Geographical Information Systems for Disaster Response and Management Ashok Kumar Sharma, Surya Parkash Varun Joshi National Institute of Disaster Management Guru Govind Singh Indraprasth University, (Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India) Dwarka-16 C, New Delhi - 110078, India 5B, I.P. Estate, Ring Road, IIPA Campus, Email: varunj63@gmail.com New Delhi-110002, India Email: ashok.nidm@gmail.com Abstract - When a disaster happen the Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) is the rapid techniques for collecting, analyzing and disseminating information which is essential for effective response, relief and recovery. Remote Sensing and GIS offers a powerful tool to create maps, integrate information, visualize scenarios, solve complicated problems and develop effective solutions in disaster management. During the emergency period of a disaster occurrence, a district administrator requires information regarding the population likely to be affected, availability of the resources, critical infrastructure, available evacuation route and channels for communication etc. for effective decision making. GIS be capable to provide a valuable support during various disaster phases. For the period of the preparedness and response phases, GIS can support superior response planning for determining evacuation route or locating significant infrastructure and essential lifelines, etc. Based on the information provided by GIS, it is also possible to estimation what quantity of relief items, medicine aid, location of fire stations and paramedical will be required at each shelter based on the number of expected evacuees. Similarly, GIS assists online monitoring of the status of current work in the recovery stage. Keywords: Geographical Information System, Incident Response System, Disaster Management, Mitigation, Preparedness. I. INTRODUCTION Disasters are natural and man-made hazard events. A combination of natural phenomena such as earthquakes, landslide, floods, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis etc., can cause many losses of lives and damage to the property. Natural disasters have major direct and indirect economic and socio- economic effects in addition to the physical destruction that may happen. Natural Disaster cannot be prevented at the present stage of science and technology and community may have to live with certain level of risk the level of risk being dependent on the level of science and technology obtainable for induction in disaster management and the resources made available by the Government for holistic management of disaster in a proactive way, where main concern is assigned in the prevention, mitigation and preparedness activities in the pre- disaster activities without diluting the effort on the post event activities. In the context of natural disasters, therefore, the holistic disaster management cycle has been centered on four overlapping phases: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery [1]. Disaster Response may be defined as the provision of aid during as well as immediately after a disaster to meet the life preservation and basis subsistence needs or those people affected. GIS is powerful put of tools for collecting, storing, retrieving at will, transforming and displaying spatial data from the real world, computer-based system to provides sets of capabilities to handle geo-referenced data like input, data management, manipulation and analysis and output. GIS is used in a wide range of applications including urban and regional planning, agriculture, emergency response systems and natural resource management. GIS enables users to produce high quality maps at any scale, to store and maintain a large quantity of geographically related information, to imagine and simplify complex data and to create new data from available data [2]. GIS technology provides a visually powerful opportunity for human service societies to analyze social services in relation to the communities in which they operate. Knowledge of where people live and work and its relationship with other community parameters such as socio-economic profile, existence of health facilities and schools, etc., is a powerful analytical tool for planning human service delivery to needy communities. By mapping the location of problems of concern in specific localities, human service agencies can develop service strategies that are sensitive to community needs. GIS helps human service societies to produce meaningful and attention maps, which visually highlight important administrative, policy and practice issues and uncover new insights such as gaps in service delivery and location of facilities in an area of new demand for services [3].