Web Survey Synthesis

NSF CyberGIS Requirements Workshop

Prepared by University of Washington

Participatory GIS Technology (PGIST) Research Team

Washington, DC | February 2, 2011

Survey Respondents (19) Organization

Bill Appelbe (CyberGIS) Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing

XuanShi (CyberGIS) Georgia Tech

Chris Renschler U. Buffalo

RangaRajuVatsavai (CyberGIS) Oakridge National Research Lab

ChaitanBaru San Diego State U.

Shaowen Wang (CyberGIS) U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tim Nyerges (CyberGIS) U. Washington

Serge Rey (CyberGIS) Arizona State

LeysiaPalen U. Colorado

2/19

Survey Respondents (19) Organization

Sean Ahearn City U. New York, Hunter College

Bob Freitag U. Washington

Yan Liu (CyberGIS) U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

BudhendraBhaduri (CyberGIS) Oakridge National Research Lab

Nina Lam Louisiana State U.

ThomasCova U. Utah

Andrew Curtis U.Southern California

Piotr Jankowski San Diego State U.

May Yuan U. Oklahoma

Michael Hodgson U. South Carolina

3/19

EM Phases General Capabilities

4/19

Two Frameworks for Content Analysis/Synthesis

Q1: What policy and scientific questions for emergency management (EM) are to be addressed that have not been adequately addressed in the policy and scientific literature?

EM Phases

• Emergency intelligence production and sharing •Links between hazards and receptors through process scale and affect on overall understanding of disaster impacts

Preparedness

•More accurate prediction of flood levels from upstream events, real-time forecasts of wind shifts• Emergency alerts for rapid flood events, wind shifts • Dynamic adjustment of measures based on real time information

• Evacuation and utilities capacity design• Vulnerability identification and linkage to protective plans• Simulators, training tools for prediction (disaster impacts and occurrence) • Representation and communication of uncertainty

“How do you define, quantify, model, and communicate extreme events and community resilience to be able to assess, plan for and enhance communities against extreme events?”

5/19

Q1: What policy and scientific questions for emergency management (EM) are to be addressed that have not been adequately addressed in the policy and scientific literature?

EM PhasesResponse

•Affect of spatio-temporal-attribute scale on inter-organizational situation awareness• Methods and techniques needed by first responders to manage impacts • Collection and provision of remote sensing data from a policy (responsibility) & science (speed) perspective

Recovery

• Alternative futures simulation• Infrastructure design for quick recovery• Community disaster resilience and how supported by policies and methods• Fine-scale spatial patterning and influence

Mitigation

(While aspects of preparedness mitigate impacts – hazard mitigation as such was not addressed)

6/19

Q1: What policy and scientific questions for emergency management (EM) are to be addressed that have not been adequately addressed in the policy and scientific literature?General CapabilitiesAnalysis/Data

• Affect of software capabilities on quality/performance of EM• Scales of space-time data needed at different EM phases within both different regional and disaster contexts• Computational methods for decision-making (high &multi-level resolution)• Science-based cost-benefit analysis• Tradeoff between data quality and usability/effectiveness in time critical situations• Best methods for updating key baseline datasets following disaster• Opportunities and limits to VGI

Interaction

• Use of volunteer-contributed on-site info, public as information source (enablement)• Dynamic, collaborative decision-making in crises• Rapid deployment of information

Integration

• Alignment/verification/integration of multiple sources of information (formal/informal)• Regional compatibility of GIS• Linking physical process models with human behavioral models

7/19

Q2: Which of the CyberGIS capabilities listed is the Software Elements table can address the questions specified in Question 1?

Capabilities Frequency (of 19)

Visualization and Map Operations 15

Generic CyberInfrastructure Capabilities 13

Spatial Middleware 12

SpatialInterpolation 11

Domain-Specific Modeling 11

Online Problem-Solving 10

Agent-Based Modeling 10

Local Clustering Detection 10

Spatial Econometrics 9

Geostatistical Modeling 9

Choice-Modeling 9

Capability Statistics

Mean: 6

Median: 4

Mode: 8

Min: 1 (3 x Generic CI)

Max: 11 (7 x All)

8/19

Q3: What other application capabilities are needed for moving the science and policy of emergency management forward, perhaps incrementally or by a major leap? (Table portrays three separate lists. No cross-column reading intended.)

Analysis/Data Interaction Integration

Socio-behavioral investigation Mobile applications, technology for public

Rapid synthesis of data, info and knowledge

Improved understanding of coupled human/natural systems

User and community-friendly collaborative tools

Unified platform for short and long-term EM

Geo-optimization coupled with decision-making

Coordination and communication within the GISci Federal/State/Local communities

High-performance computing (parallelization, partitioning, data mining, machine learning)

Probabilistic & impact-sensitive decision-making

Efficient information dissemination (content, context, user, time )

Ad hoc integration capabilities, adaptable and extensible

Unstructured data utilization Near-real time maps for web/mobile Integration from different substantive problem domains

Faster than real time simulations Information portals that bring together many different tools, info

Ontology-based data access and integration

Transdisciplinary & cross-domain, rapid, optimized, integrated, adaptable, highly-performant

9/19

Ontology/Concepts• Coupled human/natural

systems• Vulnerabilities and impacts• Resilience• Uncertainty

Computational Performance/Throughput

Simulation• Event

prediction/forecast• Impacts• Response capacity• Alternative futures

Data/Information• Scale/granularity• Source (reliability,

compatibility)• Currency

Integration• Open• Ad hoc• Inclusive• Selective

10/19

Communication• Alerts• VGI enablement• Situation

awareness• Collaboration

Operation• Dynamic adjustment• Methods/tech for first responders

Decision• Computational

methods• Geo-optimization• Probability• Cost/benefit analysis• Collaboration

Q4: Based on your response in Question 3, what software tools / packages can address those other capabilities?

