GIS-Pro 2024

Emergency Preparedness for GIS - Half-Day Workshop
Monday, October 7, 2024 - 8:00 AM - 12:00 Noon
Instructors: Theresa (Tari) Martin, GISP, Director, National Alliance for Public Safety GIS Foundation
Doug Adams, GISP, Senior Lead GIS Specialist, Maryland Environmental Service, Catonsville, MD

Today, disasters are becoming more complex, costly, and frequent. First responders and emergency managers are relying more and more on geospatial technology to prepare for, respond to, and recover from these disasters. There is a pressing need for cross-training on the non-technical disciplines GIS staff is being asked to support. Specifically, public safety (emergency management, police, and fire services) and the rigid workflows that accompany their daily duties often prove foreign to those unfamiliar with these activities.

To accommodate their needs in a time-sensitive situation, GIS professionals must be armed with enough knowledge of emergency management and first responder activities, and information requirements. They must also be able to effectively anticipate and discern the needs of decision-makers and first responders and quickly produce the spatial document(s) that best support decision-making in an emergency.

This workshop is divided into two parts:

Part 1. First, a brief overview of the Incident Command Structure and the National Incident Management System, which provide the framework under which public safety and homeland security operations occur.
Part 2. Then, we will introduce the Geospatial Concept of Operations and the integration of geospatial technology across the mission areas (Protection, Prevention, Mitigation, Response and Recovery).

Throughout, we will review common situations at the local level and showcase studies/examples of how GIS is used to support the disaster continuum. We will also discuss relevant data sets for public safety, resources and emerging technologies, and suggestions for integrating GIS into an organization’s disaster preparedness planning.

Learning Objectives:

• Communicate a basic understanding of the framework that shapes emergency management preparedness activities for the whole community.
• Understand the key integration points of GIS data, analysis, and technology to support preparedness activities aimed at building a more resilient nation.
• Gain knowledge of standards and best practices for the production of decision-support tools, field applications, and public information products.

Cost: One full-day or one half-day workshop is included with full conference registration. The cost to add a second half-day workshop is $100 member/$125 nonmember.