USC Emergency: A Web-Based GIS Application for Emergency Response

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Seismologist have long been predicting a large earthquake in the Southern California region, which could have a devastating impact on the city of Los Angeles. The rapidly expanding population of Los Angeles includes the students, faculty, and staff of the University of Southern California who live, work, and study the university’s main campus. While the majority of the buildings on campus have been built to withstand a fair amount of seismic shaking, there are a number of steps that members of the USC community can take to prepare themselves before an earthquake event occurs. Additionally, following an earthquake event, individuals will need to have access to information regarding the locations of basic necessities and emergency supplies. USC Emergency is a web-based application project that seeks to encourage members of the USC community to take steps to prepare themselves for an earthquake event and gives them a resource for valuable emergency information following the event.

The website that hosts the application contains vital information regarding earthquake preparation and response as well as links to emergency information from the USC Department of Fire Safety and Emergency Management. The application itself is constructed using ArcGIS Web AppBuilder and provides the user with a map of the USC area, including building footprints extracted from the Los Angeles Regional Imagery Acquisition Consortium, accessed from the Los Angeles County Data Portal. Additionally, this application provides the user with tools that can be used to select a location and create a buffer analysis that will return information regarding the location emergency supplies within each building as well as emergency assembly areas that fall within that buffer. This application aims to provide USC students, faculty, and staff with a comprehensive set of preparedness procedures and access to vital information in the crucial moments following a disaster event. Additionally, this project could serve as a precedent for the use of spatial data to assist in disaster response for many different types of emergencies and various locations.

Future iterations of this application will aim to create a link between the university’s emergency services and the community after an earthquake event. This will allow the Department of Emergency Services to share the location data of emergency supplies and give students walking directions to those locations. Efforts will also be made to create a version of the application that would be accessible on mobile devices.

Link to Project: USC Emergency