Expediting emergency response

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) activities are aimed to limit the impact of a disaster when it occurs, mainly by strengthening the community’s capabilities to cope with a disaster, or to reduce the possibility of a disaster occurring. As clearly highlighted by the Disaster Risk Management (DRM) cycle, a general strategy commonly adopted to fulfill the aforementioned goal is based on an iterative cycle comprising the following phases: Risk assessment, Mitigation and Prevention, Preparedness, Prediction and Warning, Response, and Recovery. Geomatics definitively plays a crucial role in the DRM cycle. Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) makes available global reference geospatial data and services that are transversally exploited in all the aforementioned DRM phases. Furthermore, the growing use of interoperable data formats based on international standards (e.g. Open Geospatial Consortium standards) make easier the integration of local geospatial datasets.