Web Mapping Technologies in Crisis Management
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2008 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Proceedings 2 of Second International Conference on Cartography & GIS - seminar with EU cooperation on early warning and disaster/crisis management |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Earth magnetism, geography |
| Keywords | map customization; API; distributed map; Web cartography |
| Description | This paper focuses attention on maps and spatial data through distributed electronic networks to simplify decision making process in crisis management. Crisis management is the process of measuring or assessing risk and developing strategies how to manage it. Traditional crisis management focuses on risks stemming from physical or legal causes (e.g. natural disasters or fires, accidents, deaths, and lawsuits). However, there is also a geoinformatical and cartographical point of view and this approach is based on map production and map use in crisis management. The purpose of this paper is to bring an overview of current Web mapping technologies that are useful for crisis management. This work is not focused on description of different kinds of Web services as they are already widely known. Instead of this, it deals with problematics of customization (such as Application Programming Interface of Google Maps, Mapquest or Atlas) and user issues. In this case, customization and user issues are closely associated since a map user could be due to API at the same time a map maker. Furthermore, we have analyzed the cartographic correctness of above mentioned Web mapping technologies. The main idea of this research is the evaluation of integration and customization possibilities for existing Web mapping technologies and their meaningful use in daily life of rescue workers. This research has been supported by funding from Project No. MSM0021622418 called Dynamic Geovisualization in Crisis Management. |
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