Syllabus Plan 673

Information Systems for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance

Course Description

Spatial analysis is often broadly defined as a "set of methods useful when the data
are including a spatial component" (Goodchild and Longley 1999). More specifically, it
encompasses a collection of techniques to add value to data contained in a geographic
information system. This semester the theme for the course is “Planning for Disasters.”
This course is composed of three themes: Hazard Mapping, Risk and Vulnerability
Analysis, and Evacuation Analysis. To understand these areas: we will review a range of
spatial analytical techniques and their implementation in state of the art GIS software. An
important aspect of the course is to gain hands-on experience in applying these
techniques using GIS and spatial analytical software to address some research question.
The main goal of the class is for you to become familiar with the essential
methodological and practical issues that are involved in carrying out sophisticated spatial
analyses using GIS and other spatial type software to help you make policy decisions.

This course will be a combination of a lecture and lab course. The course consists
of two parts: lecture/discussion and a lab. The lecture/discussion period will cover
methodology, theory, concepts, and application of statistical and spatial analysis and GIS,
as well as periodic articles to be discussed. The lab period of the course will introduce
students to a variety of tools to analyze data spatially, including GIS or Geographic
Information Systems, Spatial Statistics, Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA).
Students are encouraged to spend time outside of the normal lab period getting to know
the software tools. Remember, this course is not intended to be cookbook type course to
teach students how to press buttons on the GIS, but rather focus on the reason why
someone would use spatial methods.
Tools used in this course:
ArcGIS 9.2 - Geographic Information System
ENVI – Remote Sensing/Image Processing Software

Prerequisites
Students should have already taken plan 601, or any other statistics and methods course.
Also, students must be familiar with windows based computing, particularly MS-Excel,
Internet usage, and data conversion.

Required Textbook
1. GIS Tutorial: Workbook for ArcView 9.0 by Wilpen L. Gorr and Kristen S.
Kurland (Required)
2. Successful Response Starts with a Map: Improving Geospatial Support for
Disaster Management - Committee on Planning for Catastrophe: A Blueprint
for Improving Geospatial Data, Tools, and Infrastructure, National Research
Council - (PDF version – Will be provided) (Optional)
3. Other weekly readings - see schedule (Required)

The required text is a tutorial in using ArcView 9.0, students are expected to go through
the tutorial to supplement the weekly lab work.

* The textbook will be available in the bookstore.

Course Requirements
Grading
Weekly Class Participation*: 15%
Weekly Lab Assignment: 35%
Project Proposal: 10% - Due 3/16/2007
Group Final Project (Includes Poster Presentation and Written Report)**: 40%
*Along with the textbook, weekly articles may be given to students prior to the week of
discussion.
**The final project is a group project of no more than 3 people per group.
Week Lecture Subject Lab Subject Readings
One Introduction to GIS ESRI. What is ArcGIS? ESRI White Paper Series.
1/12/07 – General Mapping
Issues (Map Cutter, S.L. (2003). GI Science, Disasters, and Emergency Management. Transactions in GIS.
Coordinates, Map Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 439-446.
Projections, Points,
Lines, and
Polygons, etc.)
Two Hazard Mapping – 1. Introduction Peduzzi, P., Dao, H., and Herold, C. (2005). Mapping Disastrous Natural Hazards Using
1/19/07 Data Types, to ArcGIS – Global Datasets. Natural Hazards. Vol. 35, No. 2., pp. 265-289.
Availability, Data ArcMap,
Creation Adding Data, Buika, J., Goosby, S., Mielbrechta, S., Rebold, R., Glick, U., James, G., Chatman, A.,
Creating Data, Hamnett, M., Anderson, C., Yamashita, E., Vaiagae, T.F., and Stevens, E. (2003). Natural
Creating Hazard Risk and Vulnerability Assessment and Mitigation Plan for The Territory of American
Thematic Samoa, 2003. Paper presented at the International Symposium on Remote Sensing of
Maps, ArcGIS Environment.
Table Editing,
Query,
Attribute Data
Three Hazard Mapping - 2 ArcGIS Jarmin, R. and Miranda, J. (2006). The Impact of Hurricane Katrina, Rita, and Wilma on
1/26/07 Spatial Analysis toolbox - Business Establishments: A GIS Approach. U.S. Bureau of Census. Report CES 06-23.
Vector Data Buffering
Operators, Koshimura, S. and Takashima, M. (?). Remote Sensing, GIS, and Modeling Technologies
Distance and Enhance the Synergic Capability to Comprehend the Impact of Great Tsunami Disaster. Pp. 1-
Connectivity 6.
Operators,
Overlay Bouchardy, J. (?).Radar Images and Geographic Information Helping Identify Water
Operators, Resources During Humanitarian Crisis: The Case of the Chad/Sudan (Darfur) Emergency. Pp.
point in 1- 4.
 polygon
operations, and
line in polygon
Four Hazard Mapping – 3 Working Van Westen, C.J., et. al. (1997). Prediction of the Occurrence of Slope Instability Phenomena
2/2/07 Spatial Analysis with Grid Through GIS-Based Hazard Zonation. Geologische Rundschau. Vol 86, No. 2, pp. 404-414.
Raster Data Data, Spatial
Analyst Ali, M., et. al. (2002). Identifying environmental risk factors for endemic cholera:
a raster GIS approach. Health and Place. Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 201-210.
Five Hazard Mapping – 4 Geocoding Krieger, N., Waterman, P., Lemieux, K., and Zieler, S. (2001). On the wrong side of the
2/9/07 Geocoding and and tracts? Evaluating the accuracy of geocoding in public health research. Am J Public Health.
Georeferencing Georeferencing Issue 7.

