The fourth column in action: Dutch municipalities organizing geo-information for disaster management

Abstract

Disaster management depends on large volumes of accurate, relevant, on-time geo-information that various organizations systematically create and maintain. In The Netherlands municipalities are an important party in the safety management chain when accurate geo-information is concerned. As opposed to municipalities in many other countries Dutch municipalities not only carry out central government policies but also have several policy areas in which they operate autonomously. Hence Dutch municipalities have a wealth of geo-information. This is why in the safety management chain Dutch municipalities are often referred to as the fourth column besides the police, the fire department and medical care. However, due to the municipal autonomy the geo-information is structured and described in as many ways as there are municipalities. This results in a situation in which the semantics of geo-information is not even always clear to the producer and whereby formal semantics are almost never available. On the other hand following several large scale disasters such as the fire in a pub in Volendam and the exploded fireworks factory in Enschede Dutch government has decided to reorganise disaster management in The Netherlands in so called safety regions. These regions consist of several municipalities. Thus this development increases the demand for easily accessible and readily available relevant, standardized and accurate geo-information from municipalities on a regional level. Working from the same municipal autonomy that has created the described difficulties Dutch municipalities have organised themselves to found DataLand. DataLand is the non-profit on-stop-shop for municipal geo-information. The mission of this initiative is to make the municipal geo-information widely accessible. In fulfilling its mission DataLand together with its participating municipalities standardizes the registrations and formalizes the semantics so that third parties know what information they get. Also DataLand actively monitors the data quality. This paper will focus primarily on how DataLand as a one stop shop offers a solution to the problem of data management between the different columns involved in disaster management. The paper will demonstrate how challenges for data management, data collection, translation, integration, classification and attributes schemes, temporal aspects (up-to-dateness, history, predictions of the future) are tackled by using simple, low cost IT solutions. Also the paper will describe how open communication is of overriding importance in creating co-operation between different institutions involved with disaster management. Secondly how this solution works in practice will be demonstrated by discussing the results of a reallife, real-time test that DataLand recently conducted together with the Regional Rescue Service Rotterdam-Rijnmond (RHRR) over the course of a year. This experiment not only showed the improved response time of this rescue service body but also for the first time gave clear insight in the user needs of disaster management bodies with regard to municipal geoinformation. In closing the paper will reflect on the lessons learned in developing a one-stop-shop for municipal geo-information. This is important as the concept of a one-stop-shop to facilitate smooth data flows between different partners involved in disaster management is also feasible for other parties involved in disaster management. © 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.