Geoinformation for Disaster and Risk Management - ISPRS

Map making
All the map products were standardized mapping
based on a template. Once the information was
extracted or assessment results determined, the map
could be produced rapidly by loading the
information into the template according to specific
standards.
Product dissemination and service
There were a total of more than a hundred map
products produced during the earthquake
emergency relief stage. They were distributed to four
different types of agencies in different forms, by fax,
email, hardcopy, website or news conference. The
first and primary agencies were the central
government emergency management agencies to
support the emergency rescue, relief, recovery and
reconstruction decision making. The second
agencies were local government and field teams to
support their field deployment. The third agencies
were the public and international societies, to
support their awareness raising and assistance. The
fourth agencies were the professional institutions in
support of their scientific research.
Experiences and lessons learned.
Space technology provided effective and timely
information for Wenchuan Earthquake emergency
response management support. At the same time,
some lessons were also learned and should be
carefully considered for future events.
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Experiences
(1) An inventory of the space resources should be
compiled and made a component of the national
emergency response working procedures. Full
advantage should be taken of international and
domestic space data acquisition scheduling to ensure
timely acquisitions. Large quantities and multiple
types of space borne EO images should be acquired.
(2) Scientifically based effective emergency
operational procedures should be developed
according to the disaster response requirements and
space resources. Forming different working teams
which were assigned distinct responsibilities
according to the working procedures proved
effective.
(3) Social resources must be mobilizing and made
best use of. For major disasters, a single agency
cannot cope with all the problems. More than 40
professional volunteers from research institutes and
universities were mobilization to participate in
processing the data and mapping.
(4) Remote sensing cannot provide all the
information for disaster management support.
Integration of images with social information,
statistical disaster information and field
investigation were essential.
lessons learned
(1) The observing time and location of the requested
EO data should be dynamically planned to ensure
they cover all disaster affected area and at different
stages. Because of the lack of an observation plan,
many acquired images were redundant around the
area of the epicentre but there was a shortage of
images on the edges of the affected area.
(2) Capabilities to process the massive amount of EO
data and extract useful information for emergency
response should be improved. It is important to
develop automatic or semi-automatic methods for
data processing in real-time or near real-time, for
example, within 1-2 hours after acquisition (Deren
Li, 2009).