Guest editorial: special issue on spatial computing in emergency management

Excerpt

This special issue was conceived by the guest editors with the goal of providing a synthesis of the state of the art of research involving spatial computing in emergency management. Emergency management (EM) has for the past two decades been at the cutting edge of developments in geographic information science and geospatial technologies for several core reasons. First, EM has an obvious spatial dimension because emergencies affecting people and organizations, individually and collectively, occur at locations scattered across space and risk is spatially distributed, while assets mobilized for mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery are at discrete locations. Second, EM is multidimensional, involving the natural realm (esp. water and atmospheric conditions), human and social realities (including behaviors and emotions), and infrastructures. Also, compounding the complexity of spatial computing is that EM involves space-time relationships spanning broad sections of society’s socio-physical systems. Because EM situations are hazard-driven, uncertain, and extreme, spatial computing must be resilient, quasi-realtime, massive, and capable of integrating structured as well as unstructured data. EM can be seen as the epitome of wicked problems, a class of problems that are recognized to defy commonplace solution strategies . …