Collaboration enabled GIS Tools for Emergency Operation Centre

Abstract

Geographical information systems (GIS) have been widely used in emergency operation centre (EOC) for modeling, spatial decision-making and map distribution. However, the collapse of EOC itself, for example the destroyed EOC in the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 and the Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana had inevitably delayed the emergency response. Although virtual EOC (VEOC) provides partial solutions to this problem, most of the VEOC software products are limited in providing real-time collaboration and coordination using GIS tools. This paper presents the results of a research project, aiming at providing such collaborative GIS software tools over the Internet for the VEOC. The prototype software adopts a semi-replicated and distributed architecture and is deployed over Internet. Several collaborative tools such as telepointer, radar view, participant list and action status, chat and video are designed to support participant’s awareness and collaboration. Using these tools, emergency personals, experts and government agencies at all levels and dispersed all over the country can share not only data sources but also the views, GIS modelling or process, even work environments hosted in a EOC or several EOCs, so that everyone with access privilege can evaluate the critical situations at the same time without physically present in the operations centre.