Environmental Engineering and Management Journal January 2013, Vol.12, No. 1, 11-16 http://omicron.ch.tuiasi.ro/EEMJ/ “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, Romania IMPROVING MANAGEMENT OF RISKS AND NATURAL DISASTERS BY REGIONAL GIS DISTRIBUTED APPLICATION Iulian Furdu, Cosmin Tomozei, Ioana Pandele ∗ "Vasile Alecsandri" University of Bacău, Department of Mathematics, Informatics, and Education Sciences, Bacău, Romania, 5, Logofat Tăutu str., sc.B, apt.35, 600190, Bacău, Romania "Vasile Alecsandri" University of Bacău, Department of Mathematics, Informatics, and Education Sciences, Bacău, Romania, 1, Nicolae Balcescu str., sc.C, apt. 159, 600050, Bacău, Romania "Vasile Alecsandri" University of Bacău, Department of Mathematics, Informatics, and Education Sciences, Bacău, Romania, 11, Călugăreni str., sc. E, apt. 10, 600407, Bacău, Romania Abstract The aim of this paper is to provide a framework for the improvement of the processes involving risks evaluation and management evaluation in Central East Moldavian Region, considering the occurrence of natural disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, forest fires and landslides. Consequently, a GIS application has been developed in order to graphically reflect and analyze these risks. The studies on the targeted region would be a starting point to further extensions to other Romanian regions. The application will be publicly available in order to provide an early warning system to people, since no such services exist in Romania at individual level. Important aspects concerning risk management status and policies in Romania are also discussed. Key words: geospatial databases, GIS, hazard maps, natural disasters, risk evaluation Received: September, 2012; Revised final: December, 2012; Accepted: December, 2012 ∗ Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed: e-mail: ioana.pandele@ub.ro; Phone: +(40)234542411 1. Introduction Geographic Information Systems - GIS involves the mapping software applications, which provide spatial data analysis by linking locations with information about them (Liu et al., 2011; Wright, 1997). The main objective of Risk-GIS is to ensure the support of decision making and problem solving in areas related to community safety and sustainability. Furthermore, risk management GIS represents the analytical engine that coordinates the process of evaluation of the risks of natural hazards. A crucial feature in the selection of a GIS is the identification of a minimum set of required capabilities (GIS, 2012). The most important ones include: data retrieval, capture, storage, management, analysis, and display. Recent GIS applications for risk management at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency include ORD/ESD, ATtILA and ReVA (FERA, 2004). Similar products or projects are (Deckers et al., 2010; Kellens et al., 2012): • LATIS for flood risk management in Flanders, Belgium; • AGSO for natural hazards and risk they pose to South East Queensland, developed by Geoscience Australia in conjunction with the Bureau of Meteorology and presented in (Geoscience Australia, 2012); • FEMID Strengthening Local Capabilities for Disaster Risk Management for Central America, described in (Lavell, 2002) or SLARIM (van Westen et al., 2002); • National Resource Information System - NRIS to create a nation-wide GIS database of natural resource that could be used for better disaster management in India;