Managing Agricultural Emergency Resources through Information Mashups

Abstract

Agriculture is under constant threat of natural disasters, exotic animal diseases, pests, and potential bioterrorism. In the case of agricultural emergency, one of the challenges is to provide accurate geo-reference data to assist emergency response. Different agencies in response to an emergency event have to collaborate and share information about the actions they are performing. Google Earth, a technological icon in recent IT development, provides a high degree of data integration with client data. The technology brings an exciting global integrated platform that allows users share geographical information and facilitate emergency management and response. A web-based system is developed to assist agricultural emergency management using Google Earth and information mashups. In this paper, we will describe the web system in aspects of: 1) dynamic mapping of disaster sites or areas, 2) dynamic mapping of agricultural emergency resources, and 3) producing livestock evacuation plan using Greedy Algorithm to optimize travel distance. Discussion is also made to obtain geographic coordinates using Google Web service. The results indicate that web mashup custom data with Google Earth is an effective means of data visualization tool for agricultural emergency resource management. By leveraging creative combinations of geographical display in Google Earth and information associated with a geographic site stored in the database, the platform provides an effective collaboration environment for multi-agency to coordinate emergency response activities.