Handheld Map Display Tool for Disaster Information Access and Management

Thad Mauney, Donald Alford and Ty Hale

Abstract:	Timely access to resource information is critical to success in disaster management. From the urgency of the initial response phase to the laborious recovery phase and the complex issues of risk mitigation, information regarding the victims, refugees, resources and risk factors is largely location specific. Therefore, putting appropriate maps into handheld information appliances can provide disaster and refugee aid workers with access to critical information while minimizing confusion in chaotic environments and minimizing the communication overload. Working with humanitarian aid organizations, we have developed regional maps of remote populations in mountainous areas at high risk from natural hazards including rock slides, flooding and debris flows. By combining conventional cartography, GPS observations and satellite imagery, new datasets have been created with attention to the specific needs of aid workers who are striving to pro-actively reduce risks to the mountain people while preparing infrastructure to support response should a disaster eventually occur. Dynamic georeferencing of a mobile cartographic display with GPS creates a live 'where am I' point that allows the user of geographic databases to relate the digital map to their real-world location and avoid many common map- reading blunders. Placing the display in a handheld device makes that geographic database a superb tool for locating and recovering objects such as supply caches and other assets for which coordinates are known, but that may not be superficially obvious.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 14th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2001) September 11 - 14, 2001 Salt Palace Convention Center Salt Lake City, UT
Pages:	1511 - 1514
Cite this article:	Mauney, Thad, Alford, Donald, Hale, Ty, "Handheld Map Display Tool for Disaster Information Access and Management," Proceedings of the 14th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2001), Salt Lake City, UT, September 2001, pp. 1511-1514.
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