The present Indonesian environmental condition is characterized with an extensive disaster. Environmental changes & degradation, poverty & low education, and politically unstable environments may cause further types of new hazards. At the same time many instant developments to enhance economic growing have negative impact create new hazards that make the human society more fragile.
Present emergency management represents a complex set of operations including various pre- and post-disaster measures. Those measures are planned and realized by various organizations such as NGO, Department of Public works, Department of Social welfare, Public Safety Beureu, Hazard Mitigation Agency, or local authorities. Those organizations have different structures, routines, etc. It brings new problems to emergency management and also increases its complexity. To overcome such problems a new concept, which could be resistant to different types of organization structures and various diversities, seems to be necessary.
Due to the complexity of current systems implemented in human life, uncertainty and unexpected environmental disasters, large amounts of data and information have to be included in decisions related to emergency management. A possible way to reflect present requirements to emergency management is introducing Geo-information (GIS – Geographic Information Systems, GPS – Global Positioning System), Remote Sensing & Mapping) to decisions related to emergency management. GIS may succeed in the process of searching new ways to improve emergency management of all problems contain some spatial aspect.
Commonly,GIS being applied to the Prepare and Recovery phases of the cycle but commonly is disconnected from the Emergency Respond phase. The application of GIS can be most dramatic at the point when accurate up-to-date information is traditionally unavailable. Now, GIS have been used by emergency and security for a couple years. However, most oGIS systems are not tailored to the unique needs of emergency planners and responders.GIS should be designed to address emergency management needs. Simplify GIS mapping so it can be used effectively by non-technical emergency operations staff with little or no training and maintained with little effort.
GIS could view as a core Information System (IS) independent on number of participants in emergency management, their structure, routines, and possible changes of those factors. GIS in emergency management as a core IS can be defined as a cycle, consisting of eight elements: (1) assessment, (2) prevention, (3) mitigation, (4) preparedness, (5) disaster event, (6) relief & response, (7) rehabilitation, reconstruction & recovery, and (8) evaluation. These element is added to the cycle to evaluate GIS and its performance in emergency management, and also emergency management itself. The outcomes of the element lead to changes in organizations, methodology, technology, or data involved in emergency management.
Therefore a unique expertise of local specifics, problems, etc. could be recorded and creates a process, which link all the information geographically.shared by others. It has also a positive effect on the decentralization of decisions. So the concept of GIS as a core IS leads to more effective and flexible emergency management with decentralized decisions. Easy access and communication of data & information that may reside in multiple mapping or emergency management systems across multiple political/administration boundaries across goverment and public/community networks.
GIS allows linking various digital map layers and databases and performs various unique analyses of those data, which cannot be realized any other way. Those analyses start with simple overlay operations and end with advanced real-time mathematical models analyzing behavior of various phenomena. The GIS data can also be combined with other types of data (e. g. air photos, satellite pictures), which could be acquired and sent for the analysis in real-time. Therefore GIS could make emergency management more efficient and perform its procedures faster.
Challenge
One of the most fundamental questions is what role should have GIS in emergency response, or entire emergency management. So far GIS is rather accepted as an advanced part of emergency management among the organizations involved in emergency management. So it is still unclear, which role GIS will be given and what tasks should perform. Nevertheless, present problems are rather organizational than technical because organizations have difficulties to find agreement about the role of GIS, data sharing, level of security, etc. When those fundamental questions will be answered, basic strategies can be developed and common technical and data standards searched. Unfortunately there is a lack of well-documented experience from development, implementation, and operation of GIS in emergency management. Therefore there is a lot of uncertainty in development of GIS as a core IS, particularly combining GIS and emergency management.
Particularly, GIS has possible role as a core IS among organizations involved in emergency management. Unfortunatelly, especiall in Indonesia up to now, no organizations taken GIS as IS core at all, no organization taken GIS as analysis center, but only map and becoming fancy picture only. I wish its really wrong!!.
