Planning and preparing for and responding to an emergency situation caused by a natural or man-made disaster require the collaboration of many different agencies and departments from both the public and private sectors. Whether the disaster is caused by a hurricane, a tanker leaking hazardous material, or a wildfire, ensuring the safety of residents in the surrounding area is of the utmost importance. To understand how to effectively respond to such emergencies—including deploying personnel and managing equipment—those involved in the planning and responding must know and understand what is happening around them as the incident unfolds, what changes will occur over time, and what kind of impact the dynamics of the surrounding environment might have. Referred to as situational awareness, this type of knowledge—the right knowledge about the right place at the right time—lets incident commanders, emergency managers, and homeland security professionals perform their mission safely and effectively and respond proactively as well as reactively.

This shows the 2D browser-based Common Operational Picture (COP) viewer.

To help organizations gain an accurate understanding of their operations and how events can impact them, Esri has released the ArcGIS Situational Awareness Bundle. Customized and configured to support a variety of requirements, the Situational Awareness Bundle includes ready-to-operate hardware, software, and data. With this bundle, organizations can fuse complex, disparate datasets—including GeoRSS, live traffic camera, and live weather feeds—with their operational data and give decision makers, analysts, and operators a common operational picture (COP). The ability to access Web mapping services and the included Web-enabled browsers allows enterprise collaboration and communication, ensuring that everyone who requires access to critical information and tasks has it. To further facilitate timely sharing of information, organizations can also use the Situational Awareness Bundle to publish map documents and other cartographic products, as well as models, geoprocesses, analysis, and Web services.

Incident commanders, emergency responders, and dispatchers need to make decisions about where, what type of, and how many resources should be dispatched, as well as who the vulnerable populations are, where they live, and how they should be evacuated. The ArcGIS Situational Awareness Bundle supports key Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC), and ISO standards, such as KML and Web Map Service (WMS), to enable organizations to disseminate relevant information and data to the right personnel at the right time and ensures unlimited and uninterrupted access to data, services, and solutions.

Built on the ArcGIS technology platform, the Situational Awareness Bundle includes several software applications, hardware, and terabytes of prerendered data.

• Software—Client applications for data management, visualization, analysis, and dissemination capabilities include a data management and authoring client to manage, author, and publish data for use with the included 3D and browser-based clients or any client that can consume OGC-compliant WMF, WFS, or KML services.
  • The Common Operational Picture viewer is a flexible 2D browser-based client that provides a visually rich and responsive common operational view. The COP viewer is ready to use and can be customized to create enhanced levels of situational awareness.
  • With the 3D desktop client, organizations can easily view, analyze, and share geographic information. This client can be distributed freely, so organizations can share maps and other information with internal and external stakeholders and personnel.
• Hardware—Preconfigured to work with ArcGIS technology, the Data Fusion and Analysis Appliance is included to support data management, analysis, visualization, and dissemination. It integrates directly with an organization's existing service-oriented architecture (SOA). For organizations that do not have an existing SOA, an optional Data Management Appliance, based on a complete Microsoft SQL Server database, is available. Also included is a Data Appliance, preloaded with terabytes of prerendered nationwide and worldwide data, that can be installed behind an organization's secure firewall.
• Data—Terabytes of prerendered nationwide and worldwide data, including streets, transportation layers, raster imagery, topographic maps, shaded relief imagery, place-names, administrative boundaries, and elevation data, are included with the ArcGIS Situational Awareness Bundle. All data is precached in 2D and 3D formats and optimized for map display and performance. Annual data updates are included in maintenance and delivered on disk drives. Those organizations that wish to receive semiannual data updates can sign up for a premium renewal service.

The ArcGIS Situational Awareness Bundle provides a complete data fusion and analysis solution so organizations can plan and respond to emergencies.

To get organizations up and running quickly with the ArcGIS Situational Awareness Bundle, implementation services and training from Esri are also included. The Implementation Services Package from Esri's Professional Services Group includes installation and configuration services, as well as a technology transfer session. The Training Package from Esri's educational services team includes instructor-led training at the customer's site, as well as Web-based learning modules.

More Information

To learn more about the ArcGIS Situational Awareness Bundle, visit www.esri.com/sab.