35 GIS is crucial for public safety, providing real-time situational awareness and aiding in emergency response and recovery. It integrates and visualizes various data sources, enabling quick decision-making during disasters. GIS is used to map damage from natural disasters, coordinate emergency services, and guide law enforcement. It also identifies high-risk areas, plans evacuation routes, and ensures efficient communication among first responders. Additionally, GIS aids in crime fighting by offering detailed maps and data analysis to enhance policing strategies. A mapping method has helped identify crucial areas that help stop fires. The Potential Operational Delineations (PODs) uses GIS to identify natural or human-made boundaries by analyzing geographic features, which leads to improved wildfire planning and response strategies. GIS helps produce the risk map, an atlas for optimal fire control locations, and an evaluation of firefighting difficulty. All are aimed at prioritizing firefighter safety and operational efficiency. The integration of local knowledge with analytical data enhances fire management strategies. Chris Dunn, the researcher who developed PODS, emphasized the importance of GIS in these efforts: "We blend the analytics with the local knowledge to make sure we're not biased towards local knowledge and we're not missing something in the analytics. All of this is GIS. I wouldn't do anything without it. Maps are the most effective communication tool to develop a truly functional strategy." These tools and collaborative efforts lead to more effective fire management strategies by providing a shared platform for data and local knowledge integration. During the record-breaking downpour in Fort Lauderdale on April 12, 2023, the GIS team played a crucial role in managing emergency response and recovery. Despite significant challenges such as the flooding of city hall and the loss of IT infrastructure, their hybrid-configured GIS systems remained operational. They developed a live dashboard for tracking damage inspections, which was shared with state emergency teams to expedite aid. Additionally, they used ArcGIS Survey123 to document storm damage, which was instrumental in the declaration of a state Keeping Communities Safe of emergency. Lucia Hogan, the GIS team lead, highlighted the importance of the dashboard: "We built a dashboard that showed the health of critical business applications." The Scott County Emergency Management Agency's use of GIS enhanced their emergency preparedness and response capabilities. The GIS tools integrate various data sources to provide real-time updates and critical information for managing emergencies such as floods, tornadoes, and radiological events from a nearby nuclear power plant. Key outcomes include improved situational awareness, better coordination during emergencies, and enhanced decisionmaking. This integration helps identify vulnerable populations and plan evacuation zones effectively. Austria's Crime Atlas provides a sophisticated map-based visualization tool that facilitates cross-jurisdictional data-sharing and location intelligence. This innovative system enables law enforcement agencies to collaborate effectively on investigations and crime prevention strategies by mapping crimes across Austria's nine federated states. It allows police to access comprehensive data, identify crime patterns, pinpoint hot spots, and analyze long-term trends. The Crime Atlas is instrumental in supporting investigations and prevention efforts, as it enables officers to analyze spatial relationships and historical data. This ultimately improves the efficiency and effectiveness of policing in Austria. The use of drone mapping in response to the Australian flood damage led to several significant outcomes. Drones provided swift and cost-effective damage assessments by capturing aerial imagery, crucial for understanding the extent of the damage. This imagery was used to update maps conveying road conditions and closures, aiding officials and the public in assessing the situation. The footage served as a warning to motorists about hazardous areas and was integrated into a dashboard. This integration provided better operational visibility and situational awareness, aiding in relief and recovery planning. The information was also relayed to the National Situation Room to support flood response efforts, enabling more informed decision-making and resource allocation.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjA2NTE0Mw==