Geospatial Information Improves the Decision-Making
Process during the Disaster Response: The Experience of theEmergency Mapping Team in the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake

Takashi FURUYA
Center for Risk Management and Safety Sciences, Yokohama National University,Japan

Reo KIMURA
School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, Japan

Munenari INOGUCHI
Research Institute for Natural Hazards and Disaster Recovery, Niigata University, Japan

KeikoTAMURA
Niigata University Headquarters for Risk Management Risk Management Office, Japan

Haruo HAYASHI
Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, JapanSUMMARY:
The Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred in 2011 caused a tremendous amount of damage spanning overmultiple prefectures due to severe vibrations and tsunami. In order to provide quick and appropriate disaster
responses, prefectures must establish a common operational picture regarding damage situations and disaster
response statuses among cities, "cho" districts, and villages. This is especially important along the coast to
supplement basic functions of those municipalities. The needs of the front line disaster response workers wereextracted, and the Emergency Mapping Team (EMT) clarified the characteristics and challenges related to thevisualization of those needs. The EMT was put in place at the Iwate Prefecture Hall to investigate how maps
should be utilized. Herein, we propose effective information sharing of disaster response activities using maps.
Keywords: 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake, Emergency Mapping Team (EMT),
Geospatial Information Systems (GIS)

1. INTRODUCTION
The Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011, caused a tremendous amount ofdamage over a wide area spanning over multiple prefectures due to severe vibrations and tsunami.
Based on the proximity to the victims, disaster relief is normally provided by public organization in
the cities, "cho" districts, and villages. In this disaster, however, those municipality organizations also
suffered major damages to their facilities, employees, and equipment. In fact, city halls were washedaway and employees were killed, which hampered the ability to maintain municipal functions. This
forced prefectures to lead the disaster relief activities.
Geospatial information systems (GIS) were used in past earthquake relief activities. In the case of
the Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake in 2007, for example, the Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake Disaster
Response Support GIS Team was formed at the Niigata Prefectural Hall on the day after theearthquake. The Emergency Mapping Team (EMT) operated for 23 days to generate 139 maps
(Urakawa). Additionally, the Emergency Mapping Center - Kashiwazaki (EMC-K) was formed on
September 11 in Kashiwazaki City, Niigata Prefecture, during the recovery period. EMC-K generated
81 types of maps (EMC-K report). Recently, during the emergency response period for the Great East
Japan Earthquake of 2011, the Emergency Mapping Team (EMT) was formed on the day after theearthquake. The EMT generated 500 maps in 45 days from its headquarters at Building No. 5 of the
Chuo government office complex located in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo.
While practical initiatives of emergency mapping teams have been carried out on front lines ofdisaster responses, no activity has been conducted at the prefectural level during the recovery period of
expansive, complex disasters. Our research team, which was headquartered at the Prefectural Hall ofIwate, who suffered damages, enabled us to collect and organize information regarding the needs andutilization of the maps from disaster response workers including prefecture employees. Based on theinformation gathered from the front lines during the recovery period, we were able to determine thechallenges that were faced at the prefecture level. Herein, we discuss effective information sharing
using maps during the disaster response.

2. OVERVIEW OF THE IWATE EMERGENCY MAPPING TEAMIn June 2011, about three months after the disaster occurred, the EMT started its operation at the
Iwate Prefectural Hall. At the core of the EMT was our research team. Our objective was to organizeand present information from prefectural departments, cities, "cho" districts, villages, and associatedorganizations, on the same maps to aid in the decision making process. This chapter provides an
overview of the Iwate Emergency Mapping Team.
2.1. Organizational Structure of the Iwate Emergency Mapping TeamIn May 2011, members of the EMT and the Cabinet Office of the national government (Inoguchi)
visited municipalities that had incurred damages, and conducted a briefing on mapping and a survey
on the needs of municipalities. Based on these findings, the decision was made to support to the Iwate
Prefecture June 1, 2011. The headquarters for this activity was a special meeting room on the fourth
floor of the Iwate Prefectural Hall, where the Iwate Disaster Response Center was located. We initiallytried to model the Iwate EMT after the EMT at the Cabinet Office in terms of role distribution andpersonnel. However, it was difficult to secure voluntary workers from private corporations on an
on-going basis because Iwate is far from Tokyo. As a result, several people from the university
research teams stayed there, mainly during weekdays, to shoulder multiple roles.
2.2. Overview of the Activities of the Iwate Emergency Mapping TeamThe Disaster Response Centers of the Prefecture and municipalities displayed published information
regarding the damages and disaster response activities. This information was displayed as text,
numbers, and tables on map that were superimposed with multiple pieces of information in response torequests from different departments (users) of the prefecture. Types of generated maps include: blankmaps, maps of evacuation centers, maps about temporary emergency housing, maps of hospitals andclinics, welfare facilities, and others. Table 1 shows a breakdown of the number of maps per category.
Table 1. Categories and Numbers of Developed Maps as of early December 2011
Major category
Number of maps where
Number of maps that were
only one subject layer
mashed up with temporary
was usedhousesMedical service
32
124
Landslide forecast
090
Welfare and elderly nursing care service
1
64
Social statistics
34
0
Human and property damage
130
Temporary emergency house
110
Evacuation center
110
Background figure
1
0
Total
103
278

