GIS Case Study
Provincial Disaster Decision Support System
A provincial decision-support platform for a disaster management agency covering forecasting, early warning and anticipatory action.
Domain
Disaster Management / Decision Support
Role
Full-Stack GIS Developer
At A Glance
What Makes It Work
Province-wide GIS dashboard for preparedness and coordinated response
Weather layers: temperature, humidity, heat index, UV, pressure, cloud, wind and rainfall
24-hour animated timeline driving hexbin weather surfaces
Hazard scenarios, exposure assessments, resource mapping and inventory modules
Preparedness needs a different tool than response
The agency's existing tools were built for the moment of crisis: what is happening, where are the resources, who do we call. What they lacked was support for the weeks before: assessing which districts were most vulnerable to which hazards, building scenarios, mapping where resources actually were, and coordinating anticipatory action so that a forecast event was met with a plan rather than a scramble. This decision-support system was built for that earlier phase. It covers forecasting, early warning and anticipatory action across the province, and it is designed for planners as much as duty officers.
Scenarios, assessments and resources
The platform is React with Mapbox GL JS on a Django back end. Its foundation is a province-wide GIS dashboard with basemaps, administrative boundaries and the operational layers the agency maintains. Weather layers, temperature, humidity, heat index, UV and pressure, carry per-parameter legends and calibration, and a 24-hour animated timeline drives hexbin weather surfaces across the province. The decision-support modules sit on top. A hazard scenario builder lets planners define an event and its extent; the exposure assessment module reports what falls within it. The multi-hazard vulnerability and risk assessment module scores districts across hazard types, which is the basis for prioritising preparedness spending. Resource mapping, an inventory and an emergency contact register put the agency's assets and people on the same map as the hazards, so a scenario can be checked against what is actually available nearby.
Planning before the event
The agency now runs seasonal preparedness from the system: risk-ranked districts, pre-positioned resources checked against scenarios, and contact registers that are current because they are used. When a forecast event arrives, the scenario has usually already been built. This platform and the basin flood early-warning system serve the same agency and share a design language, but they answer different questions at different times. One is about the coming days, this one is about the coming season. Building both taught us that decision support is mostly about making the right information available at the right stage, which is a data-architecture problem before it is a mapping one, and one we approach through our AI and data consulting as much as through GIS engineering.
Capabilities
Core Functionality
Provincial GIS dashboard with basemaps, administrative boundaries and alert layers
Weather layer group with per-parameter legends and calibrated colour ramps
Hazard scenario builder and exposure assessment modules
Multi-hazard vulnerability and risk assessment module
Resource mapping, inventory and emergency contact registers
Weather models, weather forecast and consensus forecast views
Content management, user management and archive tools
Technologies
Tools & Stack
Product
From The Working Application
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the risk assessment work?
The multi-hazard vulnerability and risk assessment module scores each district across the hazard types the province faces, combining exposure, vulnerability and hazard likelihood. The scores rank districts for preparedness prioritisation and can be recalculated as inputs change.
Can planners build hypothetical scenarios?
Yes. The hazard scenario builder defines an event type and extent, and the exposure assessment module reports population, settlements and infrastructure within it. Scenarios are saved and can be compared against actual events afterwards.
Is resource mapping kept current?
Resource mapping, inventory and the emergency contact register are maintained by the agency through the platform itself, so they stay current because they are the working record rather than a copy. Updates are visible on the map immediately.
How does this differ from the flood early-warning system?
The early-warning system is about the coming days for one river basin, sensors, forecasts and historical extents. This system is about the coming season for the whole province: vulnerability, scenarios, resources and coordination. They share an agency and a design language but answer different questions.
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