Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

The members of EMSINA would like to wish everybody a Happy Festive Season and a great 2015.

It is the dedicated people like you that keep so many communities around Australia safe .  

Thank you..!

EMSINA Meeting - Canberra Wrap up

And...there ends another successful EMSINA meeting.  Safe travels to all flying or driving home tonight.

The meeting was well represented by 27 people from most jurisdictions. Excitingly, there were some new faces to welcome, including the new Chair of EMSINA Victoria, Andrew Wise from ESTA.

The spatial topics discussed during the meeting, as per normal, were wide ranging. A brief summary of the topics and important points are as follows (talk to your jurisdictional rep if you want to know more):

• Wayne Patterson stood down as Chair of EMSINA
• Aaron Cashion (Tas) and Steve Forbes (ACT) took on Co-Chair roles 
• The secretariat role remains the same (Kane Orr - GA)
• Their first item was to discuss the roles and responsibilities of the Chairs / Secretariat and Hosts.
• A vote was successfully taken in favour of giving Wayne an honorary Life Membership to EMSINA.
• There were then a number of exceptionally good presentations and subsequent discussions around: 
• Rapid Impact Assessment technology
• National Impact Assessment Model
• Fundamental Data importance
• Symbology
• NEXIS developments
• The National Situation Awareness Tool
• CAP-AU standards
• Potential funding for capability holes
• Website development and document access
• We were also lucky enough to get great tours and inside knowledge as to the the workings of the Australian Crisis Coordination Centre, the AFP Watch Floor and the Joint Tsunami Warning Centre.
• Meeting minutes and actions will be sent around soon.

The next meeting will be in Melbourne in mid April. More details to come in February.

Couple of Life Members

Congratulations to Wayne for his near 10 year stint as Chair of the EMSINA Group. A unanimous vote to give Wayne a life membership of the Group was also very fitting.

It was also great to see the only other life member of the Group, Mark Garvey at the meeting. It is always great to see Mark and learn from his many years of experience in the EM field.

Couple of great guys!

   

One Week to go until the Canberra EMSINA Meeting

It is only one week until the Canberra EMSINA Meeting. If you have not registered please do so by this Friday.

The packed agenda is nearly finalised - click here to view a draft.

Live Meeting Minutes will be available. Please contact your EMSINA rep on Monday for details.

If you would like an EM Spatial issue tabled for inclusion and discussion at the next meeting please send through an email.

RSVP now for December EMSINA Meeting

The RSVP process is now open for attending the December EMSINA Meeting - December 2 and 3.

The agenda has lots of interesting developments in the world of EM Spatial Information.

Day 1 until 1330 (December 2) at EMA is Members Only
Day 2 (December 3) at GA is Members and Observers

Click here to go to the RSVP Page to confirm your attendance.

Symbology Article that mentions EMSINA

An interesting article that discusses consistency requirements in EM symbology. It actually mentions  EMSINAs work in this space.

http://www.spatialvision.com.au/index.php/blogs-canadians-setting-a-standard-for-emergency-mapping.html

Time to think about the Dec EMSINA meeting

It is time to start thinking about the 3rd EMSINA meeting for 2014.

• Proposed Date: 1st week of December, 2014
• Location: Canberra, ACT
• Host Agency: tbc soon

If you have an Agenda item please send them through.

EMSINA @ AFAC Presentation

Apologies for the delay guys... The awesome EMSINA Presentation given by our members and volunteers at the 2014 AFAC in Wellington is now available for viewing or download - click here

Thanks again to Motorola Solutions for their ongoing support of EMSINA.

EMSINA NSW RFS - Meeting

A well represented and very informative 2 days at NSW RFS. If you would like to find out more about the conversations about any of the Agenda items please see your Jurisdictional Rep or email EMSINAGroup@gmail.com. 

Interesting "Kickstarter" project

A very interesting "Kickstarter" project using your drones and their online processing services for aerial mapping.

What are your thoughts: Are these types of DIY developments going to increasingly put aerial responders lives in danger? 

Read more: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1950977397/mapping-with-drones?ref=category

EMSINA has nothing to do with this product or project. 

August EMSINA Meeting - Reminder

Just confirming / reminding you all that the next EMSINA meeting will be held at the NSW RFS HQ (Homebush) on Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 August. 

To help Gareth and myself out with catering numbers please utilise the RSVP function found on the Next Meeting page.

We have a couple of open timeslots in the Agenda, if you have a suggestion please raise it with me ASAP. 

EMSINA - August Meeting

The next EMSINA meeting is now confirmed for 13 and 14 August, 2014 at the NSW RFS Headquarters in Homebush.

