Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Wm. A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering.

The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine.

The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone and Dr. Wm. A. Wulf are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council.

www.national-academies.org

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This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:

Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Dr. Robert

Hamilton, National Research Council (retired) and U.S. Geological Survey (retired), and Dr. Chris G. Whipple, ENVIRON International Corporation. Appointed by the NRC, they were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of the report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.

After the events of September 11, 2001, there was a widespread sense in the United States and in many other parts of the world that humanity was entering a new and more dangerous era. Subsequent events, such as the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, the Gulf Coast hurricanes of 2005, and the terrorist bombings of July 7, 2005, in London have if anything strengthened that feeling, as have the potential threats of pandemic flu, dirty bombs, and smallpox. Whether one believes that greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for an increase in the frequency and severity of hurricanes, or that television and the Internet make us all too aware of potential dangers, or that the sheer magnitude of historical events such as the European Black Death of the fourteenth century, the 1556 earthquake in Shansi, China, or the Asian flu pandemic of 1919 overshadow our modern disasters by orders of magnitude, the sheer complexity and interdependencies of modern society clearly make us enormously vulnerable, whether it be to natural disasters or to terrorist attacks. The modern systems that we require to sustain our way of life—the systems that transport our energy, create our food supply, allow us to communicate over vast distances, and maintain our low infant mortality and high life expectancy—are all vulnerable to degrees that would have been unimaginable a few decades ago. Furthermore, the dollar toll from these events is increasing due to population growth in disaster-prone areas, especially in those areas susceptible to hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.

In this new world of the twenty-first century it is essential that we anticipate such events and their potential impacts. It is impossible to know exactly what form they will take, how severe they will be, or where and

when they will occur, but the value of planning has been amply demonstrated. This report is about the value of a specific area of planning and about how the United States might make improvements in that specific area. Geospatial data and tools are currently used for emergency response, but recent events have demonstrated the many ways in which our geospatial data and tools and the use we make of them fail us, both in preparing for unpredictable events and in responding to them afterwards. This report examines the current use of geospatial data and tools in emergency management and makes recommendations to improve that use.

The National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Committee on Geography, now the Geographical Sciences Committee, first discussed the need for this study in 2000, well before the events of September 11, 2001. Those and subsequent events led to a greater sense of urgency, a search for sponsorship, refinement of the study’s charge, and to the eventual formation of a study committee in 2004 under the auspices of the NRC Mapping Science Committee. We thank the sponsors, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the U.S. Geological Survey, for providing funding for this study.

The committee was composed of 13 members and included scientists, social scientists, and engineers from academia, industry, government, and nongovernmental organizations. Committee members included people with experience in designing decision support tools; users of these tools; and experts in natural hazards, risk analysis, transportation, utility infrastructure, geospatial data and remote sensing, disaster planning and response, and computer and information science. The committee included members with extensive field experience in emergency management and response.

Several meetings were held to gather evidence from individuals and representatives of organizations and agencies, including emergency response practitioners and experts in geospatial data and tools. The primary information-gathering event was a workshop held on October 5-6, 2005, which included five discussion panels with approximately 25 panelists from the relevant academic disciplines and agencies and from the commercial software and data products industry. The workshop included a mix of discussion panels and breakout discussions.

This report presents the committee’s findings and recommendations. It is designed to be read by any public official who is concerned to make his or her community disaster resilient: leaders of emergency response and emergency operations agencies, elected officials and citizens who are concerned about community vulnerability, agency staff who make or recommend decisions about the allocation or acquisition of resources, developers of technologies, or members of committees charged with developing policies.