planimetrics. The image at the right shows how the building outlines have been drawn from the orthophotography.

  GIS Database

  In vector data, each feature is associated with a record in a table that contains data values describing the feature. Each feature has a unique identifier, which ties it to the correct record in the table.
  

  These tables are relational databases, so the data can be queried in the same way as any relational database. Typical queries include finding values “greater than,” “less than,” “begins with,” “before,” or "equals."
  

  GIS Database Lesson Summary
  • Define GIS components.
  • Name and describe two GIS data types.
  • Name and describe three GIS data features.
  • Name some functions of GIS databases
  Lesson Overview and Objectives
  • Describe how GIS is used in emergency management.
  • Review scenarios to determine how GIS might be used to solve emergency management issues.
  Uses of GIS in Emergency Management GIS Map Data

  GIS maps can provide a wide array of data for emergency managers, including:

  • Hazard damage prediction
  • Repetitive losses
  • Superfund locations
  • Shelter locations
  How Is GIS Used Within FEMA?

  GIS is widely used for emergency management purposes. FEMA’s Mapping and Analysis Center (MAC) uses GIS to disseminate geographic information to Emergency Support Function (ESF) 5, Information and Planning, during disaster operations. FEMA is expanding its use of GIS to provide a full range of GIS services to all FEMA program offices.

  Using GIS for Emergency Management Using GIS for Mitigation (1 of 3)
  • Reduce the effects of a future disaster
  • Lessen the likelihood of experiencing damaging effects from an incident
  • Eliminate the possibility of being affected
  Using GIS for Mitigation (2 of 3)

  The Federal Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA2K) mandated local governments to develop and adopt a Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan (MHMP). The MHMP should include a risk assessment and mitigation strategies to maintain eligibility for certain Federal disaster assistance and hazard mitigation funding programs. Communities participating in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) must adopt the MHMP to receive FEMA mitigation grant funds.

  Using GIS for Mitigation (3 of 3)

  The DMA2K requires the best available data to be used in a risk assessment. GIS data and analyses can be used to identify the community’s critical facilities and estimate potential risk. One source of information could be contained in the city and county GIS, which includes roads, municipal boundaries, parcels, and addresses. This information can be linked to assessors’ data to provide building value, square footage, and building use (residential, commercial, etc.) to calculate which assets are at greatest risk.

  GIS can also be used to locate and analyze the community’s essential facilities including Community Lifelines, schools, police, fire departments, medical care facilities, and emergency operations centers.
  

  Example: Emergency Action Plan (EAP) for a High Hazard Dam
  • Low hazard (L) means that failure or incorrect operation of the dam will result in no loss of human life and very minimal economic or environmental losses; losses are primarily limited to the owner’s property.
  • Significant hazard (S) means that failure or incorrect operation results in no probable loss of human life. It can cause economic loss, environment damage, and disruption of lifeline facilities.
  • High hazard (H) means that failure or incorrect operation has a very high risk and can result in loss of human life and significant damage to buildings and infrastructure.
    
  Example: Emergency Action Plan (EAP) for a High Hazard Dam (2 of 2) GIS Uses for Preparedness

  Preparedness encompasses those actions by which team members conduct a risk analysis, develop the Emergency Operations Plan (EOP), and take actions to develop and maintain a state of readiness. GIS can support detailed operations-level planning, training, and exercising by:

  • Developing and conducting training and exercise materials.
  • Developing lists of detailed GIS data and resource requirements to support emergency management needs.
  • Developing secure and redundant GIS layers of local, city, or county critical infrastructure data.