New Living Atlas Content: Emergency Management Webmaps
Emergency Management webmaps are now available in the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World Canada Edition. Learn how your organization can leverage these maps and their data.
An extremely valuable set of Emergency Management web mapping applications, from the Government Operations Centre (GOC), have recently been added to ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World Canada Edition. Housed at Public Safety Canada, the GOC supports preparedness for and leads the coordination of the integrated federal response to all-hazard events of national interest. These web maps are curated using publicly accessible authoritative data and are designed to be easy to use and intuitive.
The first of the Emergency Management webmap applications that have been added to the Living Atlas is the Wildland Fires application. This application shows wildfire hotspots, fire perimeters, smoke plume modeling and other layers of interest, such as infrastructure and transportation and current weather conditions.
The second Emergency Management webmap application that have been added to the Living Atlas is the Canadian Index of Multiple Deprivation (CIMD) application. The CIMD is an area-based index using 2021 Census of Population microdata to measure four key dimensions of deprivation: residential instability, economic dependency, situational vulnerability, and ethno-cultural composition at the dissemination area level. Through factor analysis each dissemination area is given a score of 1 through 5, where 1 represents the least deprived and 5 represents the most deprived.
Finally, the third Emergency Management web mapping application added to the Living Atlas, is the NASP Imagery application. The National Aerial Surveillance Program (NASP) is a team of planes, drones, satellites, and people — including pilots, surveillance officers, data specialists and aircraft maintenance engineers dedicated to helping Canada stay safe. NASP operations are led by Transport Canada, however they represent a larger coordinated effort with other federal departments like Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard, and Environment and Climate Change Canada, as well as provincial governments and private sector partners. The main goal of the NASP is preventing pollution in Canadian waters, protecting the marine environment and endangered marine life. However, the NASP also serves Canadians outside their mandate by supporting national security events, search and rescue incidents, humanitarian efforts, and civil emergencies.
During emergency management activities the NASP provides aerial surveillance support to the GOC. Throughout the years the NASP has captured thousands of images of floods and fires at the request of the GOC. The NASP Imagery application is designed to share these images. Within the application you can find aerial imagery from emergency incidents such as the 2023 BC forest fires, Hurricane Fiona and major floods that took place in 2019 in both Ontario and Quebec.
Finding up to date authoritative data can be a challenge, especially when it comes to emergency management data. The GOC’s Emergency Management web maps are designed to provide management, planners and analysts access to authoritative geographic data that would normally only be accessible to those working in the GIS industry. Each web mapping application is organized by province and territory so you can see exactly what data layers are available for that area. Within the Info tab of each application, you can find a link to the web map being used in the application and can find all the sources of the map data.
The Emergency Management webmaps will not only help organizations enhance situational awareness during emergency events and natural disasters, but they can also act as inspiration and a resource for those looking to create their own emergency management applications. You can leverage the web services used within the Emergency Management web maps and incorporate them with your organizations data to build anything from ArcGIS Dashboards, ArcGIS StoryMaps and web maps that power mobile applications for the field.
The contribution of the GOC’s Emergency webmaps to the Living Atlas showcases the benefits and opportunities that the Living Atlas can provide. The Living Atlas is about building community through the sharing of authoritative content and data, which can lead to collaboration, inspiration and support in decision making processes. We encourage you to look deeper into how you can leverage the Living Atlas in your workflows, and we ask that you consider contributing to the Living Atlas yourself and help in building a strong GIS community.