Do You Really Need A Map For That?

Here's the situation:

You're managing an incident in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), and you quickly realize a visual product would help the team better understand the situation. The initial event has triggered cascading impacts that weren’t anticipated, you need to mobilize more resources, and key decisions have to be made. You task the planning section chief, who tasks the situation unit leader, who then tasks the geographic information system (GIS) analyst to create a product. The task may look like this: "Can you please create a map of the incident area and highlight any areas of concern we should be paying attention to?"

Shortly thereafter, the GIS analyst brings the team a printed map with a few polygons highlighting the impacted area and the locations of critical infrastructure near the incident. Although you appreciate the time it took to create the deliverable with such short notice, the product fails to provide the additional context that would allow the group to make critical decisions. Ultimately, the interaction leaves you feeling disappointed because the map didn't meet your expectations.?

This type of situation happens more frequently than it should in our industry, so let’s examine the root cause.

Historically, due to our experience and training, when emergency managers think of GIS, we think of one thing: maps. We like to show maps on a display screen in the EOC. We tape maps to the wall near the operations section. We plot maps to bring to meetings. Why? Because we expect maps to be readily available at all times, just in case we need them. So, we ask for a map from our GIS analyst, and a map is what we get.

What I'd like to offer my colleagues in emergency management, and our GIS counterparts, is that having more dialogue about what the product will be used for will provide a more valuable result.

Advice for the emergency manager:

Before you ask your GIS analyst to make a map, ask yourself these questions:

• Is a map the best way to tell this story and inform our decisions?
• Do I need more context, data, and analysis to make these decisions?
• Is there a better way to convey critical information?
• Do I really need a map for this?

If the answers to these questions aren't immediately clear, consider the story you're trying to tell with the product. Does your operations team need to understand the spatial relationship between the impacted area, the built environment, and the at-risk population? Maps provide a common language to understand how these systems are integrated and influence each other. If this is what you need others to understand, then a map is the ideal decision-making tool.

In many other cases, however, our operations would benefit from a different display of products—like a dashboard, infographic, knowledge graph, or link analysis. ArcGIS products like ArcGIS Dashboard, ArcGIS Insights, ArcGIS Business Analyst, and ArcGIS Knowledge can be used to create these deliverables—and all you have to do is ask for it.

In addition to the format of the product itself, conveying what it will be used for is paramount if you want to avoid disappointment. Provide your GIS analyst with a few key decisions that need to be made so they can better tailor the result. Using an example water outage scenario, you may want to offer something similar to the following:

• We need to understand the at-risk populations impacted by the water outage; what does the community profile look like?
• Are there assisted living centers, hospitals, or schools impacted by the event? If yes, what’s their operating status?
• Do we know how many people are in the outage area who might need potable water?
• Where's the best place to set up our water distribution site? Are public transportation options nearby?

Engaging in this kind of dialogue should give your GIS analyst a better understanding of how to visualize the situation, and ultimately provide a product that will truly inform your decisions. Over time, they will come to understand the types of decisions that need to be made at certain points during operations, the analysis and context that is needed to inform them, and how you like to receive information as the leader. Through repetition, this process will become more automatic.

Advice for the GIS analyst:

As the technical expert, you're aware of the power of ArcGIS and the products available to visualize a story. Often, you're asked for a map but with very little information about how the product will be used, so naturally, you create the map that was requested. But during a few activations, you've noticed that your maps aren't being referenced as much as you thought, or in ways you had intended.

What I'd like to offer you is this: In most cases, non-GIS people are not aware of the extent ArcGIS technology is available to them beyond mapping, nor are they always aware of the capabilities that technology can bring to the decision-making process. Knowing that most emergency managers' experience with GIS is limited to maps, you should feel empowered to offer other solutions that might help them make better-informed decisions.

When asked to create a map, ask prodding questions about the decisions that will be made, who will be reviewing the product, and if a spatial depiction of information is necessary. It is perfectly acceptable to ask your section chief, the command center manager, or even your director the following questions:

• Would it be valuable to see numbers, knowledge graphs, link analysis, or infographics, to better understand the situation?
• Beyond points on a map, what additional analysis or context do you need to inform your decisions?
• Will this be released publicly or to external partners?
• Is a map the best way to tell this story?

Understanding the cadence and urgency of an active EOC, it’s all too common for personnel to avoid asking additional questions. The EOC’s unique environment gives the impression there isn’t time to answer questions, so most people receive a task and get right to work. That is precisely why this next part is really, really important: Unless the requestor asks for spatial analysis for specific reasons, it's best to dig deep and figure out the decisions that will be made from your product—strategically, operationally, and tactically. Your questions will inform how you go about creating your product, and the additional analysis and context that is needed, from you, to inform decisions. ?

Maybe you don't need a map for that.

ArcGIS is a suite of highly specialized software that emergency managers can use to solve complex problems. As an industry, we know that maps are a valuable tool we can leverage to understand things that are inherently spatial. But what we may not understand is that ArcGIS can produce dashboards, knowledge graphics, and link analysis that can also provide critical data points to inform our decisions. And all of these products can lead us towards answering the Why, and So What, of nearly any incident we’re managing. So instead of repetitively asking for a map, consider how best to consume the data you're asking for and share that information with your analyst. I'm certain your GIS analyst will exceed your expectations.