Evaluation of spatial analysis application for urban emergency management

Abdalla SpringerPlus (2016)5:2081 DOI 10.1186/s40064-016-3723-y Open Access REVIEW Evaluation of spatial analysis application for urban emergency management Rifaat Abdalla* Abstract Background: This paper provides multidisciplinary scope to the utilization of geospatial data frameworks for urban disaster management with accentuation on particular events. The emergency management events presented in this review are universally known and represent high risk for different parts of the world. Results: The discussion starts with addressing the application issues related to how spatial analysis can be used intending to disaster management operations by characterizing its ease of use and impediments in managing the inquiries of vulnerability and hazard assessment. It also highlights best practices for the approaches to integrating spatial data for hazard mapping and risk perception. Conclusions: The goal of this study is to give conceptual coverage to appropriate solutions for emergency preparedness and response, using spatial analysis and GIS. The paper emphasized that among different issues that may confront the use of spatial analysis, is the accuracy of data and time of processing, in addition to collective coordination of stakeholders working in the field. The findings of this research conclude that a challenge to possible risk reduction is furnishing disaster managers with access to information and methodologies that may help them in analyzing, evaluating and mapping hazard models. Keywords: GIS, Emergency management, Urban centers, Spatial analysis, Environmental modeling Background GIS applications in Disaster Management are progressively turning into a necessary component of disaster and emergency management activities in many parts of the world. The time considerations are extremely critical in emergency management operations. Emergency Managers are required to take significant decisions, promptly to provide fast response to extreme situations. The spatial dimension of geospatial data makes it exceptionally critical for decision-makers in the different phases of emergency management operations. It is important for policy makers to have the right information at the ideal time exhibited off base models to permit them to react, arrange or moderate catastrophes. The temporal nature of disasters does not allow emergency managers to gather the critical data, in a timely, in many situations. As such, *Correspondence: Department of Hydrographic Surveying, Faculty of Maritime Studies, King Abdulaziz University, P. O. Box 80401, Jeddah 21589, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia more often, pre-arranged disaster management scenarios are utilized Becerra-Fernandez et al. (2008). GIS Technology is capable of filling up the gap of perception and investigation of simulating emergency scenarios showing various situations and their temporal attributes. This permits disaster managers to have access to sufficient data stored in spatial databases and exhibited in a PC created maps or intuitive models Miura et al. (2007). GIS can be exceptionally useful to make well-thought counter disaster response patterns, which can address the overall population. It is a helpful tool in disaster management planning, tabletop activities, and a fundamental element of Emergency Operations Centers (EOC) (ESRI 1999). GIS gives a component to perception and demonstrating of primary data different levels of details and for various regions after a disaster strikes (ESRI 1999). This provides a user-driven approach, which envelops the phases of disaster management, to bolster the procedure of improved primary leadership and builds the level of inclusion of © The Author(s) 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Abdalla SpringerPlus (2016)5:2081 every group of workforce related exercises and systematic methods (Smirnov et al. 2006). Discussion about disaster management is tending to the issues of preparedness. This is a crucial part of disaster and emergency management and can assume an indispensable part if contingency activities, which gets to be vital. The convenience of GIS as a decision support system is in helping disaster managers and emergency first responders to falls in the following: 1. Risk and Threads Assessment. 2. What-if scenario modeling. 3. Maintaining situational awareness. 4. Allocation of Resources and documenting disruptions. 5. Alerting and notification of communities. 6. Minimizing vital service disruptions during the response stage. Saadatseresht et al. (2009) have presented the factors above are especially of significance from spatial analysis point of view In an emergency management situation. It showed that spatial analysis can be performed for emergency management evacuation operations, in order to relocated population at risk for a safer location, this is usually a complicated process, dense population. Anjum et al. (2011) indicated that it is important to use utilize the state-of-the-art of spatial analysis tools for emergency planning operations, related to evacuation of masses, during extreme events. A major challenge for using spatial analysis as a part of search and rescue plans is in deciding the evacuation process to relocate the evacuees to a safer place. This indicates that supporting the choice of where and from which street every evacuee ought to go is an essential factor in the best utilization of spatial analysis capabilities (Cova and Church 1997). Several factors are involved in determining the efficiency of utilizing the process of spatial analysis for disaster management. To adequately accomplish the point of spatial investigation in crisis administration operations, a few goals are brought into thought and fulfilled at the same time through this paper. These objectives are (a) how a decision-maker can utilize the effectiveness of spatial analysis for prioritizing important decisions, during an emergency. (b) What are essential capacities that spatial analysis can help with amid disaster management cycle in the ten chosen disaster themes focused in this paper? (c) How decision-makers could better actualize spatial analysis process as a significant aspect of their everyday operations. Successful disaster management calls for including multi-modal decision-making competencies; that includes aggregates at all levels of relief and response, Page 2 of 10 notwithstanding total relief endeavors that address the origin of vulnerability. Morrow (1999) the vulnerability of group is correctly credited to the socioeconomic variables that influence the group, i.e., the directly affected, whether expanded or diminished as a (...truncated)