GIS and spatial data in the service of flood management

A report on an initiative of the State Emergency Service: Crowe, P., Cinque, P. and Davies, B. (2003) Presented at te 43rd Annual Conference of the Floodplain Management Authorities of NSW, Forbes, 2003

This paper explores the uses and potential of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in improving the management of flood response operations. For the past four years the State Emergency Service (SES) has been active in the development of a GIS capability for the valley of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River, but there is great promise for its application on a statewide basis. The GIS tool is a vital one in the contexts of planning for floods, educating the populations at risk and managing floods as they actually rise. GIS will help the SES to make sense of the complex and detailed hydrological, demographic, cadastral and other information which is available to today's flood managers. In particular it will be valuable in the visualisation, to an extent not previously possible, of the likely impacts of developing floods. By using GIS in both the planning and the operational contexts, flood managers will be able to see in advance, and in considerable detail, what a coming flood will mean to communities in its path and will be able to make more informed and timely decisions about response actions and the allocation of resources. GIS, in short, carries the potential to revolutionise the SES's handling of flood intelligence. Access to spatial data held by councils and other government agencies will be critical to the full realisation of this potential. The paper reports on progress to date in the implementation of GIS and discusses its future development as a tool in flood management activities.

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