Development of offline application utilizing geospatial information for field survey at large-scale disasters

In the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011, massivedamage occurred due to a wide area tsunami. In response to this large-scale disaster, thecountry, prefectures, municipalities dispatched personnel to the site and carried out relief andfield survey, but had to act without having sufficient local information such as the map and thedamage situation. In addition, mobile phones were also disconnected (offline state) over a widearea, causing troubles in information collection and transmission at the site. Meanwhile, at theheadquarters for disaster control, geospatial information including satellite data played a majorrole in grasping disaster situations. Therefore, we developed an offline application of Androidwhich has the function to utilize the geospatial information in the field survey at the time of alarge-scale disaster. We also developed a system that displays posted local information andtracking information so that it can be used for decision support at the headquarters for disastercontrol. We demonstrated the usefulness of the developed offline application in field survey ofheavy rain disaster in northern Kyushu occurred on July 5, 2017. As a result, local informationand tracking information can be collected even when offline, and geospatial information wasuseful as reference information for field survey. In addition, the local information and trackinginformation posted online were useful for grasping the overall picture of the disaster.