GEOSPATIAL DATA GENERATED DURING EARTHQUAKE RESPONSE AND THE NEED FOR INTEGRATED DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS SUCH AS THE EVENT-DRIVEN DATA DELIVERY SYSTEM

Searching for disaster event and response data can generate numerous geospatial files. In the months following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, USGS' Hazard Data Distribution System (HDDS) helped acquire and distribute over 600,000 files of remotely sensed data. These data were processed, analyzed, modeled, and applied in many different ways by a variety of entities during the response. Additional data and maps derived from the aerial and satellite data were placed on the web in many different locations. For example, following the Haiti earthquake, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research's Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) used International Charter satellite data available through the HDDS to generate maps such as land cover differences, building damage, and road blockages). UNOSAT works with over 50 different entities (remote sensing businesses, governments, web mapping groups, etc.) around the world, and many of these also distribute remotely sensed data and create event maps and map derivations. Universities and state geological surveys also acquire, generate, and disseminate geospatial data following disasters for research and public support purposes.

Searching for and locating these data takes time that may not be available during response. The Event-Driven Data Delivery system (ED3), is a framework developed with funding from the NASA Applied Science Program for supporting data acquisition during response. Developed by the Information Technology and Systems Center, the Global Hydrology Resource Center, and the Atmospheric Science Department at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, in collaboration with the Geological Survey of Alabama, this web system allows the user to create an account and specify their geographic and disaster type of interest (such as an earthquake). Following a disaster, ED3 searches the web and data repositories for publicly available data specific to the user’s interest and generates a virtual collection of the resulting data in the form of a GeoRSS feed. The user’s interface, whether ArcGIS Online, Google Earth or other standards compliant tools, can connect to the ED3 GeoRSS feed so that the user can access the data in overlays with their own data or response projects.