The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Voi. XXXVII. Part B4. Beijing 2008
7. CITY PLANNING
Logically, all information must be integrated in a sustainable
city planning. City planners, the Administration and Decision
makers are situated at the activity part of the preparedness
server. Validating the actual natural and artificial structure and
to make use of this information to design a safer city is a sus
tainable and long lasting work. City planners deal with various
information and must build the communication interface be
tween geoscientists and the decision makers. Typically, the city
planners have the knowledge (and sensitivity) about what can
be modified, what is possible in the legal frame and which is the
right way to motivate politicians for investing into a “city for
tomorrow”. However, as a part of the Crisis Management Sys
tem, city-planners are strongly depended on the data other dis
ciplines produce. These data are sometimes heterogenic and not
compatible for making easy decisions. Besides the traditional
developing and planning of urban structures, an entire risk-
analysis with its recommendations must become part of en
hanced master plans. Other already mentioned disciplines must
be deeply integrated here, e.g. Geographers, Computer Scien
tists and others. Our discipline can perfectly contribute to the
GIS application, furthermore 3D data and the animation in vir
tual reality environment is a highly innovative part, which can
contribute perfectly to a sustainable city development. To simu
late different planning scenarios in combination with a visuali
sation of different disasters assists to all people for getting a
better understanding of the needs to change existing structures
of Istanbul towards a safer city. But city planning is not focused
on the inner cities buildings only, also infrastructural objects as
roads, bridges, pipelines and dams must become part of a mas
ter plan that aims to reduce the risk and showing up ways to ac
cess areas in case of a disaster.
8. DATA AND DATA-HANDLING
Dealing with such a big amount of various data needs a power
ful sever or at least a server farm with spatial database and geo
detic interfaces. Such a centralised data-server is needed for
modelling the data and for the management of crises. Spatial In
formation Sciences make use of GIS running on Server-Farms
to handle these data and give access to specialists for analysing
and modelling with the data and to produce new datasets. Geo-
Data-Server Applications for storing all data use a Geo-Data-
Warehouse with a Geo-Portal that manages access to adminis
trative, scientific and public parties. This database also prepares
the criteria for sustainable city planning with respect to risk
management as well as to assist in founding strategies for the
management of disasters. GIS and Computer Scientists of our
discipline work since several years on the data handling via
Geo-Data Warehouses since we are used to deal with a big data
volume and a big variety data-types
Such a complete data-collection enables to set up an early warn
ing system and to organize a disaster management plan. It is
important to find acceptance in the population and train com
mon behaviour in cases of earthquake and/or Tsunami. A central
server can assist in analysing chaotic situations in cases of a cri
ses. It is important for the Crisis Management plan to take these
conditions into account, however this is a difficult analysis
which needs assistance of psychologists and other experts.
9. CULTURAL HERITAGE
What is the role of cultural heritage in a crisis management sys
tem? Actually, we still can find the famous objects e.g. Hagia
Sophia, Blue Mosque and others only partly influenced by
Earthquakes or Tsunamis. Their positions are typically on saver
places and their construction is already proven by a long his
torical experience. Beside the fact that we can learn from their
construction and placement, we have to keep care about these
objects and preserve them since they are part of our cultural
root. The urban structure around such objects might increase the
risk for them in cases of a earthquake. There is a tradition in
photogrammetry to observe, document and analyze cultural ob
jects for their preservation and reconstruction. These new as
pects crate a need for closer cooperation with city-planers to
plan areas around cultural heritage sites with respect to preser
vation on our cultural heritage.
10. DECISION MAKING AND ORGANISATION
Today there is still a weak point in all activities; it is the final
rendering of the developed concepts and ideas into real activi
ties and master plans. Very often good ideas and concepts get
lost due to changes of political parties or by lack of money in
the related budget. However, it is much easier for decision mak
ers to start new activities, when the concept is transparent and
understandable and meets all aspect in a well-balanced way.
Scientists usually have a lack of knowledge how to present the
results even they have nice tools to build scenarios and simula
tions. Too often, we believe that simulations and animations are
just toys to attract non-scientists. This technology is able open
doors to the administration and by that, it also hands over a key
for accessing the public. If the population is aware of the needs
for planning and reorganization of the city, rendering of the
plans becomes easier and gets apart from political competition.
This is sustainable too! Nevertheless funding is an issue that is
on a basis that the scientist can hardly influence.
11. RESCUE PLANS
An important issue of the Crisis Preparedness Plan is to con
tribute to the rescue planning. Crisis preparedness means to
simulate the disaster and to adjust the rescue-plans on basis of
data in the Geo-Data-Server. The geo-scientific data deliver the
modelling e.g. a simulation about possible destroyed infrastruc
ture by shock waves. Other simulation might deliver run-up
simulations and their affectivity on the urban structure. Result
of these simulations is a spatial dataset (map) that points out
where help is needed most urgently. In addition, here the data
base can assist to plan the best access to these areas. Where are
roads to access these places, which hospital is the closest, how
to get machines and other material there? Where will the people
go when being in panic? Psychological estimations must be
come part of that since panic people behave not rational. What
about infrastructures that can create additional disasters e.g.
Gas-pipelines, petrol stations....? It is an important task for
computer scientists with the help of geoscientists and psycholo
gists to develop plans for entering and leaving theses areas. This
extremely interdisciplinary cooperation might result in a route
planner and navigation system on various levels. This “rescue
planner” can also be used as a simulator to manipulate some of
the input variables to estimate possible improvements that can
be done in the city planning. In some cases, also rules have to
be defined. A god rescue plan must include the population.