W W W . R E F R A C T I O N S . N E T

Emergency Mapping Symbology (with a brief overview of Open Government)

Mark Sondheim, Darrin Charmley, Graeme Leeming

http://emsymbology.org

Presented at the Multi-Agency Situational Awareness System sessions in

British Columbia, December 10 & 12, 2010

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Outline

• Emergency Mapping Symbology

– Background

– Definition and Design

– Licence, Contributors, What’s Next

Development funded

by GeoConnections

Development funded by

US Department of Justice

• Police CAD and RMS Symbology

– Strongly influenced by EMS

• Map Symbology and Open Government

– Open Government, Open Data, Gov 2.0

Addendums

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Emergency Mapping Symbology

Background

for MASAS and EMOs

http://emsymbology.org

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Emergencies Happen

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HSWG Response

• Homeland Security Working Group

(HSWG) was tasked with developing

symbols to meet the needs of the

Federal, State and Local governments

in the United States.

• In 2005, HSWG released a set of

symbologies to represent emergency

events.

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HSWG Symbols – Samples

Incidents Natural Events

Operations Infrastructures

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HSWG Detail

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Other efforts from around the globe

UN – Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA)

Disaster Response Map Symbols (DRMS)

Australia All Hazards Symbology (AAHS)

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What was the response in Canada?

GeoConnections took the lead

• Should we adopt and extend HSWG?

• Are there events in Canada not

adequately covered by HSWG?

• What kind of symbology is likely to be

most useful and gain broad acceptance?

• How can the symbology be meaningful

in the context of COPs, MASAS and

general EM applications?

Let’s see what we can do in Canada!

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Canadian Context (i)

• Blizzard

• Freezing Rain

• Wind Chill

• Iceberg

• Storm Surge

• Squall

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Canadian Context (ii)

• Lost Person

• AMBER/SILVER Alert

• Rescue Team

• Disease Outbreak

• Animal Die-off

• Quarantine

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Canadian Context (iii)

• Road Closure

• Evacuation Route

• Fire Lines • Flood Zone

• Burn Area

• Affected Area

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Emergency Mapping Symbology

Definition and Design

for MASAS and EMOs

http://emsymbology.org

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What does constructing a symbology mean?

• What kinds of events are we considering?

• Can we create an easy to learn classification,

structured as a hierarchy?

• Can the symbols be connotative?

• Can they be rendered such that they are

immediately seen and understood?

The symbol set must be highly effective as part of a

Common Operational Picture !

It must be practical on web applications,

including those built for smartphones, tablets, etc.

It must also be practical on desktops and laptops.

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Domain Category Tier 1 Tier 2

Hierarchical Structure

Tier 1 entity: domain.category.tier1

ems.incident.aviation

ems.infrastructure.energy

Tier 2 entity: domain.category.tier1.tier2

ems.incident.aviation.hijacking

ems.infrastructure.energy.oilWell

EMS Incident

Infrastructure

Operations

Aviation Hijacking

Energy

Oil Well

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What symbol styles are most effective?

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How about with this background?

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EMS – Colours and Sizes

• Symbols are coloured

according to category

• Because they are

geometrically unique,

• they are not

dependent on colour

• Sizes in pixels:

32 x 32, 48 x 48, 64 x 64 + 400 x 400 (largest is the parent, used to derive the others)

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Evolution – from HSWG to EMS (i)

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Evolution – from HSWG to EMS (ii)

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Some EMS additions

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EMS In Action

Common Alerting Protocol – Canadian Profile: test case

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Emergency Mapping Symbology

Licence, Contributors, What’s Next

for MASAS and EMOs

http://emsymbology.org

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EMS Licence

• Falls under Canadian government’s

Licence For Unrestricted Use of

Emergency Mapping Symbology

• Copyright: Department of Natural

Resources, Canada

• Free to use, share, modify and extend

without restriction

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Primary Published Influences

• HSWG (ANSI INCITIS 415-2006 and the

related mil spec: MIL-STD 2525C)

