2012 Volume 10 Pages 68-76
In 11th March 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC). This was the largest earthquake ever recorded to hit Japan in its history and one of the biggest in the world until now. The earthquake triggered a tsunami that hit coastal areas of Japan.
In response to this unprecedented disaster, the industry-government-academic group was formed as Emergency Mapping Team (EMT) and Emergency Mapping Center (EMC) was established, in order to standardize the situational awareness at the national level. From the day after the disaster, EMC carried out their activities for one and a half months in a special meeting room for Disaster Management at Cabinet Office.
The purpose of this research is to determine the kind of GIS skill that is needed to prepare uniform quality maps in EMC at National government level, with the involvement of numerous organizations and individuals.
In this research, considering the activity of EMT as an example of mapping, the maps prepared based on the user needs were analyzed. The Analysis was done on the basis of functional side directly related with visualization and processing elements which were indirectly involved. On the basis of this analysis, generalizations visualization skills needed for the country level responses were proposed.
