ul 2004 
  
NATURAL DISASTER DATA AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM 
H. Assilzadeh^*, S.B. Mansor? 
Institute of Advanced Technology (ITMA), University Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang 
hamid@cilix.org , shattri@eng.upm.edu.my 
Commission V11, WG V11/5 
KEYWORDS: GIS, Hazards, Planning, Processing, Integration, Management, Systems, Design 
ABSTRACT: 
To have a strong management commitment and cooperation for natural disaster contingency, the development and implementation of 
application software as natural disaster data and information management is very important. This paper describes the three main 
components namely Communication, Data Distribution and Data Management Systems suggested as a solution for natural disaster data and 
information management to reduce the cost and time for contingency and decision-making in Malaysia. Communication system will 
provide a real-time data and information to support control centers and operating agencies related to disaster monitoring, mitigation and 
enforcement. Data Distribution system is responsible for information retrieval, extraction. Data Management System functions principally 
to support value-added data and information requirements of the disaster management unit and the national coordinator of disaster and 
relief in the country. Other subdivision integrated with natural disaster data and information management system are described. 
1. INTRODUCTION System (DSS). This combined organization makes a natural 
disaster data and information management system and can be 
Hazard is defined as an incident, which occurs in a sudden employed for national hazard contingency as a solution for all 
manner, and complex in its nature and that causes losses of different hazards in countries involved. 
lives, damages to property or natural environment and bring a 
deep effect to local activities. Such incident needs a 
management that involving extensive, resources, equipment, 2. HDSS COMPONENTS AND FUNCTIONALITIES 
skills and man power from many agencies with an effective 
coordination, which is possibly demanding a complex action 
and would take a long time. While the vulnerability varies from 
region to region, a large part of the country is exposed to such 
natural hazards, which often turn into disasters causing 
significant disruption of socio-economic life of communities 
leading to loss of life and property (BMTPC, 2001). 
For natural disaster contingency, it is very important during the 
development and implementation of the application software to 
have strong management commitment and cooperation. Many 
projects on hazard management; contingency planning and 
decision support systems are implemented for natural disasters 
in the entire world according to geographical situations and 
disasters involve. For each disaster, too many database and 
software have been developed and designed and millions of 
money has been expended. These projects are substantially 
costly and the main problem are the existing of many parallel 
sub-systems and activities and repeat labour works in different 
database format which have to be created for each hazard 
management systems. Such methodology will be so 
complicated due to implementation of different platform, 
different database format, and different program languages and 
so on. This will make all projects costly and non-efficient. 
Our proposed new contingency planner for hazards is a batch 
system (Figure 1) containing, Data Distribution Center (DDC); 
Data Validation Center (DVC); Data Processing and 
Application Development (DPAD); and Decision Support 
Hazard Decision Support System (HDSS) refers to the scheme, 
which has to be developed to cater requirements of pre, during 
and post disaster activities. This organization has to utilize 
latest available communication and information technology to 
equip users with on-line system accessible via private network, 
Internet connectivity or data radio communication 
infrastructures. Depending on convenient during operation 
particularly during the events of disaster, user can use devices 
such as mobile data terminal and PDA to send and retrieve 
information as required in performing their respective functions 
and duties. Urgent information can even transmitted to mobile 
phones in the form of SMS. 
Among main features and functionalities of HDSS those related 
to Decision Support System (DSS), Reporting Wizard (RW), 
and Data Management System (DMS) enable administrative 
and operational functions to be carried out more efficient as 
well as cost effective. HDSS organization consists of 
application modules that cater all requirements of disaster 
activities. Figure 1 shows the organization of this hazard 
management system and the main component of that can be 
classified as below: 
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