To reach the masses and educate them on national disaster management, ISRO used the social media platform to announce the launch of its updated National Database for Emergency Management (NDEM). An initiative taken by the Government of India to build a safer and disaster resilient India, the latest version of NDEM includes features that give greater impetus to the purpose.
Though in existence since 2013, several updates have been implemented on the platform to make it more user-friendly. NDEM’s updated version has been designed to boost the portal’s ability to manage emergency situations promptly and more efficiently — almost in real time. The portal is browser independent and compatible with all computer devices and mobile phones with vector rendering services.
The main purpose of NDEM is to address disasters such as flood, cyclone, drought, forest fire, landslide, and earthquake. Earth observation satellites together with meteorological and communication satellites and aerial survey system form the base for providing timely support and services for disaster management.
The latest version was released by Minister of Home Affairs Rajnath Singh during the inaugural ceremony of the second meeting of National Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction (NPDRR) at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on May 15.
What does NDEM Version 3.0 offer?
The first version, i.e. NDEM Portal Version 1.0, was launched and made operational in June 2013. This version helped various Indian state governments to manage disaster events efficient during 2013-2014.
Then in May 2015, NDEM’s version 2.0 was launched. The more advanced version had features like disaster dashboard, comprehensive multi-scale geospatial database, historical disaster database, customized Decision Support System (DSS) tools, incident reporting, interaction tools, mobile applications and Indian Disaster Resource Network (IDRN)/ health database.
Now with the launch of version 3.0, ISRO wants to further address the crucial issue of disaster management. Some of the salient features of the NDEM Version 3.0 are:
- A dashboard for visualization of disaster alerts, warnings issued by nodal departments, current disaster news and authorized social media content
- Incident reporting through Web and mobile apps
- Integrated visualization of multi-scale data services
- Customised decision support tools such as proximity and optimal path analysis, report generation, etc., for relief management
- Interactive tools for communication among State Government Departments and MHA through portal
- Live audio/video module for visualization of on-site response operations
- Resource management module for allocation and monitoring of relief resources
The main objective of NDEM is:
- Development of Decision Support System (DSS) tools for addressing disaster/emergency management.
- Establishing computer infrastructure to facilitate network connectivity, data ingest, validation, GIS databases organization, data dissemination and services hosting
- Organization of multi-scale geospatial database for entire country at 1:50,000 scale; for 350 Multi-hazard prone districts at 1:10,000 scale; for 5 Mega-cities
What is NDEM and how does it work?
NDEM portal acts as a geospatial national repository of data and was developed to manage emergency situations in the country. It has a set of decision support tools that assist disaster managers to gather timely information and take swift decisions during any emergency situation.
The National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of ISRO had implemented NDEM for the Government of India’s Ministry of Home Affairs and remains responsible for operationalizing the NDEM projects.
So far about 788 value added disaster specific products covering 15 Indian states were served through ISRO-DMS VPN secured network. In addition to these disaster specific products, multi-scale geospatial data services were provided for 36 states/Union territories on 1:50,000 scale, 210 Multi-Hazard prone districts on 1:10,000 scale (out of 350 districts), High-Resolution Satellite imageries for 210 towns. Mobile applications were developed for relief management and made available to all State and Central departments. Seven regional training programs were organized across the country (Guwahati, Dehradun, Kolkata, Gandhinagar, Thiruvananthapuram, Bhopal, and Delhi) during June – August 2015 for the familiarization of NDEM private and public portals for enabling the better utilization of NDEM products and services by state departments.
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