Total

156
90
65
34
13
11
11
1
381

2.3. Details of Maps
The maps were categorized based on the goals of the map how the maps were generated.
2.3.1. Blank Maps
In Iwate Prefecture, there are regional municipalities that encompass multiple cities, "cho" andvillages, and wider regional municipalities that encompass multiple regional municipalities. The
regional disaster action plan of the prefecture also requires that the Disaster Response Center of theprefecture coordinate with those regional municipalities and wider regional municipalities. This meansthat each subject map to geospatial dataset for each geographical space that these activities are based.
Therefore, we generated GIS data using a pdf version of maps that indicate boundaries of theseregional municipalities at the start of our activities combined with a pre-existing boundary dataset ofcities, "cho", and villages to generate GIS data (Figure 1)
2.3.2. Maps of Evacuation Centers
To indicate positional relationships among evacuation centers (Kimura), the Cabinet Office EMT
generated a large-area map that encompassed afflicted areas along the Pacific coast from Chiba to
Aomori prefectures; it was useful for providing a whole picture. Moreover, in addition to a map of theentire Iwate Prefecture, zoom-in maps were generated for the regional municipalities to provide detailsof the situation (Figure 2).
2.3.3. Maps of Emergency Temporary Houses
Multiple prefectural departments requested maps of temporary emergency houses, which was one of
the major disaster response and relief activities during the recovery period. The Iwate Prefecture
Comprehensive Disaster Prevention Office wanted to grasp the positional relationships with landslideareas. The Iwate Prefecture Medial Services Department and Aging Society Department wanted tograsp the positional relationships between medical and welfare facilities and emergency temporary
houses. There was also a request for maps for visitors from outside the prefecture with required
precision so that people not familiar with Iwate Prefecture can make their way with landmarks andindexes on maps (Figure 3). The latitude and longitude data for representative temporary emergency
houses was obtained from the KML files generated by the Building Department of Iwate Prefecture.
We generated GIS data by table-connecting data of the number of buildings and address data that wereobtained separately.
2.3.4. Maps of Hospitals and Clinics
The Iwate Medial Services Department wanted to plot the operation status of hospitals and clinics
and setup status of temporary hospitals and clinics on a map to grasp their positional relationships withtemporary emergency houses, in order to provide clinics support services, rebuild medical system, andapply for national government aid. Update data became available on a regular basis so that the maps
were updated regularly. Initially, the dataset was input and processed manually from paper data by the
Iwate EMT. When regular updates became available, we requested to the requester of the maps, whichis the Medial Services Department, to provide a primary processing of table data that was provided by
the medical association into a format that was easy to use in GIS for on-going updating. In addition toa map for the entire prefecture, we generated a map for each medical jurisdiction (Figure 4). It was
required that we make provisions to display all labels of facilities with such means as adding an insert
of zoom-in map of an area with a high facility density.

Figure 1. Blank map of Iwate Regional Municipalities and Wider Regional Municipalities

Figure 2. Positional relationships among evacuation centers (Kamaishi Regional Municipality) as of June 3

Figure 3. Positional relationships among temporary emergency houses for supporters from outside the prefecture

Figure 4. Operational status of hospitals and clinics, and their positional relationships to temporary houses2.3.5. Maps of Welfare Facilitiess
The Iwate Aging Society Department wanted to use maps to plan care-taking visits and new
facility construction based on the spatial relationship between elderly care facilities and temporary
emergency housing. The facilities were classified into five categories: consultation, care, visitation,
day use, and others. As we generate maps with five categories for each of twelve municipalities, abalance between the quality and speed was found to be a bottleneck. We also found that prefectural
employees themselves wanted to share the information with afflicted municipalities along the coast.
For these reasons, we decided to introduce dynamic maps using the Internet where users can selectranges of information to be superimposed, instead of using static maps on paper. We provided user
guidance sessions. As a result, employees were actively able to utilize the system to display the layers
in any region, which could then be shared over the Internet (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Positional relationships between elderly nursing care facilities and temporary houses using Web-GIS

