2. GIS system in crises management
Crisis management is a very important part of public safety.Each phase in the crisis management cycle
(mitigation and prevention, preparedness, response, recovery) requires specific collection and processing of
geographic information [5].
Whereas most of the phases are part of medium-and long-term approaches, it is important to separately-dedicate
preparation of data (fig. 1). The Mitigation and Prevention phase consists in the global identification and
prioritization of the risks in a specific area, in order to define the proper measures for risk reduction (technical
responses, land-use planning, information specifically dedicated to the population). Prevention implies the cross
checking of all the data related to hazards, issues and vulnerabilities at various scales. It requires negotiations
between the different actors to reach some compromise between protection and development. The preparedness
phase is based on the development of different municipal, departmental and national operational plans. Such
negotiations are based on maps, and all the actions cover the short, medium and long term. In the risk management
cycle, the response phase is the only one requiring immediate access to information and resources to determine and
organize a rapid response.The reconstruction phase, management cycle, requires a location-based inventory of all
material, social, economic and environmental consequences of the disaster. Reconstruction is usually a very slow
process, given the scale of the damage; it includes establishing liability, re-evaluating safety standards, redefining
technological choices and the organization and functioning of territories[6,7,8].