Jeff Peters
Director National Government
Esri
USA




BIO
Jeffrey Peters currently serves as Director of National Government Programs for Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.) and for the past 12 years has been a member of the Esri’s Advisory Board of Directors, playing a key role in strategic planning and corporate leadership. He works closely with various Department heads and agencies throughout the Federal Government and is responsible for Esri’s programs for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and Global partners (such as NATO and the United Nations). Mr. Peters is also responsible for the vision and strategy for geospatial technologies and solutions serving the national Government and its international operations. Mr. Peters has over 20 years experience spanning information technology, business development, strategic planning, and corporate leadership in the software industry. Prior to joining Esri, Mr. Peters was President and Founder of Mountain CAD, Inc., where he launched innovative tools and solutions using computer design and geographic information technology. Mr. Peters has a B.A. degree from University of Montana, and M.B.A. from the University of Redlands. He is a current member of the Board of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and a former member of the Board of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council.

ABSTRACT
GIS Technology for Public Safety The increasing frequency and scale of disasters (weather events, earthquakes, tsunami, floods, etc.) are fueling the urgency for government agencies to better prepare, prevent, respond and recover from catastrophic disruptions. In addition, the constant threat of terrorism has expanded the role of public safety, law enforcement and national security agencies creating additional complexity. These complex missions necessitate greater collaboration and coordination across departments, jurisdictions and even among countries. It is essential that personnel charged with planning, preparedness and response collaborate, and employ the best tools, methods and best practices to manage this increasingly complicated challenge. GIS has emerged as a fundamental technology for vulnerability analysis, situational awareness, response management and collaboration. Law enforcement and intelligence communities are expanding their use of the GIS platform to correlate apparently disconnected events, to see the “big picture” integrated into a common spatial picture in order to prevent and deter criminal and or terrorist activity. The evolution of cloud computing platforms now enables emergency personnel, law enforcement agencies and other first responder’s access to mission critical GIS maps and applications when and where needed. GIS has truly evolved from a powerful analytic tool to a platform that provides access and information products to operations personnel across the public safety and national security landscape. This presentation will illustrate how GIS is helping to unify all aspects of public safety, law enforcement and national security missions.

Simon Clarke
Senior Collision Investigator
States of Jersey Police
UK



ABSTRACT
Using the 3D World for Forensic Training in the Police
The police service in the UK has been asked to make huge budget cuts for the coming years and forces are examining ways that this can be achieved without compromising service delivery. Top class forensic training is expensive and The States of Jersey Police are looking to use technology to deliver more cost-effective training for its forensic scenes of crime officers. The States of Jersey Police are already using Topcon scanning technology for car crash scenes and they are now putting together a package for their scenes of crime officers that will utilize 3D data to simulate crime scenes. The simulation will be used to demonstrate the power of 3D data in forensic reconstruction and to raise awareness of how to ensure that it is used effectively. It will be possible to set up different scenarios that are not commonly encountered to provide officers with experience of dealing with them effectively. The scenarios will make use of linking with geo-spatial data on a larger scale such as mobile scanning or GNSS data. There will also be an opportunity to understand and practice preparing data for judicial proceedings. Topcon are working with the States of Jersey Police to implement this package using their precision data collection technology

Warren Cartwright
Product Manager
MDA Geospatial Services Inc.
Canada



BIO
Warren Cartwright joined MDA in 2012. He is currently a Product Manager with MDAGeospatial Services Inc. This group provides advanced geospatial information solutions derived from the high-resolution RADARSAT satellites, commercial optical satellites, and aerial systems to improve the decision making and operational performance of business, government, and defence organizations worldwide. Prior to his current position, Mr. Cartwrightwas the Director of Product Management for the Business Intelligence division of a large software company. He has also held a number of Product Marketing and Product Management roles in diverse industries including the Utility sector, IT and Computer Security and Advertising and Communications.

