Scot E. Smith
Department of Civil Engineering
Applications of Geographic Information System Technology to Disaster Response
Natural and man-made disaster response differs from country to country due to institutional and physical factors. There will always be differences in the way entities respond to disasters, but there are some common factors too.
Technology has resulted in more communication between emergency response units and so there are more and more common elements to disaster response. One of the unifying technologies has been geographic information systems (GIS), which allows for greater access to vital information in a short period of time. GIS is now a main stay in most government and non-government organizations and many emergency response units around the world efforts use it to some extent.
The purpose of the course developed from this project is to demonstrate how different countries utilize GIS technology in response to natural and man-made disasters. It will do so by presenting case studies of disasters in Hungary, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey and comparing and contrasting them with the response by agencies in the United States to similar problems.
An expert on that problem via Webcast or a similar real- time Internet presentation mechanism will present the foreign case studies. Students will be able to interact with the instructor. This presentation will be followed by a case study of the North American example.