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Collaborative Geo-information CapturingTo Support Emergency Response

UN-SPIDER Workshop, UN Campus Bonn, Germany30 October 2007

Guido LemoineEC-JRC-IPSC-SES-ISFEREA

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Introduction

• JRC-Support to External Security (SES) Unit provides scientific & technology advice to European Union’s Commission services in external policy realm (DG RELEX, ECHO, AIDCO, JLS, ENV/MIC)

• Extended to EU partners in international aid, development, humanitarian affairs

• Ongoing collaborations with UN organisations (UN-OCHA, UN-DPKO, UNOSAT), Worldbank, African Union, Red Cross

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Introduction

• JRC-SES Unit focus on multi-stage crisis cycle, including risk modelling, early warning, rapid response and reconstruction & reconciliation

• Development and proto-typing as part of institutional role and collaborative R&D with partners

• Service development under the Global Monitoring of Environment and Security (GMES) programme

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5 JRC, Ispra, 2007GDACS September 2007

6 JRC, Ispra, 2007GDACS September 2007

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reference maps available within 6 hours over crisis area

damage maps available within 24 hours & daily updated before 5 pm

forecasts of evolution of situations to be made available

GMES Emergency response (FTS): main information

linking with other hazard management components beyond rapid response (preparedness and alert) – service evolution in mid/long-term

integrating with remit of forecast and alert centers (met / hydro / seismic)

Applicable within & outside EU

(more information in WP 2)

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Collaborative geo-information capturing

• Emergency response: rapid mapping + geospatial analysis to support coordination and decision making

• Requires– Situation assessment from a collation of existing data sets– Impact assessment with post-event imagery and information– Responding to specific geospatial questions– Organisation of post-event peak workloads, contributors, etc.

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IT Challenges

• Distributed access to geospatial data sets• Distributed access to large very high resolution imagery• Collection of distributed inputs (“feature capturing”), including field data• Communication of distributed workloads• Extensible architecture to interface to spatial querying, image processing• Visualisation, for multiple end-users• Must accommodate various roles (project manager, digitiser, geo-spatial

analyst, decision making end-user, etc.)• Quality control, project organisation, authentication and access rules etc.

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IT Components chosen

• Google Earth standard client (latest version supporting KML 2.2)• (250+ Million downloads, comes with access to VHR data!)• TOMCAT application server• PostgreSQL/PostGIS spatial back end + versioning enabled• Geoserver + geotools for application logic (data capture, data presentation)• GDAL (FWTools) for data preparation; uDig, OpenJump for data control• Java + JSP/JSTL server components• KML standard (including SuperOverlays)• Public (GE) and open source: zero install cost!• GEO-spatial Repository for Google Earth (GEORGE)

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GNEX’07 test case

• An emergency scenario simulation. Post-conflict disease control.• Organised by the GMOSS Network of Excellence in Security

R&D (an FP6 GMES project)• Under the management of DLR, contributions from 10+ GMOSS

partners, over 40+ people involved• Use of EO data for situation assessment• Geo-spatial analysis for population characterisation (density)• Logistical information on routing, water resources, health care,

evacuation and quarantine measures• Testing GEORGE parallel to “traditional” work methods

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• Integration of full resolution imagery• Both off-line and on-line

TerraSAR-X QuickBird

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• Integration of archived geo-spatial features (e.g. UN-GIST, user-generated)

• Integration of output of geo-spatial queries

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• Integration of image processing outputs• Integration of output from automated

image analysis routines• Collection of manual digitisation outputs

Automated building count (Z-GIS)

SPOT-5 derived built-up index (JRC)

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Conclusions

• Geo-spatial e-Collaboration in emergency response is technically feasible, including “downstreaming” of large imagery

• Extensible to include elaborate spatial querying and image processing

• Adaptable to regional and thematic specificity of typical emergency response contexts

• Collaborative framework allows (rapid) collation of distributed digitisation efforts with expert knowledge

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Why does this matter for UN-SPIDER?

• Emergency response goes beyond data identification• Needs to address formal description of deployable

services/expertise• Needs to describe service interfaces, standards• Needs to address QoS in emergency response context• Management issues, project control, procedural workflow,

capacity brokerage, post-event evaluation• Free and Open Source components benefit knowledge transfer

and capacity building

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For more information, test cases, ideas, etc.

guido.lemoine@jrc.it

T. +39 0332 78 62 39

Thank you for your attention!