ABSTRACT
New Applications of Spaceborne SAR for Large Area Monitoring
Since the launch of RADARSAT-2 in 2007, a number of important enhancements to the satellite space and ground segments have been implemented. These enhancements improve the capability of RADARSAT-2 for land-based change detection and monitoring. Enhancements and improvements include: Implementation of unique imaging modes that combine high resolution and wide swath widths Development of methodologies for systematic change detection that benefit from exactly-repeated radar illumination geometries of spaceborne SAR Generation of a strategic Image Archive of acquisitions using the new image modes specifically for the purpose of change detection and other SAR applicationsThese improvements enhance the use of SAR for many land applications and allow a more natural use of SAR as a tool for change detection, monitoring and surveillance as opposed to interpretation of individual images. Applications include the monitoring of forests and environment, emergency response, natural hazards damage assessment and urban sprawl. The key strengths of spaceborne SAR include acquisition reliability independent of clouds and darkness and its repeatable microwave illumination source. With sufficient resolution and temporal coverage, spaceborne SAR is an efficient and practical tool for operational Earth observation. During this presentation, Mr. van der Kooij will provide an overview of these new capabilities and will illustrate the benefits using a number of compelling examples from international areas of interest.

Michael Bufkin
Chief Solutions Architect
TerraGo Technologies
USA



BIO
Mr. Bufkin is a founder of TerraGo Technologies, with over 25 years’ experience in software design. He led the design effort for TerraGo MAP2PDF product and is shared patent holder of the GeoPDF encoding method. He served on the ISO committee for ISO Standard for the Engineering PDF (PDF/E). Mr. Bufkin holds a BA in English from Auburn University and an MS in Engineering from The University of Texas.

ABSTRACT
Response Mapping for a Chemical/Biological/Radiological Disaster
Given the size and number of areas subject to the threat of a CBR event, there is a critical need for timely and accurate mapping of the potential areas, including police, fire, medical, electrical, hazardous materials, communications, transportation, weather, plumes and others. Recognizing this need, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security authorized the development of a portable system to provide mapping data for the potentially affected areas. The resulting system consists of a portable computer equipped with the software and data needed to create a set of maps of an affected area based on a user defined set of requirements. A unique content management function allows the user to find and include input data from any geo-registered source accessible to the internet.To insure that the resulting maps are based on current information, the system employs a method for automated refresh of the data sources. When connected to the internet, this software polls a specified set of data sources to determine if any of the content has changed and, if so, downloads the new data to the cache, replacing older data. Since map production uses this local cache, should the internet be unavailable, production is not affected. The actual map file format used is geospatial PDF, allowing any user with the free Adobe Reader to view and interact with the maps in a disconnected environment.The objective of this concept is to provide a single machine that contains all this information, insures that it is constantly refreshed, and delivers it in a simple, easy to use format for users who are not mapping professionals. This presentation will review the design and operation of the resulting system.

Ilya Farutin
Head of Integrated
Projects Division
SCANEX
Russia


ABSTRACT
Application of Satellite Technologies for Emergencies Management - Lessons Learned Space monitoring of disaster areas is an important source of information, which is used by emergency services in many countries. Processing, analysis and comparison of remote sensing data improves responsiveness to man-made and natural emergencies, allows effectively struggle with consequences of accidents and disasters (forest fires, flash and seasonal floods, sea and on-land accidental pollutions, etc.).Satellite images allow not only objectively assessing the extent of emergency situations and the extent of the damage, but also increasing the reliability of forecasting the onset of crises and natural disasters.Satellite Earth imaging has a few undisputed advantages over the alternative means of obtaining geospatial information in operational assessment of major natural catastrophes. Large-scale natural catastrophes accompanied by massive casualties cause the destruction of transport and telecommunication infrastructures, paralyze the functioning of the regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies, which in many cases does not allow performing an adequate assessment of the situation on site and making the timely and reasoned decisions. Satellite imaging technologies, however, ensure a timely delivery of objective information about the extent and the scale of the catastrophes which is required for further planning of rescue and humanitarian aid operations. The operational satellite information helps to deliver the following objectives: the situational assessment of emergencies, assessment of potentially hazardous sites and areas; monitoring of natural fires; monitoring of flash and seasonal flood emergencies; Assessment of the oil spill and the dynamics of the spill distribution; Search of the emergency objects in remote and inaccessible areas; etc.In order to execute such projects, SCANEX has developed an unprecedented system for operational satellite monitoring. Key chains of this system are an allocated network of ground receiving stations (UniScan), operational targeting of satellites to emergency areas, near real-time image processing and developing of networked geoportal technologies. This system as well as a number of disaster management projects carried out by SCANEX (in particular for the Russian EMERCOM) will be presented during the presentation.