3. CHARACTERISTICS OF MAP UTILIZATION BY MUNICIPALITIES DUREINGRECOVERY AND REBUILDING PERIOD
Here we summarize characteristics of map generation processes for each category from theviewpoint of needs for maps and their utilization. We then compare them against our findings about
the EMT activities at the national level to consider the differences.
3.1. Characteristics of Needs for Maps
Maps that captured information from the front line level of each department were predominantly
used, rather than maps that provided a common operational picture for the entire prefecture.
Additionally, there were some requests from other departments to visualize data and disaster response
results by superimposing them on maps.
3.2. Methods to Use Maps
In order to ensure that the maps were publicly available, we published them on the EMT website,
posted them on walls, and prepared booklets using clear folders. These methods were the same as we
did for the Cabinet Office EMT. However, at that time, we only uploaded maps to a shared folder forthe entire ministry through employees responsible for disaster prevention. In combination with the
chaotic situation during the emergency response period, we only gave maps as requested, and there
were no means to obtain evaluation and feedback from people who requested those maps. The Iwate
EMT, however, took a different approach by providing maps directly to people using e-mails or USB
flash drives. We also visited employees in relevant departments within the prefecture hall to brief them
about maps that the Iwate EMT and other departments generated. Maps generated by the EMT wereused for various purposes, including at meetings within the prefectural government, at national
government meetings for budget requests, during information sessions to residents, and when planning
visits to afflicted municipalities.
3.3. Effectiveness of Dynamic Maps
Static maps were useful for the national level disaster response because at that level the purpose is
to share a common operational picture. Fish that was show that grasping the overall picture throughmaps that show the entire disaster area. In contrast, maps for the prefectural level disaster response had
to cover information not only in one city, cho, or village, but also wider areas under Regional
Development Bureaus that function as comprehensive satellite offices of the prefectural government aswell as variety of spatial ranges that span across cities, cho, and villages to secure medical system
concerning hospitalization in a secondary medical jurisdiction. Furthermore, spatial positional
relationships of temporary individual houses and medical and welfare facilities in these spatial ranges
had to be grasped. These needs to visualize the whole picture as well as detailed situations on maps
necessitated dynamic maps. Unlike static maps, dynamic maps allow users to flexibly change display
areas and scale, and freely combine a variety of spatial dataset according to roles and challenges ofeach disaster response worker.
The Aging Society Department used these dynamic maps prior to visiting afflicted municipalities
for investigation to understand the range of needs with appropriate scale as needed to conduct more
appropriate survey and planning.
Dynamic maps were introduced at the national level for the Great East Japan Earthquake, and they
featured a mashup of geospatial information from different information sources. At the prefecturelevel, the number of spatial datasets was greater. However, a high degree of freedom to set the range
to be displayed satisfied the requirements of disaster response workers.

4. SUMMARY
This research determined the needs and utilization methods for maps that were designed at theprefecture level during a disaster recovery period. By closely observing users' needs and obtaining
evaluation/feedback from requesters and front line workers, as well as regularly visiting prefectural
departments about generated maps, we found that new requests for maps were generated during theseprocesses. It was necessary to place the EMT headquarters in close proximity to the departments that
use the maps in order to brief the users and to identify new needs. Furthermore, it became clear thatutilization of dynamic maps made it easy to fill in the gaps between a big picture and individual
understanding, which was not possible on static maps.
It has been almost one year since the earthquake (as of the writing of this manuscript on February
27, 2012). It is necessary to provide support on a longer time scale until the recovery of the afflicted
area is complete. As relief activities shift from recovery phase to reconstruction phase in the future, it
is expected that targets of disaster response and countermeasures will also shift to households andindividuals that are segmented. When these needs become a reality, then it will be essential tocontinually examine the utilization of geospatial information to support decision-making processes incloser collaboration with municipalities under a prefecture.

AKCNOWLEDGEMENT
Authors would like to thank the following for their support: (1) Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology, Metropolitan Epicentral Earthquake Disaster Prevention and Disaster ReductionProject, "3. Building System for Wide-Area Risk Management and Disaster Reduction (Principal investigator:
Haruo Hayashi, Kyoto University), (2) JST Sakigake "Information and Environment" field "Establishment ofInformation Consolidation Technology for Prompt Disaster Response Using a Space (Principal investigator:
Munenari Inoguchi, Niigata University)," (3) 2011 Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of
Health, Labour and Welfare (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Special Research Initiative) "Structure,
Facilities and Management and Operation System for Health, Medical Care and Welfare Services Appropriate
for Large-Scale Disasters (Principal investigator: Atsuo Kakehi, Kogakuin University)," (4) Special Education
and Research Grant (Enhancement of Diverse Academic Research Function to Leverage Uniqueness of
Universities) "Establishment of Vulnerability Diagnosis and Recovery Technology for Social Infrastructure andits Application to Comprehensive Public System (Principal investigator: Koichi Fujie, Yokohama National
University)..

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