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Public Safety and GeoConnections
Many threats and hazards have the potential to undermine the security and safety of Canadians. These threats and hazards can be intentional, such as terrorist attacks and criminal acts, or they can be natural, such as floods, fires, hurricanes, landslides, and earthquakes. Obviously, threats and risks cannot always be prevented or mitigated. However, the public safety and security community works to lessen the risks from these threats and hazards and to recover from disasters by preparing carefully and managing their responses.
Location-based or “geospatial” information can play an important role. Knowing the geography of a region or disaster, such as a flood, allows officials to better manage incidents throughout the four phases of the emergency management cycle: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. As well, to effectively manage threats and risks from hazards, organizations from different jurisdictions increasingly need to cooperate and share information. These organizations are turning to location-based information to help coordinate their efforts and make crucial decisions related to public safety and security.
Priority areas of focus:
Critical Infrastructure Identification
Situational Awareness and Assisting with the Management of Consequences
Critical Infrastructure Identification
Canadians rely heavily on highly connected and interdependent
infrastructures such as pipelines, transportation networks, and
electrical power networks—infrastructures increasingly
jeopardized by threats and natural disasters. Because the nation's
health, safety, security, and economy depend on these infrastructures,
Canadians want to know that these infrastructures are viable and
resilient.
To plan responses and manage emergencies, public safety officials and first responders therefore need location-based information about critical infrastructures. Where are these infrastructures located? Whom do they serve? What is the quickest access? Do backup systems or alternative infrastructures exist? Are communities at risk? Public authorities with protection responsibilities need this type of information to effectively address security and emergency management priorities. GeoConnections is consequently working with the public safety and security community to provide location-based critical infrastructure information.
Situational Awareness and Assisting with the Management of Consequences
To manage and respond to threats and hazards, public safety and
security organizations need to be aware of the situations they face. By
equipping themselves with location-based information that improves
situational awareness, officials can better predict, detect, prepare
for, and respond to public-safety threats.
Emergency response organizations from different jurisdictions also need
to cooperate and share information. Location-based information can give
the public safety and security community a common operating
picture—a perspective that helps them collaborate both while both
planning for and responding to threats and disasters. GeoConnections is
working with the public safety and security community to increase
situational awareness using location-based information.