Dr. Nisha Radhakrishnan
Assistant Professor
National Institute of Technology
Tiruchirappalli
India


BIO
The main author is specialized in remote sensing, GIS and GPS.She has undertaken projects dealing with the application of Remote Sensing/GIS/GPS in the field of Transportation Engg./Environmental Engg. Some of the research ideas she has been working on include Land use/Land cover change detection, Quantifying Urban Sprawl, Analysing relation between Land use and Travel Demand, Urban speed management using ITS Technology.

ABSTRACT
Impact Assessment of Built Environment on Pedestrian Accidents
This paper gives an overview of the impact of built environment elements on pedestrian-motor vehicle collision in the city of Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu, India. In almost all countries, road accident statistics show that pedestrians share higher percentage in road user fatalities which makes the pedestrian motor vehicle crashes more significant. It has been reported that Built Environment along the roads has indirect effect on risk of accident occurrences. For the study, pedestrian road accident hotspots were identified using the data collected for the last three years from 2009 to 2011 of Tiruchirappalli City urban area and spatial analysis techniques. Environment Audit and Land use classification were done on those hot spot locations. Then, the impact of each built environment elements on pedestrian accident was estimated by developing a Logistic Regression model and the contributing percentage of each factor to the risk of accident occurrence was identified. The results provide the correlation between built environment elements with pedestrian safety and these findings can be useful to prioritize built environment elements in the design of roadways and formulate research hypotheses for investigating pedestrian crashes.

Ruediger Gartmann
Project Manager and
Product Owner
Con terra GmbH
Germany



BIO
Ruediger received his degree in Business Computer Science from the University of Essen, Germany in 2000. After working for the Fraunhofer Society in Dortmund, he changed to con terra in 2007, acting as project manager and product owner. He is leading the development for security and rights management, while also acting as a consultant and project manager. Meanwhile Ruediger is also engaged in standardization of geo security and rights management in the Open Geospatial Consortium.

ABSTRACT
Enforcing the Need-to-Know Principle: Fine-Grained Access Control for Spatial Services
For sensitive data there is always a need for protection. In the defence and intelligence area especially, security may be mission-critical, therefore access to information is granted based on the need-to-know principle. Not only is a certain security clearance required to get access, users also need to have a reason. Enforcing this principle requires rich access control and content filtering capabilities for spatial services. While regular GIS products primarily concentrate of managing and publishing data, their access control capabilities are usually limited, so additional tool support is needed to fulfil these strict security requirements. Security Manager is an extension for GIS servers to provide role-based access control (RBAC) together with extensive filtering capabilities. The need-to-know� is expressed via a role, reflecting certain duties of a user, while the security clearance is reflected as a filter expression, only allowing access to features of certain security levels.In practical terms, assuming there is a user responsible for planning of a certain mission at an airport, the user could be assigned to a corresponding role (such as mission planning_XYZ). Certain access permissions for a service such as a WFS could be assigned to this role (such as give users of role mission_planning_XYZ full access to the service airport_wfs for features within a distance of 5 km around airport_123 and enforce filtering to feature_security_level= user_security_clearance).During the presentation, the underlying security concepts will be described and a practical use case will be shown to illustrate these concepts and their appropriateness for access control for sensitive data.

