Esri powers intelligent real-time information with Safe Communities with emergency services

Esri's new ArcGIS platform smart maps connect real-time emergency services to prevent and respond to disasters and conflicts.

The specialist in geographic information systems (Gis) Esri has improved its ArcGIS platform with the Safe Communities solution, aimed at improving the communication and real-time information of the various natural disaster emergency agents, mass events, border control, Etc.

Safe Communities solution facilitates and streamlines the decision-making process in such critical situations, where time spent can result in economic and even human life losses, as it allows emergency centres and field staff to coordinate in an agile manner, sharing and analyzing real-time data for the best decision-making.

ArcGIS for Safe Communities can be used in any of the four phases of emergency management: Prevention, Response, mitigation and recovery. For example, by analyzing historical data it is possible to develop predictive models to assess the potential impact of a future event, assisting in prevention tasks.

Also, it is possible to mitigate natural disasters at the same time as, collecting real-time information that allows real-time analysis of various magnitudes, like the location of a fire, the wind speed or location of deployed response teams.

Proof of its efficiency is the use of ArcGIS to fight pests and harmful species, as in the case of madrid City Council; or to detect areas with high chances of fire in the case of the Barcelona consistory and in the community of Andalusia, where Infoca used it to manage the extinction of the fire that ravaged part of Doñana National Park last year.

Another possibility is that private companies can develop new solutions using ArcGIS as a technology base, for applications as diverse as analyzing the behaviour of wildfires and simulating their spread, as is the case with the Wildfire Analyst system Tecnosylva.

As Alvaro Martín points out, Esri Spain's executive industry manager, "technology needs to be flexible and scalable to react to an emergency, providing real-time data exchange and ensuring fast and accurate decision-making at any stage of an emergency, and by any of the many agencies involved in its management".

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