Mashing up Geographic Information for Emergency Response—An Earthquake Prototype

Abstract

Important information pertaining to emergencies and responses to the emergencies is often distributed across numerous Internet sites. In the event of a disaster like an earthquake, rapid access to such information is critical. At such moments the general public usually has a hard time navigating through numerous sites to retrieve and integrate information, and this may severely affect our capability to make critical decisions in a timely manner. Common earthquake mashups often lack relevant information like locations of first responders and routing to important facilities (e.g. hospitals and fire stations) which could save important time and lives. To address the challenges, we developed an Earthquake Information Mashup prototype. This prototype demonstrates a mashup approach to providing a Web visualization of real-time earthquake monitoring and complementary information, such as traffic conditions, the location of important facilities and routing to them. It also offers users the ability to communicate local condition. Users are thus able to better integrate information from various near real-time sources, obtain better situational awareness, and make smarter informed critical decisions.