Gabriele Andreozzi
Geosystems s.r.l., Via S.Stefano in Pane 23/D11, 50136 Firenze, tel (+39-55) 4379208, fax (+39-55) 4379203, geosystems@dada.it

Pietro Bortone
Unità Operativa Protezione Civile del Comune di Firenze, Via Dell’Olmatello 25, 50127 Firenze, tel (+39-55) 410047, fax (+39-55) 411613, prciv@comune.fi.it

Andrea Sacchetti
Unità Operativa Protezione Civile del Comune di Firenze, Via Dell’Olmatello 25, 50127 Firenze, tel (+39-55) 410047, fax (+39-55) 411613, prciv@comune.fi.it

Enio Tonveronachi
Unità Operativa Protezione Civile del Comune di Firenze, Via Dell’Olmatello 25, 50127 Firenze, tel (+39-55) 410047, fax (+39-55) 411613, prciv@comune.fi.it

Abstract

The City of Florence’s Civil Protection Information System manages various information regarding the activities connected with calamity prevention and emergency management.
The client-server based system is composed of several homogeneous operating environments in which GIS capacities, made available through MapObjects and ArcView personalizations, are directly integrated with the administrative procedures.

INTRODUCTION

As the frequent occurrences of disasters in Italy have demonstrated, a community ‘s ability to respond to an emergency cannot be improvised but must be planned and developed over time.
The Civil Protection Center of the City of Florence was instituted by the city administration in 1994 and is run 24 hours a day, by an operative unit, composed of a director and 7 employees.
The institutional objective of the center, as stated by the law 225/92, is in cases of calamity the safeguard of two unreproducible entities: the population and works of art.
In order to carry out this objective the Administration deemed it necessary that the center procure a GIS oriented towards the specific needs of Civil Protection and with the potential of managing the national addresses regarding the emergency planning criteria (Piano Augustus). Thus the Florentine City Administration decided upon a homogeneous system capable of managing both the administrative data necessary for the center’s operation and the cartographic information regarding the center’s territorial jurisdiction. This system would provide the center with a new and efficient decision support tool in case of calamity.

GENERAL PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS

The goal of the Information System is to permit the computerized management of all activities associated with the Civil Protection Center. This system is utilized in three different ways: first, in calamity prevention (intervention planning, update of available resources, event simulation, studies of previous situations, etc.), second, during emergency management (decision support, input of the various aspects regarding the evolution of a calamity, calculation of used resources), third, in the internal management of the center (present personnel, internal material resources, volunteer management).
Given the complexity of the center’s activities and the various computer knowledge levels of the system users, with many being non-expert users, it was decided to adopt a system that could guarantee a simple user interface geared towards the principle activities, but at the same time capable of managing a large quantity of data and of offering all the necessary functions. This system guarantees access to a correct utilization of the cartographic, alphanumeric and graphic information necessary to describe the territory and its inhabitants.
Because of the enormous scope of the project, it was necessary to divide the completion of the system into separate phases, while taking into consideration the following criteria:

• specific requirements of the Civil Protection Center
• simple user interface
• GIS functions integrated with management procedures
• client-server architecture
• utilization of data owned by both the City of Florence and other external sources
• the following expansion capacities:
  • number of client workstations
  • database size
  • quantity of user functions
  • territorial coverage.

After having defined the basic project requirements, the development was divided into the following phases:

• detailed requirement analysis
• identification of the necessary information and creation of a conceptual data model
• identification of other data sources
• project specification layout
• planning of individual development phases
• project development and testing

Some of the phases of the project are currently in the course of development, but will be completed before the Jubilee. This choice was made to obtain some short-term results in order to consent the verification of project decisions and the distribution of investments over time. In addition this allows the users to immediately begin system training as the other parts of the system are developed.

GENERAL SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

The system consists of an IBM/AIX central server which manages the alphanumeric database and of a series of PC/Windows client workstations. One of the client workstations currently manages the cartographic database until a specific software is obtained on the server to do so. One or more system interface programs are installed on each client workstation, each of which provides the specific functions that are a part of each subsystem application.
Each user can connect to the desired environment by logging in with a user/password from one or more client workstations. The system is capable of restricting certain functions of the interface according to the category of user logged in. For example, only the Mayor can declare a state of alarm using the center’s management functions, while no other user can do so.
From a software point of view, the RDBMS Oracle is installed on the server in order to store and manage the alphanumeric data regarding the systems’ functions as well as all of the systems’ configuration tables. The user interfaces are based on ActiveX components embedded in an environment developed using visual languages which communicates with the Oracle database through standard ODBC connections via SQL*Net/TCP-IP. The cartographic database, which is made up of ArcInfo coverages (external data sources) and Shape files (internal/City of Florence data sources), is managed through the MapObject component which is extremely geared towards the development of integrated user environments. Both on and offline map production is carried out through personalized ArcView projects, which provide a powerful and flexible tool for the user and which also are capable of accessing the same database used by the cartographic functions integrated with the management functions.
This architecture is geared towards maintaining a single cartographic as well as alphanumeric database, which makes it possible to access the data through various types of software applications in a controlled manner and without data duplication. In addition, it easily allows for future system expansion and for flexible workload distribution among the various client workstations. It also guarantees an environment which is extremely open to new emerging technologies such as Intranet, COM, component programming, etc.

