Proposing Effective Method to Develop Common Operational Picture in Disaster Response Utilizing Cloud-based Geospatial Infrastructure

Abstract

The concept of Mashup, which refers to forming a new service by combining technologies and contents from multiple sources, already exists after Web2.0 in the field of software development; however, its concept was not converted well to social service yet. After Tohoku Earthquake ministries and agencies in Japan found it necessary to organize the pieces of information in a geospatial manner in order to take a comprehensive, panoramic view of situations at the site. We organized the Emergency Mapping Team (EMT) as to be able to gather and analyze the information in the cooperative relationship with government. For example under the serious situation of Fukushima Nuclear accident the EMT organized the layers of the impacted area including the information about indicating the locations of buildings, the evacuation situations in areas under directives to evacuate. Using those layers disaster responders simulated the necessity of human and material resources to support the evacuation operation. In this activity, we have stored the outcomes as spatial layers into the Cloud-based Spatial Data Infrastructure. After this activity at the Cabinet Office, we moved our focus to Iwate Prefecture affected by huge tsunami. Utilizing this infrastructure, the responders at Iwate just added the detail of data which only they gathered through their disaster response, and they could develop the COP in their own view points. In this paper, we discuss the effective method to develop COP utilizing the Cloud-based Spatial Data Infrastructure from the view point of all-Japan to the one of limited affected area.