Chief Technology Officer, DHS, Offers Guidance on Integrating HAZUS-MH with Other Geospatial Tools and Programs
The National HAZUS Users Conference (June 19-21, 2007), which brought together over 400 HAZUS users, researchers and emergency management practitioners, represented an important milestone in the development and use of HAZUS-MH.
Dan Cotter, Chief Technology Officer, Department of Homeland Security, opened the conference with a presentation on The Role of HAZUS-MH in Geospatial Preparedness, and emphasized the following points:
The success of HAZUS-MH and other models will continue to be a function of three key factors: 1) model quality; 2) modeler expertise; and 3) good data.
It is not enough to have a quality model, results need to be shared and customers need to work off of common data sets.
“Mitigators” are in the best position to champion and steward common operational geospatial data for use within the emergency management community.
The Department of Homeland Security and partners are spending considerable sums of money on data and geospatial tools. Greater emphasis needs to be given to integrating HAZUS-MH with these tools and improving interoperability.
Priority should be given to developing a unified approach to sharing common operating data (COD) among key federal agencies, including DHS, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), FEMA, and other agencies.
Important next steps to integrating HAZUS-MH into federal geospatial programs and datasets, with emphasis on mapping HAZUS-MH datasets into Homeland Security Infrastructure Program (HSIP) and integrating HSIP datasets into HAZUS-MH inventory.
It is important to build on progress to date in engaging HAZUS-MH and FEMA leadership in ongoing initiatives to implement USGS, NGA, DHS cooperative programs for data procurement coordination.
These observations and themes were among the issues that were discussed during the two-day conference that was held in conjunction with the ESRI International Conference in San Diego.
Last Modified: Thursday, 04-Jun-2009 13:42:30 EDT