User-Oriented Provision of Geo-Information in Disaster Management: Potentials of Spatial Data Infrastructures considering Brandenburg/Germany as an Example

Abstract

Actual and high-quality data and information — in the most cases spatial data or geo-information (GI) - are the foundation for decision making in disaster management especially in situations where losses are to be minimized and lives are to be saved. Data and technology suppliers are talking about the magic thing: the “user” or “end user”. But, providing innovative products hoping the user will be positive about and spend a lot of money for means more than asking “who is the user?” and “where can he be found?”.

Anyhow, those products shall support information flows and working processes, often without having the time or chance to reconsider and discard decisions. First of all, data and information products must be available and usable, i.e. they must be known and available in that form and time they are needed. Technological solutions must be application-oriented, aiming at fulfilling the user’s needs in his specific environment.

These facts are taken up by the Special Interest Group “Disaster Management” under the umbrella of the “Geodaten-Infrastruktur Brandenburg (GIB)” in one of the eastern states of Germany. In the GIB framework a network of administrative players, data and software suppliers, scientific institutions and users of geographic information is developed and cooperations and reconciliations are established to build up a local Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). The initiative aims at the interdisciplinary and cross-institutional availability and usability of spatial data, its opening for various working fields and the establishment of an information and communication platform for administration, industry, science and society according to GI.

In the following the potentials of GI, geographic information technology (IT) and SDI for disaster management are identified. First cognitions and results as well as implementation approaches under involvement of the “users” are presented to provide application-oriented support to the effective disaster prevention and coping.