Open this publication in new window or tab >>2014 (English)In: Proceedings of the 17th EBES Conference - Venice, Istanbul, 2014Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
The project reported concerns Emergency Management (EM) for local government especially support from Geographic Information (GI) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The questions investigated were: How can municipalities implement the use of Geographic Information and Geographic Information Systems for Emergency Management effectively? How can risk analysis be implemented with a special focus on support from GI and GIS? The purpose of the project was to, based on prior knowledge, develop and, to some extent, validate in a scientific study principles for implementing GI and GIS for EM in municipalities. The theoretical framework used is mainly based on the concepts of adoption of innovations. Innovation adoption is seen as a process composed of several phases. In addition, potential adopters use a set of criteria to evaluate an innovation. Regarding software and information systems, different professionals in a municipality can adopt different modules. The author performed interviews in 2007, as part of a case study over a longer period of time, with two groups of respondents, namely municipal GIS Coordinators and Emergency Preparedness Officers. Some professionals responded by e-mail. Approximately twenty-five respondents from seventeen municipalities participated. Fourteen respondents were Emergency Preparedness Officers. Two metropolitan local governments, nine large cities and other municipalities all across Sweden contributed with information.
The author asked Emergency Preparedness Officers to rate their municipality’s GIS maturity, which was perceived as decent. On the other hand, GIS is in limited use for risk and vulnerability analysis in many of the studied local governments. It was interesting to note that no respondent answered that GIS was not compatible with risk and vulnerability analysis but several were uncertain. Seven professionals consider GI and GIS compatible with risk and vulnerability analysis, thus indicating that with time GIS adoption has the potential to increase for risk and vulnerability analysis. Five respondents do not know how compatible GI and GIS are with risk and vulnerability analysis. The persons in this group have rated GIS use for risk and vulnerability analysis as low, which is consistent with prior research.
The interviews have been complemented with other material, notably the IT infrastructure (web based software) has improved greatly, Excel is used by many security officers. Also the EU and Sweden provide data at low cost for municipalities on a subscription basis.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Istanbul: , 2014
Keywords
Implementation, innovation adoption, municipalities, emergency management, GIS, standardization, risk and vulnerability analysis
National Category
Business Administration
Research subject
Industrial Economics and Organisations
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-31009 (URN)
Conference
17th EBES Conference - Venice, October 15-17, 2015 ,Venice, Italy
2016-02-162016-02-162016-03-16Bibliographically approved