GIS and the mayor
by Herman Jan Frieling
The title of my postgraduate research dissertation is:
"GIS and the mayor - support during calamities and disasters". It describes the Dutch disaster management system
and pinpoints at two specific aspects; the role of the mayor and the role of GIS in this process and the way the
first can benefit of the second.
In case of a calamity the mayor is responsible for the overall co-ordination of the public services which have their
role in the phase of repression; fire brigade, police, health services and municipalities. He is positioned in a
team which makes strategic decisions during the process. The mayor is also the interface to the public and the press.
To act adequately the mayor uses information. Most of this information has a spatial component, which can be presented
with the help of GIS. GIS is used by the alarm centres of fire brigade, police and health services and, increasingly,
by municipalities too.
The research was carried out by doing interviews with key persons in the process, like mayors and responsible people
from different organisations. The main results of the research are:
- Spatial information is essential for the mayor during calamities
- The mayor directly benefits by the use of GIS
- Information from municipalities is essential for the mayor's tasks
- The potential of employing GIS in disaster management is large. Political and
management decisions are to be made to use available techniques for information exchange
The research period has been busy for myself, but it has been worthwhile.
Collecting the knowledge about the functioning of disaster management and the linking of it with the
capabilities of GIS has been a challenge.
The research dissertation, which is in Dutch, can be found
on Herman Jan's website and also in our
Download area.
Herman Jan Frieling (2005), GIS and the mayor - support during calamities and disasters, Unigis MSc thesis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. |
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