The CAUSE Resiliency (West Coast) experiment, which stands for Canada and U.S. Enhanced Resilience, demonstrates the coordinated emergency management response to a west coast earthquake along the Cascadian subduction zone, a 680-mile long fault that runs from Northern California all the way to British Columbia. The effort to coordinate data sharing and planning was sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Centre for Security Science and supported by Emergency Management BC (EMBC). The project highlights a multi-agency situational awareness system and details have been documented with a professionally-produced video.
“The project demonstrated new, emerging technologies while engaging emergency management communities in BC and bordering US organizations. During a crisis, emergency managers receive information from numerous sources in various formats, and are challenged to quickly interpret and share this data. GIS is key to overcoming this challenge and producing actionable, georeferenced information. Esri technology provided a foundation for several key systems used in the CAUSE experiment including Hazus (an extension to ArcGIS for Desktop) and BCeMAP (developed by Esri Canada and based on the ArcGIS API for Flex).”
Below is a brief overview that highlights the use of Ushahidi, which demonstrates communication via social media.
To view the full length video and additional chapters, please visit: http://vimeopro.com/planetworks/cause-experiment/