Geoinformation for Disaster and Risk Management - ISPRS

T
The Map Trade Association
(IMTA)
Why are maps and geographic information
important to risk and disaster management?
By Mark Cygan, IMTA (Americas) director and
Sandy Hill, IMTA, executive director
The International Map Trade Association (IMTA) is a
worldwide organization in the mapping, geospatial
and geographic information industry. A truly global
organization, IMTA's mission is to connect the
business of maps worldwide. IMTA welcomes
members from every corner of the world and the
association is made up of three regions: Europe,
Africa, and the Middle East; Asia and the Pacific; and
the Americas. Each region organizes it own local
activities ensuring wherever based, IMTA is both
relevant and accessible.
New technologies, cartography techniques, and
mapping products are emerging all the time and
keeping up-to-date with industry developments can
be a real challenge. IMTA organizes global
conferences, committees, discussion groups and
newsletters to facilitate the exchange of information.
The large community is accessible via
www.maptrade.org and provides a community for
sharing ideas.
Maps are the products of cartography, art, science
and technology, and graphically communicate and
represent the world we live in and the events that
occur in it, helping us gain understanding.
July 2008 Fires in Northern and Central
California
During the summer of 2008, more than 2,780
individual fires burned large portions of forests and
chaparral in California. A majority of the fires were
started by lightning from dry thunderstorms, a
storm producing thunder and lightning but no rain.
The fires broke out after three years of below normal
rainfall, and that spring was recorded as the driest
on record for many regions in the area. More than
800,000 acres burned, making these the greatest in
California history by burned area. Aid from around
the world, including workers from Greece, Chile,
Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Canada, Mexico and New
Zealand was present to help fight the fires. More
than 20,000 personnel were committed to combat
the flames, including 467 hand crews, 1,503 engines,
423 water tenders, 291 bulldozers, 142 helicopters,
400 soldiers and numerous air tankers. The loss of
life was high, with 23 fatalities.
During the fire, agencies used digitally mapped data,
spatial analysis, and modeling to better plan and
carry out fire suppression operations. GIS was used
to assist in the deployment and tracking of California
state assets fighting the hundreds of fires taking
place.
GIS experts deployed during previous fires again
worked with California State fire fighters and federal
and local agencies for tactical planning as part of the
overall response. Incident management teams used
GIS to map active fire perimeters, hot spots, burned
areas, and affected communities. Protection
priorities were established with the assistance of GIS
by assessing highly flammable accumulations of
vegetation combined with steep terrain that
threatened homes, infrastructure, and natural
resource values. GIS-generated maps were also used
for public information sharing, including fire
locations, road closures, damaged properties,
evacuations, shelter locations, and Red Cross
assistance.
Imagery was very important during the active fire
stage. Fourteen Landsat images acquired between 5
July 2008, and 8 July 8 2008, were mosaicked to
provide a continuous 30-meter resolution overview
of active and contained wildfires in northern
California.
As wildfires were contained, additional Landsat 5
and 7 imagery was used to map post fire soil burn
severity and vegetation mortality, refine and verify
fire perimeters, and serve as input to models
predicting post fire debris flow hazards. The data
were processed by the USGS Earth Resources
Observation and Science Center.
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