Disaster and emergency management activities by geospatial tools with special reference to Turkey

Geospatial tools have a great potential in disaster and emergency management (DEM) cycles in terms of saving lives, limiting damage and reducing the costs of the event. Because of the chaotic nature of emergencies, emergency managers need geospatial data and tools that are collected and distributed in the form of useful products to manage disasters/ emergencies without the minimum amount of confusion. The term 'geospatial' includes interdependent resources such as maps, data sets, tools and procedures. Spatial data, Maps, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) and clearinghouses, geolibraries, archives, geoportals and geobrowsers, can be taken into consideration as types of geospatial tools in the DEM field. GIS are able to integrate information from different sources, of scales, accuracies and formats, into a single source and they can facilitate modeling, mapping and spatial decision support. GIS and SDSS can be powerful tools for the purpose of analysis because each phase in the DEM cycle is geographically and spatially related to one another. The aim of the paper is to improve DEM activities using geospatial tools.