Application degis

Application of GIS and Remote Sensing Technologies in Disaster Management in Algeria
Youcef SMARA, Aichouche BELHADJ-AISSA and Mostefa BELHADJ-AISSA, Algeria

Key words: Disasters management, oil spill pollution, forests fires, seisms, differential interferometry, SAR imagery. SUMMARY Algeria is affected by fourteen major risks (earthquakes, landslides, floods, forest fires, oil spill, etc)and the means for the management of these disasters are limited and often inadequate. In recent years, Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) technologies have been the object of considerable interest to all bodies concerned with space and in particular emergency services and disaster management in Algeria, in collaboration with all other bodies responsible for prevention andmanagement of all major risks in Algeria. The use of remote sensing and GIS has become an integrated, well developed and successful tool in disaster management. For our part, we are interested in this communication to present our research work concerning the management of risks and we hope to contribute directly or indirectly to putting these new technologies in place in Algeria. This has been done incollaboration with bodies such as the forestry services for the management of the forest fires, the centre for astronomical, astrophysical and geophysical research for the monitoring of earthquakes and so on. For the first risk of oil pollution, we present, in this communication, a methodology developed for the oil spill identification. The potential for the detection and characterisation of oilspills using ERS-SAR imagery has been studied in this communication. The methodology is easy to apply and is able to determine the identification probability in an automated way. We expect this to be a useful tool for the monitoring services. For the second risk, a large earthquake (Ms > 6.8) occurred in May 2003 in the AlgiersBoumerdes area (Algeria). Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry(InSAR) has been shown to be a valuable tool for monitoring relative surface displacement due to various crustal movements and for creating accurate DEM's using pairs of SAR images. This research is under study in our laboratory and first results as interferograms are obtained and the work is go on. For the third risk of forests fires, every year, about 30 000 hectares of forests are destroyed by firesin Algeria. Our major preoccupation is to reduce forests fires in the country, thanks to inventory, prevention and management and follow-up. The goal of our work is to set up of a GIS integrating remote sensing data for the prevention and management of the fires. In this communication, we present through these three examples, our contribution of the Algerian experience in the use of Spacetechnologies for disaster management.

TS 32 – Disaster Management and GIS Applications Youcef Smara, Aichouche Belhadj-Aissa and Mostefa Belhadj-Aissa TS32.7 Application of GIS and Remote Sensing Technologies in Disaster Management in Algeria From Pharaohs to Geoinformatics FIG Working Week 2005 and GSDI-8 Cairo, Egypt April 16-21, 2005

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Application of GIS and Remote Sensing Technologies inDisasters Management in Algeria
Youcef SMARA, Aichouche BELHADJ-AISSA and Mostefa BELHADJ-AISSA, Algeria

1. INTRODUCTION Among risks described above and according to the available statistics a part of the north of Algeria is liable to seismic activity of varying intensities (Boumerdes,2003; Chlef,1980; Tipaza, 1989;etc). Coastal areas of Algeria are exposed to marine pollution and of all thedisasters occurring in the country, forest fires (in northern Algeria) are the most frequent and often the most devastating. Remote Sensing and GIS can be a very useful tool to complement conventional methods involved in Disaster Management Mitigation of natural disaster management can be successful only when detailed knowledge is obtained about the expected frequency, character, and magnitude of...