Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Humanitarian Assistance: A Meta-Analysis

Every year natural and man-made disasters cause mass population displacement, loss of lives, and human suffering. On a given disaster several international or non-profit organizations will respond depending on the region in need as well as media and donor attention Olsen, Gorm Rye, et al (2003). Because of the extreme unique difficulties found in each disaster zone such as infrastructural damages, uncertain demand and supply, geographical challenges and time pressures, it is imperative that humanitarian organizations have readily available and applicable response methodologies as well as information technologies to increase their relief impact. In regards to the latter Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has proven to be an indispensable tool in the humanitarian sector. However, despite there being great recognition in regards to the importance of geospatial information in relief operations there is still a knowledge gap in regards to all the different tasks and uses of GIS in the humanitarian sector. For example, Espindola et al (2016) lament that despite the recent increase in literature which utilizes GIS for humanitarian logistics most of the research is limited to net-work analysis and also that GIS’s full potential for disaster relief has not been fully tapped. This meta-analysis, for the first time, seeks to address such gap of knowledge by achieving two main goals: (1) To better understand the various ways in which Geographic Information System (GIS) can be applied in humanitarian settings by revealing how the academic community is utilizing such technology in their research, and (2) to point out strengths and areas that have been overlooked as well as help guide future research in this field

From Space to Ground Zero: The Application of Geographic Information Systems and Rocket Cargo Transportation to Disaster Management Operations

This paper provides an overview of the application of space-based technologies, specifically Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology and rocket cargo launches, to disaster management operations. GIS links data from satellites, remote sensing, and other sources to dashboards, allowing relief teams to monitor relevant demographic, environmental, and disaster details. This information supports multiple aspects of planning and decision-making in the preparedness, response, and relief stages of the disaster management cycle. Rocket cargo transportation, an emerging method of shipping supplies, will allow for supplies to be shipped anywhere in the world in under twenty-four hours. This can be used in a future disaster relief scenario through the delivery of supplies in a timely manner. Both GIS and rocket cargo transportation are applied to a hypothetical flooding scenario, demonstrating how these technologies are and would be applied to three of the four disaster management cycle phases

Formalisation d'un environnement d'aide à l'analyse géovisuelle: Application à la sécurité et sûreté de la maritimisation de l'énergie

The maritime space is still a sensitive area due to many accidents and dangers, such as collisions or pirate attacks. In order to ensure the control of safety and security of this area, it is essential to study near real-time movement information (surveillance) or past events (analysis). Controllers and analysts are then faced to large sets of data, which must be studied with systems using maps and other visualizations. However, these tools are limited in terms of analysis capacities. Using geovisual analytics could be used to improve pattern identification, anomalies detection and knowledge discovery. However, due to the complexity of their use, most methods are still at the stage of research, and are not used yet in the operational word for studying maritime risks.In this context, we propose a geovisual analytics support system to guide users in the visualization and the analysis of maritime risks. Our research methodology is based on the formalization of use cases, of users and of several visualization methods. Ontologies and rules are used to create a knowledge-based system, to select adequate solutions for the visualization and the analysis of ships’ trajectories. Some examples for analyzing maritime risks are then presented to illustrate the use of such a system.L’espace maritime est encore aujourd’hui le contexte de nombreux accidents et dangers, comme des collisions ou des attaques pirates. Afin de garantir le contrôle de la sûreté et de la sécurité de cet espace, il est nécessaire d’étudier les données de mouvement en temps réel (surveillance) et les évènements passés (analyse). Contrôleurs et analystes sont alors confrontés à de grandes quantités de données, qui doivent être étudiées grâce à des systèmes utilisant des cartes et autres visualisations. Cependant, ces outils sont limités en termes de capacités d’analyse. L’utilisation de méthodes d’analyse géovisuelle pourrait alors faciliter la reconnaissance de motifs, la détection d’anomalies et la découverte de connaissances. Toutefois, en raison de leur complexité d’utilisation, plusieurs de ces méthodes n’ont pas dépassé le stade académique, et ne sont pas encore utilisées de manière opérationnelle dans l’étude des risques maritimes.Dans ce contexte, nous proposons un environnement d’aide à l’analyse géovisuelle, qui permet de guider l’utilisateur dans la visualisation et l’analyse d’informations pour l’étude des risques maritimes. Notre démarche de thèse se fonde sur la formalisation des cas d’utilisation, des utilisateurs et des méthodes de visualisation. Le recours à des ontologies et des règles permet de concevoir un système à base de connaissances, afin de proposer des méthodes adéquates pour la visualisation et l’analyse des trajectoires de navires. Nous illustrons cette proposition par plusieurs exemples d’analyse de risques en mer