What is disaster risk management? What is the role of geospatial information in DRM?
Oct 23rd, 2014 by j0p
By Charlotte Stirn
If we study the past and recent news it gets apparent that disasters are happening nearly every day in many different forms, affecting the lives of many thousands and millions of people every year (current example: Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea) (De Ville de Goyet).
Mankind has always been exposed to natural hazard and thus disaster but what has changed is the way how we deal with disaster in modern society. Modern communication systems led to the development of a disaster risk management system.
But first of all: What defines a disaster and disaster risk? Disaster risk is a combination of any kind of hazard and a vulnerable society (Fig. 1). A disaster only occurs if a hazard striking a vulnerable society results in significant injury or damage (Cova 2005).
Fig. 1: Definition of disaster and disaster risk (after COVA 2005).
Disaster risk management (DRM) aims to deal with disaster by considering all these factors. It encompasses different phases of action that take place before, during and after a disaster (Fig.2).
The disaster risk management before the strike of a hazard involves mitigation, prevention, preparedness and the development of early warning systems. Geographic information systems (GIS) may be used for risk assessment (e.g. to predict the extent of a flood to coordinate evacuation) and long-term mitigation (e.g. avoid settling in highly vulnerable areas).
During and immediately after the occurrence of a hazard (phase of relief and response) the main effort comprises saving and protecting lives. Geospatial information like the position of collapsed buildings can be supportive for the search and rescue-teams or to find undestroyed pathways to hospitals or for evacuation. Shortly after the disaster the support of basic needs like water, food, shelter and medical support have to be restored.
Recovery is the final phase of DRM after the disaster which aims to improve the living conditions by rebuilding and restoration. Damage is assessed and gained information collected to learn from the event to be better prepared for future hazards (Cova 2005, De Ville de Goyet 2008, NRC 2007, Konečný 2010).
Fig.2: Phases of disaster risk management before, during and after a disaster and their objectives (based on COVA 2005, DE VILLE DE GOYET 2008, NRC 2007 AND KONEČNÝ 2010).
The importance of geospatial data is getting more and more obvious as it links any given information to a location. Coordination, navigation and distribution – most information needed during a disaster is geospatial. GPS allows to track people and emergency supply or to position input information from other sensors. High resolution remote sensing data can be evaluated to assess damage and destruction of pathways. GIS-Programs offer the opportunity to connect all the given information in a map and thus support decision-making (Cova 2005, Manfré et al. 2012, Kawasaki et al. 2013).
In sum disaster risk management offers a guideline to cope with the complexity and unpredictability of disasters based on modern communication- and geographic information systems like GIS, remote sensing and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (e.g. Global Positioning System GPS). It is a tool to support decision-making by collecting all the available information and creating a network (Kawasaki et al. 2013, Cova 2005).
But this is just the beginning – future challenges have to be solved to improve disaster risk management. The goal is to develop an open, fast, flexible, transparent and standardized data sharing system so information can be located quickly and by everyone. As OpenStreetMap and other Webmapping services evolve everyone gets the opportunity to be part of the solution.
After all some questions for discussion and future blogposts remain:
- Disasters are complex and sudden – is disaster risk management the right way to deal with such situations?
- Which negative aspects can result from this large-scale and open data-sharing?
- What about places without broad internet access and large numbers of mobile phones? Who will provide the necessary information-input?
- What about data quality?
Literature:
Cova, T. J. (2005). GIS in emergency management. In P. A. Longley, M. F. Goodchild, D. J. Maguire, & D. W. Rhind (Eds.), Geographical Information Systems: Principles, Techniques, Management and Applications (2nd Editio., pp. 845–858). Wiley.
De Ville de Goyet, C. (2008): 2 Information Gaps in Relief, Recovery and Reconstruction in the Aftermath of Natural disasters. In: Amin, S., & Goldstein, M. (Eds.). (2008). Data against Natural Disasters. The World Bank.
Kawasaki, A., Berman, M. L., & Guan, W. (2013). The growing role of web-based geospatial technology in disaster response and support. Disasters, 37(2), 201–21. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7717.2012.01302.x
Konečný, M., & Reinhardt, W. (2010). Early warning and disaster management: the importance of geographic information (Part A). International Journal of Digital Earth, 3(3), 217–220. doi:10.1080/17538947.2010.508884
Manfré, L. a., Hirata, E., Silva, J. B., Shinohara, E. J., Giannotti, M. a., Larocca, A. P. C., & Quintanilha, J. a. (2012). An Analysis of Geospatial Technologies for Risk and Natural Disaster Management. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 1(3), 166–185. doi:10.3390/ijgi1020166
NRC. National Research Council (2007). Improving Disaster Management: The Role of IT in Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery (p. 192). National Academies Press. Chapters 1 and 2.
Online-support of recent disaster (Ebola-epidemic):
Very good introductory post to DRM!