RSVP:

• EMSINA Members: RSVP by clicking here
• NON EMSINA Members who wish to attend or observe please RSVP by clicking here 

Agenda Topics:

• Draft Agenda - click here
• If you have a topic for the EMSINA Group to discuss please get in contact with us.

EMSINA's New 'Who are we' Flyer

A brand new flyer outlining who EMSINA is and what we do is now available for download. 

A big thanks to Aaron (DPIPWE) and his team for taking on and producing this update.

eMap (Emergency Map) – Wins the People and Community Award

A 'good news' story to start the week off...

Victoria's joint incident operational mapping platform eMap (Emergency Map) – Wins the People and Community Award at the 2013 Asia Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards. EMSINA would like to congratulate CFA, DEPI, SES and MFB who have demonstrated fantastic cross agency cooperation to build and implement this comprehensive spatial tool.

eMap Overview: the capability has the ability to work in an online and offline state, can capture data by air & ground observers, who can share the information back to the web platform for all across the state to view. There is a raft of live information shown in eMap, from everything from detailed incident information to vast array of weather feeds. To give the current “picture” of what is happening across the state to decision makers at any given time this information is always kept up to date. If you would like to know more about eMap please click here.

Tom Sanderson (CFA), Stephen Salathiel (DEPI), Alen Slijepcevic (Deputy Chief Officer - CFA), A
dam Damen (DEPI), Naomi Withers (DEPI)

Mapping fire severity in the Top End

The Bushfire CRC’s Northern Fire Mapping project developed fire severity mapping to help manage fire in the tropical savannas and rangelands across Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

The study has determined that on average over half the landscape was affected by fire each year, releasing vast amounts of carbon and destroying the carbon stored in trees. Reducing these greenhouse gas emissions will have enormous financial benefits for fire managers, as well as indigenous land owners, allowing them to earn incomes managing the land.

In the forum Dr Andrew Edwards discusses how the results of the project have improved ecological-risk assessments, including greenhouse gas emissions, tree carbon sequestration, biodiversity and erosion. Watch it in full here. Also available via the link is the full research report on the subject, as well as a Fire Note.

Please note due to technical difficulties (particularly at the start and end) the sound quality at points is not great. Please contact andrew.edwards@cdu.edu.au if you require clarification on any aspects of the research.

Sentinel v1.2 Cutover

Following on from the EMSINA meeting last week...

"I am very happy to inform that Sentinel v1.2 is now the default version on GA website (http://sentinel.ga.gov.au).

Big thanks to everyone involved in the update process."

Andreia Siqueira

Geoscience Australia

Please click here for the release notes. 

Position Article...

For those who subscribe to 'Position' check out an article written by Robert Newham, a Geoscience Australia CCC Liaison Officer in relation to the evolving EM spatial capability in the Australian Government's Crisis Coordination Centre. It also talks about the importance of the consuming information from the source...i.e the NSAT capability EMSINA is working hard on.

Position Magazine - April/May Edition (no 70) - Page 49 and 50 - Title "Mapping the way to enhance effective Crisis Coordination".

EMA Monthly Podcast

Check out The Attorney-General's Department produces the Emergency Management Australia Podcast. New episodes are published monthly and cover the latest issues in emergency management from dealing with bushfires, cyclones, earthquakes and tsunamis, to complex policy development or program delivery. The Podcasts draw on content from the emergency management community, including interviews with everyone from the Australian Government Minister for Justice to the volunteers on the ground; even Neil Thomas (EMSINA member) gets a gig talking about NSAT. 

Subscribe free of charge through iTunes, or directly from EMA's hosting provider Buzzsprout.

If you have a topic that you would like EMA to cover or you would like to contribute please let your EMSINA member know.

EMSINA Meeting - 6 & 7 May, 2014

The first EMSINA Meeting for 2014 is scheduled for Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7, May 2014. DPAW and DFES are hosting the meeting in the beautiful city of Perth. 

RSVP's are now open for Members and Non-Members

If you have any EM spatial items you would like raised during the meeting please feel free to contact us.


 

EMSINA - All Hazards Symbol Set Available to Download

Captured 15 Jan, 2014

The EMSINA All-Hazards Symbol Set is now available for download. Follow this link and select the appropriate symbol set for; 

• ESRI 
• MapInfo 
• Google 
• Geoserver

The page also has the required form and instructions for adding a new symbol(s) or altering an existing one.

Look how easy it is to quickly glance at any jurisdiction and see what the status is...all because of standard symbology!