SYSTEM ENVIRONMENTS

The system includes several operational environments which, apart from being perfectly integrated among one another, represent important specialized activities that must be carried out by the system. These environments, which have slight differences between themselves even among the functions established by the Augustus plan, are heretofore illustrated:

The organization of the system into separate work environments allows each group of specialized users to have available only the functions developed specifically for their activities and placed in a personalized user interface.
This separation, however, is not rigid because more than one work environment can be active on a single client workstation. The changes made to the database from one work environment are automatically reflected globally allowing all of the system users to have a unified view of the database situation.

CIVIL PROTECTION CENTER MANAGEMENT

The office registers the people present and lists every communication via radio, telephone, fax, etc. It’s necessary to register every able body in case of an imminent emergency. In addition, it can prepare, according to who is present, a correct plan of emergency for that certain assistance. A special electronic device aids in visualizing the procedure to follow according to the Augustus Method.

The act of recording every external call or communication helps the center in two ways: one, to act immediately with the intent of stopping the phenomenon before it becomes a calamity, and two, to verify the efficiency of the actions performed.
In addition, it can keep track of the evolving event and reconstruct it afterwards.

According to the information gathered it is possible to define a phenomenon "Event", if there is even a slight possibility that it could become a "Calamity Event".
According to the information received and according to how the current situation stands, the center assumes a determined work condition (state of alarm) which corresponds to "Center alarm state".

EVENT MONITOR

As a chess player can be involved in more than one strategy contemporarily, the Civil Protection Center, using its Computer System, can keep under control more than one event, effecting what is necessary at the time to control or stop it.
Every move is decided and coordinated through the cartographic function and the access to the alphanumerical data of the Event Monitor. In fact, if a game against a natural disaster can result victorious, it is necessary to know at every moment every move of the adversary, and the disposition of the Center’s possibilities.

It is in this sector that the system presents the maximum integration between the GIS potential and the management function of the intervention procedure.
By using the multi-window environment, the operator can access an environment that includes both cartographic and management functions. In particular the following functions are available:

• Graphic identification of the area hit by the disaster and modification according to the present and evolving situation. All the phases of the disaster are recorded in order to later reconstruct the flow of the disaster.
• Chronological visualization of the characteristics of the disaster.
• Attribution of the communication received by the center to a specific disaster.
• Management of the operations to combat the disaster (positioning of disaster relief teams). Every force is composed of a team of workers and vehicles, which are obtained from the Vehicles and Materials database. And so, in addition to a current breakdown of the situation, the System allows for a calculation of costs and a complete breakdown of expenses and resources used.
• Insertion of cartographic notes .
• Search for people and/or things that correspond to a specific alphanumerical and/or spatial criteria.
• Evaluation of the people confronting the disaster, starting from the population data to that of the hotel and recreational structures (management of temporary lodgings).
• Visualization of a particular category of people at risk (disabled, the elderly, etc.) and/or productive activities such as factories which could be at an added risk.
• Reproduction of map sections for documentation and/or operation procedures.

DATBASE CREATION AND UPDATE AND SYSTEM MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

This environment includes all of the system management activities (database verification, user profile update, system catalog update) as well as the cartographic database update functions and external data import functions.

In addition the environment includes the following statistical functions regarding the center’s activities:

• global workload evaluations
• activity distribution information
• revision of operational procedures
• training

HEALTH AND SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

The Center is able to manage the relative data regarding the health sector. In particular, it is automatically possible to have a list of hospitals and social service centers within a proximity of the disaster.
It is also able to construct camps and temporary hospitals, using tent and camp equipment which can aid in recovering the homeless.

EVALUATION OF DAMAGE TO PERSONS AND OBJECTS

This sector deals with people and objects damaged by the disaster and evaluates the scope of the damage in general. This includes both private and public structures. The damage evaluation can be carried out on two levels: generally by looking at the damage on a broad scope and individually by considering each person separately.

TRAFFIC AND ROAD CONDITION MANAGEMENT

This environment, which is still in the development stage, will unite the functions necessary for managing the ambulance service to and from the disaster area as well as those for the transferring of the inhabitants to a safer area. The environment will provide network functions in order to calculate the most efficient route between two or more cartographic points enabling a greater efficiency in the transport of people unevenly distributed over the territory and guaranteeing a controlled flow of traffic towards hospital structures.

ESSENTIAL SERVICES

This environment will be capable of graphically visualizing points of service interruption in the water, gas, sewer and electric networks which will enable the user to determine areas without these services.

CONCLUSION

The system has currently completed its preliminary objectives and we are now planning to adopt several new and interesting extensions, oriented on one hand towards a general architectural enhancement (implementation of the SDE cartographic server based on the RDBMS Oracle) and on the other oriented towards an enhancement of the user services and functions provided by the system (weather prediction services, temporary hospital management functions, functions for communication with external agencies).