Himadri Banerjee, MCP
Chief Technology Officer
Previstar Inc.
India



BIO
Himadri Banerjee is currently working as Chief Technology Officer and Lead Domain Expert in Disaster Management for Previstar Inc. After he finished his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Computer Science, and Mathematics from University of Tennessee, he worked as a senior research associate at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory USA, creating modeling algorithm on Incident Management on behalf of U.S. Army. Mr. Banerjee received Best Technology Transfer Award by Federal Laboratory Consortium as one of the inventors of RAMS Technology, which was designed to forecast tasks, and daily resource projections for responding to CBRNE incidents. He received “Award of Merit” from the University of Tennessee for his excellent research there. He has hands on experience serving as an Incident Response Team member in Hurricane Charlie, Francis, Gene, and Katrina/Rita in the Emergency Operations Centers in Florida and Louisiana. He is a member of the IRS Core Committee group working on the Incident Response System guidelines, under Hon’ble member Mr. J.K. Sinha in National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), India. Mr. Banerjee writes about various aspects of Incident Management in his blog http://previstar.blogspot.com/?view=magazine


ABSTRACT
Incident Resource Management – “The mobile way”
Earthquakes, Floods, Terrorism, CBRN, and Pandemic diseases are just a few examples of today’s complex emergencies and disasters. Due to the unpredictability of each crisis, planning for and responding to an incident can become extremely complex. Proper management of resources is the most essential element of managing any incident successfully. Some of the major challenges in resource management lie in the fact that various departments will collect resources in silos and there is a lack of standardization and sharing, data gets out-of-date and not verified, and lack of proper technology that can provide the capability of finding the closest available resources from the incident site. Nowadays every one of us has grown to depend on our smart phones to perform our daily activities. During any incident responders should also be able to quickly take out our phone to login to RMS and can perform a radius based search for needed resources and instantly get the available quantity, and their contact information to initiate the request process. Proper resource management is a two-step process. The first one is to create and continuously update a standardized location based incident related inventory (equipment, team, critical supplies, personnel and their skills, and facilities) from all stakeholders. The second one is to quickly access the application from the field (via smart phones) and perform a user-defined buffer search (within a given radius from incident location) so the needed resources that are closest to the scene can arrive quickly. We should take Incident Resource Management to the next level by using geo-spatial technologies like GIS, GPS and GPRS and strengthen our first responders on scene and decision makers in the EOC to manage any incident in the most effective and efficient manner.

Dr. Vincent van der Vlies
Project Manager Safety and Security
ARCADIS Nederland
The Netherlands




BIO
Dr Vincent van der Vlies studied environmental sciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. During his PhD research at the Nijmegen School of Management, a faculty of the Dutch Radboud University, he wrote a dissertation on the transport of hazardous materials by rail and the impact this has on urban planning in the Netherlands. Since 2010, he has been working as a project manager on various safety and security subjects for ARCADIS in the Netherlands. Vincent is also author of large number of contributions to blogs, scientific journals and magazines for professionals on various safety and security topics.

ABSTRACT
The city of Amsterdam has signed a public safety arrangement together with stakeholders such as the Netherlands Railways, the Amsterdam Police Department and Amsterdam’s Municipal Public Transport company. This arrangement was set up in order to specify tasks and make arrangements between the stakeholders to – among others – reduce the fear of crime in public transport. In order to stimulate innovations from the private sector, the stakeholders asked ARCADIS to do a pilot study at the Amsterdam Lelylaan railway station and to come up with a new and innovative view on how GIS may enhance the public’s perception of security. In order to fulfil this need, we created a system based on the broken window theory, through which every stakeholder’s involvement in maintaining the public space in the adjacent area of Lelylaan railway station was clarified. In this presentation we would like to give a demonstration of this pilot project and our main finding.

