Flood Management Enhancement Using Remotely Sensed Data: Flood Management Prototype System Design Concept

摘要

This document presents the design concept for a prototype system that integrates remote sensing and spatial feature data into an emergency management tool to support disaster emergency management activities. The prototype system is to be developed for use by the emergency operations staff at the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency (EMA). There is a need in the emergency management community to have, and have access to, current information on the climate, weather, and manmade infrastructure as source data for use in planning, warning, and assessment of disasters. The current microcomputers now have both the processing power and memory capacities to effectively manage the large volumes of data necessary to work with geospatial data. When coupled with geographical information system (GIS) software for manipulating and displaying geospatial data, the technology is now ready to support the needs of users such as state emergency operations staffs. A third technology area that now is capable of effectively supporting the emergency operations staff is the Internet. The objectives of the prototype system are to demonstrate the added value of remote sensing data for emergency management operations during floods and the ability of the Internet to provide the primary communications medium for the system. The key to achieving these objectives will be the development of the Emergency Management Tool that will provide an integrated interface for the emergency operations staff to acquire and manipulate source data and data products to generate and distribute new data products to support their mission.