Geographic Information and Geo-visualisation in support of Disaster Resilience

Abstract. Society continues to become more spatially enabled as spatial data becomes increasingly available and accessible. This is partly due to democratisation of data achieved through open access of framework data sets. On the other hand, mobile devices such as smartphones have become more accessible, giving the public access to applications that use spatial data. This has tremendously increased the consumption of spatial data at the level of the general public. Spatial data has a history in planning and decision making as detailed in literature on promises and benefits of geographic information. We extend these promises to sustainability and disaster resilience. It is our belief that geographic information (GI) and geographic information infrastructures (GIIs) contribute positively towards the achievement of sustainability in cities and nations and in disaster resilience. This study carries out a review of geo-visualisation and GI applications in order to determine their suitability and impact in disaster resilience. Real-time GI are significant for cities to ensure sustainability and to increase disaster preparedness. Geographic information infrastructures need to be integrated with BIG data systems to ensure that local government agencies have timely access to real time geographic information so that decisions on sustainability and disaster resilience can be effectively done.