When you write “the importance of geospatial data is getting more and more obvious [and] the goal is to develop an open, fast, flexible, transparent and standardized data sharing system so information can be located quickly and by everyone”, I wonder if this is the general point of view in DRM, or rather that of geographers. I can only estimate that geographers tend to present such information systems as a crucial goal, but that other disciplines involved in DRM don’t attach such importance to it.
Did you see a different emphasis reading geo-related articles and those with a “neutral” background?
I agree that geographical information and GIS are important to support DRM, but sometimes – like now during the Ebola epidemic – other parts of DRM such as medical support find greater awareness.
Hey everyone,
First of all, thank you for the insightful introduction to the course; it really helped to understand the basics of DRM.
I think one of the vast advantages today is our ability to transfer information around the world in an instant. Especially during a disaster it can be an asset to rely on the knowledge of the people living the closest. They can provide information for the rescue teams and locate the places which are in urgent need of medical or food supply.
However, it has to be considered that the people posting online are not trained experts and sometimes the information is not as valuable as it appears at first sight. During a disaster, it would be helpful to have a specialized team which goes through all the information provided and tries to filter out the most important facts.
One question that might come up during that search is whether or not one can trust the given information, which I think we will discuss intensely throughout the course. For me the answer to that question revolves around the content of responsibility. Everyone who takes the time to get involved in DRM should feel a responsibility to convey clear, correct and insightful information. At least that is how I felt while mapping on OSM and trying to help from thousand kilometers away.
Looking forward to hear about more opinions on the topic.
Have a nice friday everyone,
Johanna
Hello everyone,
thanks first for the summary, I think it is really successful.
Reflecting the comment from Sophie I think that surely geospatial data are fundamental to find and to help injured person in the context of disasters. But geospatial data are not all. If you connect the location from a people who needs help, with his personal situation you can give the rescue team usefull information. So uninjured people with smartphones might deliver with an app these information to a platform. The graphical presentation in a map can help the Rescue Coordination Centre to coordinate the mission of the rescue team. So the people on site can help other injured people with sending information to a central organ, where these data can be used.
Naturally we can not be sure that the delivered informations are 100% correctly, but you might personalize the information which you are sending, so that you might trace back the data in case of their significant inaccuracy.
I am not sure if my post is really something new, but right now I am just a little bit amazed of the opportunities smartphones can give to us :-)
Greetings,
Dirk
The post ends with some good questions.
I would like to focus my comment with a little reflection on one of the paragraphs of the blogpost:
“The disaster risk management before the strike of a hazard involves mitigation, prevention, preparedness and the development of early warning systems. Geographic information systems (GIS) may be used for risk assessment (e.g. to predict the extent of a flood to coordinate evacuation) and long-term mitigation (e.g. avoid settling in highly vulnerable areas).”
The territory is booming, everyone uses maps and land is our working environment, maps are our tools. The work of geographer is timeless in the sense that a geographer’s work is based on the relationship between people and space. People will always exist just as the spaces. Therefore, we have to develop mechanisms necessary to work in the field of people-space relationships. But is is not only necessary to think about specific tool, but to develop an action model which helps the geographer to contribute his knowledge from the field of cartography in case of a disaster.
The role of geospatial data is clear, but it is also important to have a look at the role of geographers in this field.
Nico.
Hello everyone,
thanks to this brief but clear introduction of disaster risk management!
I’ve also read these meaningful comments and noticed that many have pointed out the limits of applying geospatial information in DRM. But first of all I want to argue that there are big differences between geospatial information and the volunteered geographic information. Although I can’t tell the exact definitions of them, I think volunteered geographic information is part of geospatial information. The official spatial data from GPS, remote sensing and GIS have already played a great role in DRM by providing geo-referenced information.
But just as mentioned in the text, this is just a beginning. The point I am interested in is the potential of geospatial information and in what extent it will change the way of DRM. Thanks to the internet, managers can obtain geospatial information from the public and residents also have access to official information in return. What’s more, these information are in time and rich. Therefore, I think one principle of using geospatial information in DRM is to apply distinct characters of them in different periods of DRM. While the most important character of geospatial information we rely on during disaster is timeliness, the greatness, variety and quality of data are more important before and after disaster.
Looking forward to more discussion:)
Regards,
Yan
Hi everyone,
I’d like to comment on Johannas sentences: “One question that might come up during that search is whether or not one can trust the given information, which I think we will discuss intensely throughout the course. For me the answer to that question revolves around the content of responsibility. Everyone who takes the time to get involved in DRM should feel a responsibility to convey clear, correct and insightful information.”
I do agree that responsibility is a really important part of it. People who take their time wo work on those maps should do their work in a good manner. If there is any problem in the map because someone made mistake (on purpose or not) the people working with it have the advantage that hey are a great number of people. They have to opportunity and the resonsibiltiy to check and correct every information. This means that the whole community of mappers make shure that the created map is accurate. So even if there is someone who adds false information we have the advantage of the economies of scale.
Greetings
David