Sorry for cross postings.

The 4th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response
and Management

Delft, the Netherlands, May 13-16 2007

http://www.iscram.org

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A SPECIAL ACADEMIC SESSION ON Rapid Environmental
Assessment with GIS and Remote Sensing

Session ID: 33REAS

Motivation for this session:

The purpose of this session is to explore how remote sensing and GIS can be
integrated with various Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment (REA)
methodologies for assessing the environmental effects of natural disasters
such as hurricanes and earthquakes. Discussion of application and case
studies of such integration of GIS and RS with REA for post-crisis emergency
management can not only help save lives during crisis but can also help
emergency planners prepare, organize, and plan rescue and relief efforts for
future disasters.

Research Area:

Natural and human-induced hazards often have catastrophic effects on the
environment and urban structures. Understanding these effects is not only
important to predicting, preventing and mitigating the impact of disasters,
but they are also crucial in rescue and relief operations and ultimately in
saving lives. Although the environmental effects of disasters are typically
of a rapid nature, investigations of these effects usually take place months
after the disaster occurrence leaving many of causal factors of such effects
and their overall impacts less understood. It is therefore very critical
that assessment of the environment and urban structures takes place within
hours and days after the disaster strikes. The assessment process needs to
be detailed but simple to use so that it can be utilized by rescue and
relief operations personnel with minimum training.
Over the past few years, Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment (REA)
methodologies have been proposed to fulfill both re quirements. However,
comb! ining REA methods with geospatial techniques such as Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) may be more beneficial not
only in collecting, integrating, managing, and analyzing spatial data
pertaining to the damaged areas, but also in supporting the rapid updates of
changing datasets which can then be visible in detailed organized maps.

Topics:

The session invites oral presentations of basic and applied research papers
in one of the following topic:


-Applications of REA methodologies in natural and human-induced hazards
-Applicability of REA and Remote Sensing/GIS data -Conceptual and
methodological approaches for integrating REA with RS and GIS -Error
propagation and complications in the integration processes of REA and RS/GIS
- Institutional issues in GIS/RS integrated REAs.

Type of contributions:

Research, research-in-progress, and case studies papers emphasizing
theoretical, conceptual, and methodological developments in integration of
Remote Sensing and GIS with Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment.

Important Notice: All submissions must be submitted to the ISCRAM2007
central email address:
[log in to unmask]

All submissions must be formatted according to the
ISCRAM2007 instructions published on iscram.org. All papers, presentations
or demos will go through a double-blind review process, leading to a
decision of
(conditional) acceptance or rejection.

Acceptance rates at previous conferences were at 50-60 percent.

Accepted papers will be included in the ISCRAM2007 program and published in
the official proceedings if and only if (1) the paper is formatted according
to the instructions, (2) the authors sign the copyright transfer form (see
iscram.org) and (3) one of the author registers for the conference and pays
the registration fee before the cut-off date for early registration.

Authors who have multiple papers accepted can only register for and present
one paper at the conference; co-authors need to register separately

Session Organizers:

Muhammad Tauhidur Rahman
University of Oklahoma
[log in to unmask]

Charles Kelly
Benfield Hazards Research Centre
[log in to unmask]


Important ISCRAM2007 Deadlines:

Paper Submission Deadline: January 15, 2007 Notification of acceptance:
February 22, 2007 Closing date Early Registration: March 1, 2007 Final
version submission deadline: March 15, 2007

ISCRAM2007: May 13-16 2007

About ISCRAM:

The ISCRAM Community is a worldwide community of researchers, scholars,
teachers, students, practitioners and policy makers interested or actively
involved in the subject of Information Systems for Crisis Response and
Management. At its annual international conference alternating between the
US and Europe, the ISCRAM Community gathers to present and discuss the
latest research and developments in this growing area during an interactive
and stimulating 3 day program. The ISCRAM Community also organizes
ISCRAM-CHINA, an annual conference for ISCRAM research in China.

All information on ISCRAM can be found at http://www.iscram.org .

This year the conference will be held from 13-16 May in the Netherlands in
the city of Delft. All details on this conference will be made available via
the ISCRAM website mentioned above.