In recent years, a growing number of stakeholders have been taking part in the generation and delivery of geospatial information and services to reduce the impact of severe natural disasters on the communities. This is mainly due to a huge demand for accurate, current and relevant knowledge about the impacted areas for a wide range of applications in risk-informed decision makings. The aim of this paper is to identify users’ requirements for emergency mapping team (EMT) operations in the Dominican Republic (DR). An online survey was applied to collect data from key users involved in the Inter-Institutional Geospatial Information Team in DR. Our findings suggest a set of users’ requirements for EMT operations: (1) standardization; (2) establishing and maintaining a spatial data infrastructure; (3) partnership; (4) effective communication among stakeholders; and (5) capacity building. A better understanding of the users’ requirements and the associated information workflows will lead to a superior level of readiness for EMT operations in DR. This knowledge will support future studies/practices at the local and national levels in the Caribbean region, which share similar challenges in terms of natural hazards and development issues.
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) increasingly face natural hazards that overwhelm their capacity to generate and share spatial-information to reduce human–economic losses. Under such circumstances, the emergency mapping team (EMT) enables a common operational picture of the impacted communities. This paper aims to identify user requirements for EMT operations in the Caribbean and, based on those findings, improve the level of preparedness to deliver information-services that contribute to disaster risk management in the region. The results are built upon a case-study and a survey targeted for technical personnel responsible for emergency mapping in three Caribbean states: the Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia and Sint Maarten. Our findings revealed five user requirements for EMT operations: institutional arrangements, implementation of a Cloud-based spatial data infrastructure, linking community stakeholders, partnerships and capacity building. This study provides the foundation for future EMT developments in the Caribbean region and in others SIDS with similar settings in the world.
The Dominican Republic (DR) is a small island developing state (SIDS) highly exposed to disaster-risk phenomena, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. The Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) enables coordination and sharing of spatial information and services from multiple sources, while emergency mapping operations (EMO) help decision-makers build a common operational picture (COP) of impacted communities. Assessment of future scenarios for SDI implementation to meet emergency mapping goals requires the consideration of a wide range of stakeholders with different objectives. We make use of multi-actor multi-criteria analysis (MAMCA) in the case study of DR to evaluate government, private sector, emergency mapping team (EMT), and academia perspectives of three governance scenarios (Going-Concern, Increasing-Hierarchy, and Increasing-Network) for SDI implementation. Our findings suggest that the ‘Increasing Network’ scenario is the most suitable for SDI implementation. A well-coordinated inter-organizational network through a SDI should empower more stakeholders to participate in EMO. This work highlighted the increase of public-private partnerships as a key criterion to share costs and efforts to effectively support emergency mapping tasks. Findings reported herein could assist decision-makers in designing roadmaps to enhance SDI implementation in the DR. This knowledge will also support future studies/practices in other SIDS, which share similar natural hazards and development issues.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.