Ratcliffe, J. (2001). On the Accuracy of TIGER-Type Geocoded Address Data in Relation to

Cadastral and Census Areal Units. International Journal of Geographic Information Science.
Vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 473-485.
Six Risk and 5 ENVI – Tralli, D.M., et. al. (2005). Satellite remote sensing of earthquake, volcano, flood, landslide
2/16/07 Vulnerability Image and coastal inundation hazards. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. No.
Analysis – Remote Classification, 59, pp. 185-198.
Sensing Image
Manipulation Jaiswal, R.K., et. al. (2002). Forest Fire Risk Mapping from Satellite Imagery and GIS.
International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and GeoInformation. No. 4, pp. 1-10.
Seven Risk and 6 More ENVI Jayaraman, V., Chandrasekhar, M.G., and Rao, U.R. (1997). Managing the Natural Disasters
2/23/07 Vulnerability Supervised from Space Technology Inputs. Acta Astronautica, Vol. 40, No. 2-8, pp. 291-325.
Analysis
Eguchi, R.T., et. al. (2003).Resilient Disaster Response: Using Remote Sensing Technologies
for Post-Earthquake Damage Detection. Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering
Research (MCEER) Research Progress and Accomplishments 2001-2003 Report. pp. 125-
137.

Bhaskar, S. (2000). Integrating Remote Sensing and GIS for Fire Hazard Categorization.
 Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2000. Proceedings. IGARSS 2000. IEEE 2000
International. Vol. 5. pp. 2102-2104.

Eight Risk and 7 Using Spatial Schlossberg, M. (2003). GIS, the US Census and Neighborhood Scale Analysis. Planning,
3/2/07 Vulnerability statistics and Practice, and Research. Vol. 18, No. 2-3, pp. 213-217.
Analysis Census Data
(Population Masozera, M., Bailey, M., and Kerchner, C. (In Press) Distribution of Impacts of Natural
and Economic) Disasters Across Income Groups: Case Study of New Orleans. Ecological Economics.

Haque, C.E. (2003). Perspectives of Natural Disasters in East and South Asia, and the Pacific
Island States: Socio-economic Correlates and Needs Assessment. Natural Hazards. Vol. 29.
No. 3, pp. 465-483.
Nine Risk and 8 Wildland/ Besio, et. al. (1998). Risk maps: theoretical concepts and techniques. Journal of Hazardous
3/9/07 Vulnerability Urban Materials. Vol. 61, pp. 299-304.
Analysis Interface
(WUI) Chen, K., Blong, R., and Jacobson, C. (2003). Towards an Integrated Approach to Natural
Hazards Risk Assessment Using GIS: With Reference to Bushfires. Environmental
Management. Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 546-560.
Ten Evacuation 9 Suitability Ayalew, L. and Yamagishi, H. (2005). The application of GIS-based logistic regression for
3/16/07 Analysis and analysis landslide susceptibility mapping in the Kakuda-Yahiko Mountains, Central Japan.
Studies Geomorphology. Vol. 65, No. 1-2, pp. 15-31.

Suzen, M.L., and Duyuran, V. (2004). A comparison of the GIS based landslide susceptibility
assessment methods: multivariate versus bivariate. Environmental Geology. Vol. 45, No. 5,
pp.665-679.
Eleven Evacuation 10 ArcGIS Church, R. and Cova, T. (2000) Mapping evacuation risk on transportation networks using a
3/23/07 Analysis and Extensions – spatial optimization model. Transportation Research Part C. Vol. 8, pp. 321-336.
Studies Network
Analyst Cova, T.J. and Church, R.L. (1997) Modelling Community Evacuation Vulnerability using
GIS. International Journal of Geographical Information Science. Vol. 11, No. 8, pp. 763-784.
 Twelve SPRING BREAK
3/30/07
Thirteen HOLIDAY –
4/6/07 GOOD FRIDAY
Fourteen Evacuation 11 ArcGIS Kwan, M and Lee, J. (2005). Emergency Response After 9/11: the Potential
4/13/07 Analysis and Extensions 3D of Real-Time 3D GIS for Quick Emergency Response in Micro-Spatial Environments.
Studies Analyst Computers, Environment and Urban Systems. Vol. 29, Is. 2, pp. 93-113.

Sugimoto, et. al. (2003). A Human Damage Prediction Method for Tsunami
Disasters Incorporating Evacuation Activities. Natural Hazards. Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 585-600.
Fifteen WORK ON
4/20/07 PROJECTS
Sixteen WORK ON
4/27/07 PROJECTS
Seventeen FINAL
5/4/07 PROJECTS
POSTER
PRESENTATION
AND WRITTEN
REPORT DUE