Johan van Schaaik
National Police
The Nerherlands





BIO
Since 1995 active as an advisor and information manager within the National Police of the Nerherlands. The last 12 years focusing on 'Crime Mapping' and 'Geographic Profiling' in supporting criminal investigation teams. Previous education and work experience in the Mercantile Marine, Hydrographic Surveying and Aircraft building. Holds a MSc. in GIS and BSc. in Hydrographic Surveying. Completed successfully the requirements of European Masters in Geographic Information Science (www.euromastergi.org

Leon Hendriks
AeroVision B.V.
The Nerherlands




BIO
Ir. Leon Hendriks M.Sc. studied Geodetic Engineering at Delft University of Technology. He founded AeroVision in 2002 and is now managing partner. As a consultant he frequently acts as an interim manager. Being a down-to-earth 'outsider', yet deeply involved, he can direct a team and help achieve its goals. He supports organizations to renew and innovate their processes and help to implement those processes in a day-to-day working environment. He always involves the parties concerned; after all they are the ones who will benefit from the results. The main focus of his work is to explore the user needs for (geo-)information, set up the user requirements and stakeholder analyses and engage these user in the process of acquiring and implementing the information.

Prof. Martien Molenaar
University Twente/ITC
The Netherlands




ABSTRACT
Geo-information for Geo-Governance
Geo-information is used by organizations and institutions involved in the management of our living environment and resources. They are monitoring and managing natural or man induced processes that have geo-spatial aspects such as urban development, land use change, development of biodiversity, water resource management, land degradation and disasters, etc. These organizations belong to Governments and other sectors of Civil Society. It is evident that geo-information is indispensable for modern governance. Good Governance requires good information and because almost all human activities have a spatial footprint this implies to a large extent geo-information. This means that geo-information is no longer the monopoly of specialized mapping experts; these experts have to work in close interaction with professionals, scientists and policy makers from many different relevant disciplines and societal sectors. The provision of geo-information in this context requires a profound knowledge of Geo-ICT but even more so of spatial processes and governance processes. There is still much to gain by a more efficient use of Geo-ICT in such a complex setting. That will require a further development of Geo-information Science and Technology. At this moment we do not have yet a sufficient conceptual framework for Geo-information Science to deal with complex and interacting geo-processes. And also much more advanced ICT-tools are required to provide an adequate and effective information support to complex governance processes.

Vesna Milinkovic
GI Manager
London Metropolitan
Police
UK



ABSTRACT
The Use of Collaborative Geo-Information Technology to support the Safety and Security of London 2012 Olympic Games
METMaP is a jointly funded project by the Metropolitan Police Services (MPS) and the Home Office with the responsibility of delivery resting entirely with the MPS. The project is sponsored by Andrew Watson, Deputy Director - Directorate of Information (MPS). MetMaP (Metropolitan Police Mapping Portal) presents real-time geographical information on an interactive map. MetMaP was delivered across the UK police force law enforcement agencies, LOCOG, Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. The MetMaP offers a variety of toolsets which was used to display, analyse and manipulate geographic data layers collected by the government led the Olympic Data Production Group. The Portal was successfully utilised across the London 2012 Olympic stakeholders for operational planning, location awareness, briefing / debriefing and post event analysis. This set a new expectation of data sharing within UK Police forces and other law enforcement government agencies. METMap provides a single point of access to information about any Olympic or Paralympics venue or event. The MPS and National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) also delivered e-learning training package for basic users through The National Centre for Applied Learning Technologies (NCALT) via Managed Learning Environment (MLE). The COP and the single coherent GI data set provided the support for the operational safety and security risk mitigation identified by Home Office security accreditations.

