Spatio-temporal knowledge representation for emergency management

This proposal takes advantage of a valuable opportunity which has arisen at short notice: the availability of Professor Michael Worboys (University of Maine, USA) to be a visiting researcher at the School of Engineering, Computing, and Mathematics, University of Exeter in May - July 2010.The project brings together the expertise of Dr Antony Galton (Principal Investigator) in spatial and spatio-temporal knowledge representations and the expertise of Professor Worboys in the field of spatial information in order to address issues in knowledge representations associated with dynamic spatial phenomena, with application to the domain of emergency management and disaster response. An important feature of the project is the collaboration of Centre for Geospatial Science, University of Nottingham, and the Department of Geomatics, University of Melbourne, Australia, who will contribute expertise in the geoinformatics of disaster management complementary but closely related to this endeavour.In general terms there can be no doubt that effective emergency management, monitoring the nation's critical infrastructure and managing recovery in the case of a disaster, is extremely important for the national economy, public services, and for the health of citizens. Effective emergency management and disaster response can be significantly enhanced by the new sensor-based technologies that are coming on stream. However, sensor data from many heterogeneous sources, distributed in space and time, can only be effectively utilized if the foundations in informatics and knowledge representation are available to transform the data into information that is timely and meaningful to decision makers. It is towards this goal that the research in this proposed project makes a contribution.

The proposed research will contribute to the establishment of a set of theoretical and practical principles, tools, and techniques which will form the basis of a robust informatic support for emergency management. As such, the research can be expected, in the short term, to benefit IT professionals developing tools for providing informatic support to emergency and disaster managers; in the longer term, emergency and disaster management agencies themselves; and ultimately, the general public who depend on the efficient operation of these services. By helping to establish a sound theoretical basis for the informatic structures to be deployed in the service of emergency management, the research will also inform training in risk management and planning for emergencies. Emergency management is critically dependent on the flow of information: getting the right information to the right people at the right time. In the nature of the case, the relevant information is heterogeneous, widely distibuted, and largely uncoordinated. The present research will provide necessary contributions to the development of a robust theoretical infrastructure which incorporates a systematic understanding of the nature of processes and events at different levels of aggregation, and provides a suite of techniques by which that understanding can be translated into useful tools. These tools are required for the development of information systems that will enable emergency managers to be more fully informed of developing situations and thereby to deploy the resources at their disposal more effectively. Within the limitations of this relatively modest proposal, there are several channels for communication and engagement. We propose to hold a mini-workshop during the early stages of the project to engage the interest and collaboration of researchers both from the Centre for Geospatial Science at the University of Nottingham and from the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain. In this way we hope to influence that organisation's research directions regarding digital mapping support for emergency management. Subsequently we aim to hold a larger international workshop at which we can receive and give information to experts working in the informatics of emergency management. We will construct a web-site on the same theme, and will publish papers not only in pure scientific journals but also in a journal related to emergency management.