Role of Remote Sensing and GIS in Natural Disaster Management: Utilizing remote sensing and GIS for efficient and cost-effective natural disaster management

Abstract

In the recent past, whether it is a natural hazard or by the intervention of human activities, disasters have become an issue of rising alarm. Natural disasters are intense events of our global system, which brings forth major changes in the environment over a short period of time. For the past four decades, disaster events such as floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, storms, etc, have caused a great havoc to livelihoods and brought down the socio-economic status of a country apart from severe damage to the environment. These catastrophic events clearly swab out years of urban development by demolishing the infrastructure and killing thousands to millions of people. One such example which caused an immense loss to lives and properties is the 2011 Tsunami in Japan. This paper presents a general review on utilization of remote sensing and GIS for natural disaster management. Remote sensing can be potentially employed to address various aspects of disaster management cycle. Rather focusing only on emergency response, it is essential to consider all facets of disaster management. Remotely sensed data extend their support to disaster management organizations by providing relevant and accurate information in a temporally. Disaster Management can be very efficiently and cost effectively handled by using innovation in the technology. Highly sophisticated and effective Disaster Management systems can be develop accordingly which are basically GIS based. This can help us to reduce the casualties and damages caused by disasters.