• CAP-CP (Canadian Profile of the Common

Alerting Protocol)

• NIDM (Canadian National Infrastructure Data

Model, which was heavily influenced by the

US-Canada Cross-Border Infrastructure Plan)

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Contributors • web survey

• focus groups

• interviews

through

Black Coral Inc. Emergency Management, British

Columbia PCI Geomatics

CAE Professional Services Emergency Measures Organization,

Manitoba

Provincial Emergency Program,

British Columbia

Canadian Association for Public Alerting Emergency Measures Organization,

New Brunswick Public Safety Canada

Canadian General Standards Board EmerGeo Solutions Inc. Refractions Research Inc.

City of Edmonton Environment Canada Royal Canadian Mounted Police

City of Sudbury ESRI Canada Ltd. SAR Technology Inc.

City of Toronto GeoBC, British Columbia Telus Communications, Inc.

City of Vancouver Health Canada United States Coast Guard

Defence Research & Development Canada Homeland Security Working Group

(U.S.) University of Toronto

Department of Homeland Security (U.S.) Joint Emergency Liaison

Committee, Metro Vancouver University of Windsor

Department of National Defence Medical Transportation Coordination

Centre, Manitoba Waterloo Region

E-Comm, Emergency Communications for

Southwest British Columbia MykRoss Consulting Ltd.

Emergency Management Ontario Natural Resources Canada

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What’s next …

• Management Strategy (right now, not defined)

– Who has overarching responsibility?

– How will the symbology be maintained?

– How will access and distribution be provided?

– What is the best way to engage the community?

– What is the funding source for management?

• Maintenance Process – Refinements to existing symbols

– Creation of new symbols

– Ensure interoperability of complementary symbologies

– Assist with testing in different environments

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Crime Mapping Symbology

Complementary to EMS

for police agencies

http://emsymbology.org

Addendum 1

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A complementary symbology for policing

Domain Category Tier 1 Tier 2

Police CAD

ArsonResidential

Society

RMS

• CAD: 207 events

• RMS: 60 events

Property

Traffic

Violence

Other

Graffiti

Overdose

WarrantSearch

DrunkDriver

BombThreat

Surveillance

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Crime Early Warning System

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Open Government:

The role of map symbology

Addendum 2

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Open Government

• New doctrine focusing on govt. held data

– Data must be open to the public

– Data must be in machine readable form

– Data must be easy to find and easy to access

– Spatial is often a core element of such data

– Data must be available in open formats

– Data must be free and legally unencumbered

• High profile – part of govt. accountability

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Open Data

Open Data Citizens

Services

Data

• Open Data promises that citizens will

have access to government held data

• and will be able to take advantage of

services built upon such data.

• Government data can be accessed

over the web in different ways

– via typical ftp and http protocols

– through web services

– by using government applications

Many governments are instituting open data policies.

• Linked Data – data can be exposed and connected

through web referencing (and identifiers & position)

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Gov 2.0

Open Data

• Leveraging the Web

• Citizen engagement

• Infrastructure to support this

– Simple ftp/http access for select, high demand, static data sets

– Web services

– Data portals

– Mashup frameworks

– Capability to easily use public frameworks, e.g., Google Earth

• Open standards: protocols, interfaces, formats

• Usable by developers as well as average citizen

Government

Citizens

Framework constructs – accessing government databases

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Government as a Platform

Open Data • Government IT infrastructure seen as

computing platform accessible

to the outside

• Integral part of larger economy

• Government as a Platform

melds with other platforms,

including social media

Local Gov Data

Prov & Fed Data

NGO Data

Commercial Data

Private Data

S

e

r

v

I

c

e

s

Citizens, Companies, Agencies

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Map Symbology and Open Government

• Symbols are data, visual data

• Open government depends on

open standards, open services and interoperability

• Seamless integration will benefit from

common & complementary symbologies

EMO1 Citizens EMO2

EMO1 EMO2 Citizens Citizens

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http://emsymbology.org

For more information, copies of the symbol

sets, and a copy of this presentation,

please visit:

Thanks for listening !