Susanne Haas
University of Cologne
Germany




ABSTRACT
Wildfire Risk Mapping for the Insurance industry
Wildfires cause substantial threat to human life and property. In order to provide a global overview and to help clients to evaluate their risk exposures, a worldwide fire hazard map was produced for the CatNet of Swiss Re. As most of the damage is caused by a very small fraction of fires that exceed all efforts at direct control, the risk of such particularly large fires to occur has to be assessed. In order to do so the Fire Radiative Power values of all active fire data entries of the complete MODIS Global Monthly Fire Location Product (MCD14ML) data series were consulted. The Fireline Intensity is commonly used as a standard measure for the effort required to control a fire. This dataset containing active fire detections from November 2000 till December 2011 was blended with a grid of 720 X 1440 cells. The number of individual fire detections exceeding an empirical threshold of 600 mW within one grid cell were counted. Then, the maximum FRP values were displayed and finally, the FRP values occurring within one cell were used as a basis for a Pareto alpha estimation. As regular occurring claims are eminent for the insurance industry, the map based on exceedance counts was finally chosen.

Dinesh Sathyamoorthy
Research Officer
Science & Technology Research Institute for Defence (STRIDE)
Ministry of Defence
India


ABSTRACT
Evaluation of the Effect of Global Positioning System (GPS) Simplistic Spoofing Attacks on GPS Performance
This study is aimed at evaluating Global Positioning System (GPS) performance during simplistic GPS spoofing attacks, whereby spoofing is conducted using a standalone GPS simulator, which at present poses the greatest near-term threat. The study is conducted on two handheld GPS receivers; Garmin GPSmap 60CSx (evaluated GPS receiver) and Garmin GPSmap 60CS (reference GPS receiver). Both receivers employ the GPS L1 coarse acquisition (C/A) signal. Varying minimum spoofing signal power levels, times between position fix lost and spoofing, and probable error patterns are observed for different dates and times. This is due to the GPS satellite constellation being dynamic, causing varying GPS satellite geometry over time, resulting in GPS performance being time dependent. Variation in other GPS error parameters, including ionospheric and tropospheric delays, satellite clock, ephemeris and multipath errors, and unintentional signal interferences and obstructions, could have also resulted in the variation of GPS performance. As the spoofing signal power level is increased, probable error values increase due to decreasing carrier-to-noise density (C/N0) levels for GPS satellites tracked by the receiver. For all the readings, the highest probable errors occur at the minimum spoofing power levels. After spoofing takes place, the probable errors reduce to levels that are lower as compared to prior to transmission of the spoofing signal, as at this point, the spoofing signal power levels are relatively large, resulting in high C/N0 levels and hence, improved accuracy.

Einar BJORGO
Manager, UNOSAT
United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)
Switzerland




BIO
Einar Bjorgo received his PhD in Geophysics from the University of Bergen, Norway, in 1999 on applications of very high resolution satellite imagery in support to refugee relief operations. He holds a Master of Science in Meteorology (Climate Science) and a Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California San Diego. He joined the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1999 working on integrating new solutions into its operations, including the use of GIS, GPS and satellite imagery. In 2002 he joined the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT), where he was in charge of all operational activities, including humanitarian relief, human rights, human security and climate change. In that position he ensured satellite imagery derived maps and analyses are available to the international community, as well as Governments, during natural disasters and complex emergencies. Einar Bjorgo is currently the Manager of UNOSAT.

ABSTRACT
Turnaround time for Practical Public Safety Efforts by UNOSAT
Over the last ten years, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) has been providing geo-spatial analysis and mapping in support to UN sister agencies, Governments, Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and international organizations such as the Red Cross family. The presentation illustrates the current state-of-art in turnaround time and product-types for practical public safety efforts by UNOSAT, be it to protect refugees, field staff and vulnerable population or environmental assessments. UNOSAT works in a wide area and applies commercial and public source data in its analysis. Both challenges, such as copyright issues and data distribution, and future opportunities, including the planned live video from the International Space Station are addressed.

