Identifying Users’ Requirements for Emergency Mapping Team Operations in Small Island Developing States: Caribbean Perspective

Abstract

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.

Assessing SDI Implementation Scenarios to Facilitate Emergency Mapping Operations in the Dominican Republic

“…For the EMT group, data standardization (28%) and up-to-date data (24%) were the most important criteria. Other authors also agree with this result, stating that the standards for data capture methods, metadata, quality, maintenance, symbology, map products, and access network are key requirements for emergency mapping workflow [10]. Users' involvement 9…”

“…Up-to-date data (46%), public-private partnerships (43%), and data standardization (42%) are the most important criteria for the 'Increasing Network' scenario. Though almost all geospatial data for EMO is in digital format, standardization, and harmonization are still important issues to tackle, especially to respond to emergency mapping tasks in the Dominican Republic [10,11]. The private sector has a specific view on SDI implementation.…”

“…Rosario et al (2020) [9] worked on the identification of users' requirements at each main task of EMT for disaster response operations at the national level in the DR. Moreover, Rosario et al (2021) [10] applied a case study approach and an online survey targeted at three SIDS to identify general users' requirements for EMT operations in the Caribbean region. Other authors described the application of a three-round Delphi survey to assess consensus among 28 key international experts in identifying 23 critical factors for enhancing SDI performance to facilitate disaster risk management in SIDS [11].…”

Detection and analysis of emergency topic in social media considering changing roles of stakeholders

“…, 2022). From the dynamic perspective of stakeholders, this paper expands the previous research on the classification of the users in microblog emergency events by including many participants in the process of microblog communication into the research scope, and clarifies main subjects of emergency in different stages, which leads to the public opinion analysis of relevant departments more targeted (Michel et al. , 2021).…”

“…Dynamic topic evolution model can improve the ability of microblog information analysis, grasp the emergency dynamics, and effectively OIR 47,2 guide public opinion (Feng et al, 2022). From the dynamic perspective of stakeholders, this paper expands the previous research on the classification of the users in microblog emergency events by including many participants in the process of microblog communication into the research scope, and clarifies main subjects of emergency in different stages, which leads to the public opinion analysis of relevant departments more targeted (Michel et al, 2021). The combination of the "the dynamic of the stakeholder" and "the dynamic of the topic" is more helpful for the crisis managers and relevant departments to conduct timely and effective public opinion guidance and management.…”