| Today, GIS is used by Emergency Services | | | | risks and vectors of disease. |
| personnel (fire, emergency medical, disaster) to | | | | Emergency Services personnel have a variety of |
| plan their response to various scenarios, evaluate | | | | sophisticated GIS tools at their disposal, from |
| mitigation options, analyze events, and predict | | | | reliable scenario and research models to hand-held |
| potential future scenarios. An example of GIS in | | | | GIS data collectors. In fact, GIS allows Emergency |
| emergency services is using a GIS to provide | | | | Services personnel to present their challenges and |
| critical information to incident responders en route | | | | accomplishments to decision makers, media, and |
| to an emergency. This can include evaluating the | | | | the public with maps and GIS based graphs and |
| best street route for emergency vehicles. Using | | | | statistics better than ever. GIS mapping can |
| traffic data, GIS can plot the fastest route to an | | | | output clear and concise maps in many forms: |
| emergency and from the emergency to a | | | | web, reports, and wall maps. GIS maps are more |
| hospital. Crime units use GIS to manage their | | | | professional in design that they have ever been. A |
| crime location databases and can analyze crime | | | | well designed poster map created in GIS and |
| over time intervals across city blocks. This helps | | | | plotted on a large format printer can often be an |
| them prioritize their manpower to address crime | | | | invaluable and irreplaceable tool for Emergency |
| surgically and not diffused. GIS is also used in the | | | | Services. Large format maps find places on the |
| science part of emergency services: | | | | operations room wall, often covered with pushpins |
| epidemiological and public health monitoring, where | | | | and stick-notes, or on the table in meetings, |
| a variety of data (human health, demographics, | | | | helping to plot the way for future resource |
| pollution sources) can be analyzed using | | | | allocation and preparedness. In a service that |
| sophisticated models and algorithms to provide | | | | requires fast, accurate, and solid analysis, GIS is a |
| crucial insight into disease clusters, environmental | | | | highly prized tool in Emergency Services. |