INTEGRATION OF DISASTER EVENT DATA INTO SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURES

The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) collects near real-time hazard information about earthquakes, tsunamis, tropical cyclones, floods and volcanoes. Although all the collected disaster event data has a geographic reference it was up to now not integrated into a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). For a more efficient use of the data and to create interoperability we started this integration and make all resources available as independent services. In the beginning of this work it was clear that we will expose our data by the well-known Web Map Service (WMS) standard for the dynamic creation of maps. Less clear was the use of the Web Feature Service (WFS) and/or Sensor Observation Service (SOS) standard which offer both the possibility to retrieve data in a standardized XML format which can be further processed. We will show why up to now we do not see the necessity of offering our data through a SOS as all our use cases are covered by the WMS and WFS standards. Furthermore we will point out why adequate data filter mechanisms are important and present a Filter Service we developed for this purpose.