Process Driven Emergency Management Platform for Flood Response Integrating web GIS Technologies

Even in highly developed western regions, huge riveraine floods are a great challenge for flood response management. The cooperation of different response authorities and organizations under time critical conditions in a highly dynamic environment require support with modern IT methods and systems. Present Flood Information Systems still do not sufficiently focus on supporting the workflow of planning and carrying out flood response actions. This paper introduces a new process centric approach, which improves the coordination and information workflows of Emergency Operation Centers (EOC) and involved services. Formal process models as core of a process driven emergency management platform provide the responsible agent with appropriate data and analyses along defined emergency processes. The platform guides the EOC officers and involved parties through the organizational steps of flood response actions. Coordinated information flow and automatic multi-channel notifications are ensured throughout the process. The developed approach is successfully validated using flood scenarios with real-world data. The results show that the approach improves information flow in the EOC and to external organizations and enhances coordinated work-sharing of EOC team members during flood response