Northland Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) required a software application to support the Welfare function during emergency events. Welfare is one of the core CDEM functions during responses and can have a massive impact for those affected by the emergency. Previously welfare information has been in multiple places and formats making it difficult to provide assistance, manage information and report during responses. Twelve system requirements were initially identified, and the decision was made to develop a solution internally using ArcGIS.

The new Welfare Needs Assessment system uses forms built in ArcGIS Survey123 Connect, ArcGIS Dashboards and an ArcGIS Hub site. For staff working off site, there is a stand alone Survey123 form that can be used either on- or offline to collect information. For staff working online, there is a landing page which is an ArcGIS Hub site, providing access to more detailed information, such as map based searches of available welfare agencies and locations of civil defence and community centres.

The benefits include enabling staff from multiple organisations to provide advice and referrals, collect data, respond to welfare needs, have oversight on current state and complete required reporting. Staff can use dashboards to report on welfare needs during emergency responses at a region or district level, by event type and by date range, providing a lot of flexibility depending on the scale of the response.

We present a case study of the Central Hawkes Bay District Council (CHBDC) Land Transport Network and the role of ArcGIS online in capturing and communicating information during the Cyclone Gabrielle Emergency Response. The CHBDC’s land transport network consists of approximately 1300km of rural roads with poor cellular connectivity. Access throughout this network was severely impacted by both road and bridge closures following Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023. CHBDC required a method of communicating the dynamically changing environment with the local community, including bridge and road closures, locations of developing landslides and the status of landslide and bridge debris clearance with road reopenings. Network information was received from multiple sources including the local community, maintenance contractors, council, and engineering inspectors. A means for collating and refining this information was required. Drawing on previous experience in disaster response situations, Stantec developed a GIS information capture system specifically for CHBDC.
There are numerous benefits to this system, including allowing ‘real-time’ data capture, prioritisation of actions for maintenance contractors, data visualisation of priority roads for community connectivity and network logistics, visual aids for community meetings and engagement, and an interactive map. The system was refined throughout the ongoing emergency response phase, to better meet CHBDC’s needs. Adaptations were made following client feedback including alterations made to better facilitate their reporting requirements. Future opportunities for this system include further development to make the system more user-friendly, inclusion of actions tracking, additional features that allow direct, live updates to the community, and providing ‘field reporter’ options for the community to directly input data.
This case study highlights the value of using the ArcGIS online suite for capturing and communicating information during emergency response situations. It provides a means for clients to engage with their communities and provide them with accurate, up-to-date information in emergency situations.

Real-time GIS and situational awareness give organisations the ability to simultaneously integrate, analyse and display streaming data from applications, devices, and weather and senor data. It provides location-based analytics that automatically refine and focus real-time data to accomplish the operational outcomes with up-to-the-minute intelligence on what’s happening in the field, and across jurisdictions.