DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A WEB-BASED GIS (IN RESPONSE PHASE) 
FOR EARTHQUAKE DISASTER MANAGEMENT IN TEHRAN CITY 
M. Saydi , M.J. Valadan Zoej , A. Mansourian 
Faculty of Geodesy and Geomatics Eng. K.N.Toosi University of Technology, 
No 1346, Mirdamad cross, Valiasr st., Tehran, IRAN -(Saydi maryam, AliMansourian)@yahoo.com, 
valadanzouj@kntu.ac.ir 
Commission PS WG VII/5 
KEY WORDS: Earthquakes, Disaster, Management, GIS, Web based 
ABSTRACT: 
Natural hazards (i.e. earthquakes, floods) become disaster when they strike the man-made environment. To effectively reduce the 
impact of every disaster, governments prepare a complete strategy, called disaster management. Availability of data such as: 
buildings, lifeline systems, roads, hospitals and etc, will help the managers to better decision-making. The majority of this data is 
spatial and can be mapped. So a Geographical Information System (GIS) can support disaster management as a powerful tool for 
collecting, storing, analysis, modeling and displaying large amount of data. Many organizations which involve in disaster 
management, require to access to the right data in the right time to make the right decisions. So designing a GIS to distribute 
geospatial information on a network such as Web, gives a chance to the managers of organizations to easy access to the information 
about disaster any time and any where they are. This paper outlines different steps of developing a Web-based GIS to manage and 
response to earthquake in a central district of Tehran as a case stu 
dy. Lack of a model to estimate the size and extend of damages 
immediately after earthquakes is one of the major problems in developing such a system. In this research a Building Damage 
Estimation Model (BDEM) has been developed to optimize the response time and cost against earthquake disaster. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Earthquake, as the natural hazard, is the part of the world 
around human being. Its occurrence is inevitable. It destroys 
natural environment but the natural environment takes care of 
itself. So Earthquake becomes a disaster when it crosses paths 
with the man-made environment, such as buildings, roads, 
lifelines and crops. The man-made environment, in contrast to 
natural environment needs disaster management. Government 
of each country is responsible for disaster management at all 
levels (local, state, and regional). Disaster management can be 
divided into some phases: Planning, Mitigation and 
Preparedness are all pre-event phases, Response and Recovery 
are two during and post-event phases. These phases are related 
by time and function to all types of emergencies/disasters. Also, 
they are related to each other, and each involves different types 
of skills. As disasters (earthquakes, floods and hurricanes...) 
are usually spatial events therefore all phases of disaster 
management depend on data from a variety of sources. So, 
Geographical Information System (GIS) as a tool to collect, 
store, model, analyse and display large amount of spatially 
information layers, supports all aspects of disaster management. 
Tehran, as the capital city, the most populous and centre of 
political and economical activities of Iran, has a special 
situation against natural disasters. As the Greater Tehran Area 
is located at the foot slope area of the Alborz Mountains, which 
form part of the Alps-Himalayan Orogenic Zone and this zone 
is one of high seismic potential with many peculiar active 
faults, this city is threatened by earthquakes. Seismologists 
believe a strong earthquake will strike Tehran in the near future 
because the city has not experienced a disastrous earthquake 
since 1830.Although, Iranian government have been performing 
a lot of prevention plan in order to mitigate possible seismic 
damages in Tehran city, according to the expanse of Tehran and 
multiplicity of spatial features, still there are many features 
which are vulnerable against potential earthquakes. Therefore a 
sudden occurrence of such a potential earthquake may expose 
Tehran's population to the risk of death or injury and may 
damage or destroy private property and social infrastructure. 
So, it is urgently necessary to make a plan for response phase of 
earthquakes disaster management in order to reduce human 
losses and physical losses from damage. Gathering relevant data 
through all of governmental departments, organizations and 
input this data in a GIS as an appropriate tool to process and 
analyse it, can help managers to make a better decision during 
and just after of an earthquake. This paper describes design and 
development of a web-based GIS for disaster response. In order 
to test the system, a case study was conducted in one of the 
districts of Tehran, the capital of Iran. 
2. EARTHQUAKE RESPONSE PHASE ACTIVITIES 
Earthquake response phase includes activities take place during 
or just after an earthquake, which are designed to provide 
emergency assistance for victims. Just after the earthquake, 
repairing lifelines networks to stabilize the situation and reduce 
the probability of secondary damages (for example, gas 
network to prevent secondary damages or shutting off 
contaminated water supply sources...),search and rescue 
activities, transport and communication, evacuation are the 
priorities to operate. Quick rescue of people by search and 
rescue teams from collapsed buildings, after the impact of a 
destructive earthquake, can save considerable number of lives. 
Then, emergency sheltering should be managed and distribution 
of water, food and public services should be provided also, 
medical heath centres should be identified in order to give 
medical care to the casualties. Other activities in this phase 
678 
Inte 
  
incl 
spec 
of 
COO] 
man 
sup} 
Dev 
perf 
mail 
cart] 
just 
men 
certe 
| jn ————— 
  
3.1 
Nee 
GIS 
look 
to dc 
the 
asses 
in th 
Critic 
tasks 
effec 
such 
disp] 
emeı 
for x 
imm 
emeı 
of in 
secoi 
ident 
quer