Software Application Open Source: Considerations

HAZUS-MH &MAEviz

ImpactSimulation

Yes:Need redesign to be deployable to multi-processing environments

OSSIM ImpactSimulation

Yes: Needsuitable extensions that address rapid damage assessment issues

AnyLogic ABM, event, system modeling

No: Only of two who provide mixed-mode simulation

WinBUGS& RIF (Rapid Inquiry Facility)

Bayesian decision modeling

?:RIF is an extension of ArcGIS

5 Number of respondents who feel that the tools needed to innovate do not yet exist

11/19

Q4: Based on your response in Question 3, what software tools / packages can address those other capabilities?

Tools Application Considerations

Spatial video Data collection Good for fine scale spatial data collection, allows commentary to be added

Google Earth & Google Maps

Information visualization & dissemination

Easy to use and interpret findings

Pictometry Information visualization

Excellent data but very expensive

IPhone apps, smartphones, Facebook

Information visualization & dissemination, collaboration

Good model for possibilities in EM

12/19

Q5: How would you like to see the application capabilities integrated into a CyberGIS platform? (Table portrays three separate lists. No cross-column reading intended.)

Analysis/Data Interaction Integration

Need more research on linkages between systems to exploit them

Linkage to social and other networks

Gateway to high performance computing, many tools/data need to be re-designed

Capture and use of data from a range of sources

Rethink approach to geo-spatial portals and user interaction Needs to be useful to research

and practice of EM, developer friendly

Data driven simulation in distributed environment

Visioning tools Subscription and broadcast

Spatial optimization and other multiple criteria decision support methodsintegrated as services

Online mapping & image/video display editable by community groups - standards needed?

Open standards, well-defined interfaces (web services), linkage without a priori knowledge

Different views for different problems or audiences

Data collection and aggregation through mobile apps into a common data platform

Computational version of Google Earth

13/19

Q6: What are the main obstacles for answering the questions identified in Question 1 in light of CyberGIS, e.g. availability of software, data, software integration, etc.?

“All of the above”

“Most packages developed for different problem domains are largely silos with the ability to integrate with other systems either ignored or given only limited thought...this is a key constraint in a more holistic understanding of how these different frameworks may be brought together.”

“The problem is very complex because of all the stakeholders, unique threats, socioeconomic and cultural variation in sub-populations, distributed resources and time critical nature of this application area.”

14/19

Q6: What are the main obstacles for answering the questions identified in Question 1 in light of CyberGIS, e.g. availability of software, data, software integration, etc.?

Analysis/Data Interaction Integration

Verification of information e.g. source, data age, location relevance

Effective dissemination of results to an impacted community/individuals

EM requires standardized products (outputs), data/information sharing policies

Real-time EM computation, eg. spatial analysis in 30 seconds

Ability of web GIS interface to support interactions among users, applications, and data

Parallelization of spatial computation and data partitioning

Fine-scale data availability,especially in a dynamic form

Cheap and user-friendly data collection system is needed

Difficulties in implementation on various platforms

Fine-grained data highly variable and non-existent at federal level

Lack of knowledge of VGI’s fitness and applicability for disaster management

Open platform for collaboration needed

15/19

Q6: What are the main obstacles for answering the questions identified in Question 1 in light of CyberGIS, e.g. availability of software, data, software integration, etc.?

Analysis/Data Interaction Integration

Massive amount of data received immediately after an event

Engagement of emergency services, overcoming institutional firewalls and inertia, good demonstrators

Lack of understanding of the principles/concepts underlying the software

Spatial confidentiality – for fine scale recovery process health information needs to be combined with built environment data

Effective integration of community-contributed EM capabilities

Lack of ontology of domain specific models and computational tools

Availability of useful data Policies and funding to support readiness, not just response

Specifying a model-driven architecture (SOA) at multiple levels needed

16/19

Applications

Generic CyberInfrastructure

Service Providers

Service Consumers

End Users

CyberGIS EM Stack:

Where is CyberGIS boundary?

Where do we/you fit?

Portals

Model Standards

TechStandards

Service Registry

Devices

Spatial Middleware

17/19

18/19

Wordle-based Tag Cloud: All TermsNote size of “SPATIAL” word at right

19/19

Tag cloud with top frequency terms removed

20/19

THANK YOU!

CyberGIS Project is funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) grant number OCI1047916 as part of the NSF Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation (SI2) Program to develop a geospatial cyberinfrastructure environment for sustained geospatial innovation and discovery through the integration of cyberinfrastructure, GIS, and spatial analysis/modeling software.

The researchers are responsible for all content.