Geospatial data infrastructure for multi-agency incident management

Abstract

As one of the most significant natural hazards worldwide, flooding can cause severe infrastructural and economic damage. Flood management is a shared responsibility among stakeholders, such as fire and ambulance services, police, local authorities, and cooperating bodies, e.g., utilities, telecommunications, and transport providers. Hazard maps, such as the Environment Agency’s risk of surface water flooding, help prepare for floods but mainly provide static information on the probability of a particular flooding event, e.g. a probability of 3.3%. As incidents are dynamic and can change rapidly, responders require real-time data on current weather, hazards, and traffic to respond promptly. Literature review and stakeholder interviews show that despite technological advances and multi-agency response frameworks, emergency services tend not to use internet-enabled real-time data. To support addressing these challenges in multi-agency incident response, this research adapts the systems engineering methodology, following the steps: (1) Define the research problem in the current incident response process; (2) Identify stakeholder needs; (3) Analyse functional requirements; (4) Design an incident response system; (5) Receive stakeholder system design feedback, and (6) Develop a system prototype. The GIS-based prototype integrates real-time data, such as from Newcastle’s Urban Observatory and Urban Traffic Management and Control Centre. It can assist blue light services (police, fire and ambulance) in operational management, multi-agencies in data analytics and impact assessment by: Enriching static maps with real-time information, improving support in operational response by displaying nearest responders and estimated time of arrival, assessing the impact of heavy rainfall on travel time and analysing social media text and images using computer vision services. The research findings are based on discussions with various emergency management stakeholders to ensure the development integrates multiple perspectives. Feedback from stakeholders in the UK and international members during a placement at the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis at The Ohio State University helped evaluate the geospatial data infrastructure. The research methodology has been tested with highway authorities and emergency planners in a real-world environment. The prototype developed can be applied to other UK cities with a similar data infrastructure. This research contributes to the knowledge of location-based data required to support multi-agencies involved in incident response by linking datasets from different traditional domains. It demonstrates how real-time weather hazards, traffic, flooding and incident data can improve the common operating picture of the current incident condition and support the UK’s Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme (JESIP). Key words: Flooding, incident management, impact assessment, real-time data, geospatial technology.