Ziggy Vanlishout
Agiv
Belgium





BIO
Ziggy vanlishout has been working for the Flemish Geographical Information Agency since 2002. The mission of the FGIA (Flemish Geographical Information Agency) consists of enabling optimal application of geographical information, mainly by governments within the region of Flanders. In order to optimize the use of geographical information, the FGIA is currently developing geographical reference databases, such as the Large-scale Reference Database (GRB = Grootschalig Referentie Bestand) and the Central Reference Address Database (CRAB). Since 2004 Ziggy vanlishout has been the coordinator for all the projects and activities concerning the Central Reference Address Database.

ABSTRACT
Central Referentie Adressenbestand
CRAB is the regional register that contains all valid addresses in northern Belgium area (Flanders). These addresses are originally provided by the national cadaster service, the national people registration or the national company registration. Nowadays, all addresses are decentrally updated and maintained by the local cities and villages. The CRAB database is built according to international Inspire-rules. CRAB stands for ‘Centraal Referentie Adressen Bestand’ (= Central Reference Address Database). In addition to house numbers and street names, the database also contains a geographical positioning for each of the 3 million+addresses in Flanders. The CRAB is an initiative, primarily concerned with exchange and quality of address details. The objectives of the CRAB-project are:
• To create a generically usable standard in the field of definition and encoding.
• To create a correct and up to date database with all full addresses for Flanders.
• To integrate information on the geographical positioning of addresses (address positioning).
The CRAB-project has resulted in an exchange standard, a database and a series of derivatives. Local authorities are updating and maintaining the data, governmental organizations use the CRAB-database. Communication like post deliveries, emergency interventions, administration, ... is more efficient by using the addresses from the CRAB database.
In order to improve CRAB quality, AGIV has set up a framework in which CRAB is to be developed in collaboration with the municipalities, transforming it into the authentic geographical data source for addresses in the Flemish Region. On June 1st 2011, the Flemish government recognised CRAB as first authentic geographical data source of Flanders. To support all CRAB activities with a legal base, the CRAB Decree has been voted by the Flemish government.

Prof. Cheng Hsuh Chou
Head - Information Division
National Centre for Disaster Reduction
Taiwan




ABSTRACT
Disaster Management and Cloud Computing in Taiwan
Taiwan experiences many types of natural Hazards due to its natural and social environment. Decision support systems have been developed by government agencies to manage these natural hazards. Although these systems have proven to be useful in reducing human and property loses. Several serious disaster events in recently years call for a more resilient IT system for disaster management. Cloud based disaster management is under developing to handle mega-disaster, such as East Japan earthquake in 2011. The systems will be mirrored in several locations to provide continuous services during mega-disaster. Standards have to be established to increase interoperability between governments, NGOs, private enterprises and the general public. Emergency mapping team has to train and organized in order to produce the real-time information in disasters.

Jaci Hamel
State of Massachusetts
USA





ABSTRACT
Incident Resource Management – “The Mobile Way”
Himadri Banerjee, Chief Technology Officer, Previstar, India Earthquakes, Floods, Terrorism, CBRN, and Pandemic diseases are just a few examples of today’s complex emergencies and disasters. Proper management of resources is the most essential element of managing any incident successfully. Some of the major challenges in resource management lie in the fact that various departments will collect resources in silos and there is a lack of standardization and sharing, data gets out-of-date and not verified, and lack of proper technology that can provide the capability of finding the closest available resources from the incident site. Proper resource management is a two-step process. The first one is to create and continuously update a standardized location based incident related inventory (equipment, team, critical supplies, personnel and their skills, and facilities) from all stakeholders. The second one is to quickly access the application from the field (via smart phones) and perform a user-defined buffer search (within a given radius from incident location) so the needed resources that are closest to the scene can arrive quickly. We should take Incident Resource Management to the next level by using geo-spatial technologies like GIS, GPS and GPRS and strengthen our first responders on scene and decision makers in the EOC to manage any incident in the most effective and efficient manner.