Making sense of local spatial data infrastructure in volcanic disaster risk management: a case study at Sleman regency, Indonesia

The Sleman local government conducts a risk management program for the Merapi Volcano to minimize damages and casualties in case of an eruption. This program uses spatial data technologies to enhance decision making and enable coordination of the risk management activities. The current situation is that spatial data are sporadically available, and data integration, sharing and effective use by decision makers within Sleman government agencies is not optimal. This research aimed to design and test an application to support a Local Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for risk management efforts, with a particular emphasis on evacuation planning in case of a Merapi Volcano disaster. One of the essential applications of this local SDI was the design of a geoportal. The design of this portal followed a number of steps. The first step involved a review on the activities needed in managing risks of the Merapi Volcano, and the associated spatial data needed. The next step was to examine the processes, problems, and information flows in evacuation planning. These prerequisites were used as foundation for the development of the application. The initial version of the proposed Geocollaboration Portal was customized in order to facilitate decision makers to coordinate and share updates and information on top of the portal’s map when dealing with the evacuation process. This customization consisted of equipping the portal with usable map presentations and interaction tools to support the collaborative decisions in volcanic disaster management. The final step consisted of a user group assessment to evaluate the usability of the application. The evaluation of this assessment showed that the collaborative portal on top of a local SDI could improve the agencies’ coordination and decision-making processes in the context of disaster preparedness and mitigation. The result shows the potential use of geocollaboration portals in support of the development of spatially enabled societies.