Using Geospatial Web Services Holistically in Emergency Management

To confront the ever-growing volume and complexity of disasters, development should begin on a highly interoperable, loosely coupled, dynamic, geospatially-enabled information platform with comprehensive situational awareness. This chapter argues that geospatial Web services are a crucial building component for the emergency management community to develop this desired information platform because geospatial Web services, along with other non-spatial Web services, can provide interoperability. In addition to discussing how geospatial Web services, especially the ones standardized by the Open Geospatial Consortium, have been used in different phases of emergency management, the chapter contends that a holistic approach with geospatial Web services will create more value for emergency management. It concludes by pointing out some future work that is worth exploring in order to cope with the ever-changing nature of emergency management.