Themes & Tracks

TRACK TITLE

Geospatial and temporal information capture, management, and analytics in support of Disaster Decision Making

INTRODUCTION TO THE TRACK:

Accurate, adequate and current geospatial and temporal information are essential for effective disaster management at all stages of the disaster lifecycle.  Information about disaster events, impacts and needs is meaningless if their location and time is not reliably known.  Disaster events commonly require access to a range of existing geospatial data sets from multiple sources, presenting both technical (e.g. data formats, standards and semantics) and non-technical (e.g. accessibility) challenges, and sometimes resulting in the need for urgent, targeted data validation and integration to be carried out.  The collection of specific data to address disaster needs may also be required, and due to the unexpected nature and location of disaster, this may need to be done in real time, after a disaster has occurred.

Once suitable geospatial and temporal data have been captured or accessed from other sources, validated and integrated, they may be used to address a wide range of challenges in disaster situations, providing information both to the public (e.g. through social media or dedicated applications) and to disaster managers.  The need to provide effective support for disaster decision making presents a range of opportunities for innovative approaches in spatio-temporal querying, visualization and analysis.

We invite papers under this theme to cover a broad range of topics related to geospatial and temporal information in the disaster management context.

TRACK OBJECTIVES:

The co-chairs of this track invite academics, researchers and professionals to share innovative research, practice and experience showcasing geospatial and temporal information theory and applications in support of disaster decision making.  The use of geospatial and/or temporal information in all stages and aspects of the disaster lifecycle are welcome.

TRACK TOPICS:

  • Spatial and/or temporal data mining and analytics in a disaster context.
  • Geospatial data requirements for disaster events and activities.
  • The application of geospatial analysis techniques in disaster situations.
  • Issues involved in integration of geospatial data from multiple sources for disaster management.
  • Challenges involved in geospatial data capture and availability to support disaster management and decision making.
  • Geospatial semantics and ontologies for disaster and emergency situations.
  • Geospatial intelligence (GEOINT).
  • Geospatial data in support of disaster relief.
  • Geospatial standards in the disaster context.
  • Emergency data interoperability, e.g. EDXL. 
  • Sensors and UAVs for disaster response.
  • Geospatial data and disaster decision support systems.
  • Remote sensing and imagery analysis.
  • The use of UAVs in disaster events.
  • Design and development of geospatial applications for disasters.
  • Geospatial concept of operations as a game-plan for spatial information exchange during disaster reduction, readiness, response and recovery.

TRACK CO-CHAIRS:

Kristin Stock - Coordinating Track Co-Chair
Institute of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, Massey University, New Zealand
[email protected]

Matt Duckham
RMIT University, Australia
[email protected]

Linlin Ge
University of New South Wales, Australia
[email protected]

Paul Doherty
Eagle Technology, New Zealand
[email protected]

Kristin Stock

Kristin Stock

Dr Kristin Stock is Director of the Massey Geoinformatics Collaboratory, and a Senior Lecturer in Information Technology.  She has 25 years’ experience in geospatial information management in the private, public and University sectors, has led a number of large international geospatial projects in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and played a key role in European data sharing projects such as INSPIRE and EuroGEOSS. Dr Stock’s research focuses on geospatial semantics, geospatial natural language and geospatial data integration in collaboration with researchers around the world.  She has qualifications in surveying, GIS, computing and urban  and regional planning, and her research has been applied in a number of application areas. Some of her recent research has focused on the development of methods for the automated extraction of information on the location of disaster events and impacts from social media.

Matt Duckham

Matt Duckham

Matt is Professor and Associate Dean (Geospatial Sciences) in the School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. His expertise lies in the fundamentals of distributed spatial computing with big spatial data, such as generated by sensor networks, IoT, and crowdsourced data. His work has been in application areas such as emergency management, health and transportation, and environmental monitoring. Matt is also a Visiting Professor at Greenwich University, UK. Before moving to RMIT University in 2015, he was Professor of Geographic Information Science at the University of Melbourne, Australia. From 2010-2014 Matt was the recipient of a prestigious ARC Future Fellowship. Prior to coming to Australia in 2004 Matt worked as postdoctoral researcher at the NCGIA (National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis) at the University of Maine, USA.

Paul Doherty

Paul Doherty

Paul is a technical adviser to the non-profit organisation, National Alliance for Public Safety GIS Foundation (NAPSG) in the United States, where he has led the development of standard operating guidelines, training curricula, and geospatial technology integration project for emergency managers across Non-Profit, Federal, State, and Local organisations. He has spent the past two years as a Senior GIS Consultant with Eagle Technology Group in New Zealand, helping emergency management teams and lifeline groups incorporate geospatial decision support tools into reduction, readiness, response (Kaikoura Earthquake, Port Hills Fires, Cyclones Cook and Debbie), and recovery.

Prior to joining Eagle, he was the technical lead for the Esri Disaster Response Program and a National Park Law Enforcement Ranger in Yosemite National Park. He teaches an online course at Johns Hopkins University, GIS for Emergency Management and has taught at the University of Redlands, University of California, as well as in workshops for both professionals and volunteers.

Lastly, Paul is actively involved in related volunteer work, helping Search and Rescue Teams around the world embed geospatial decision support tools into planning and operations.

Paul has a B.S. from the SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry, an M.S. from Hofstra University, and a PhD from the University of California, Merced (Dissertation topic: Using GIS for Search and Rescue).