got geoint?

During crisis situations, “on-the-ground” information comes from a variety of sources such as news sources, citizen blogs, and various government organizations and must be combined to provide a complete picture about a particular location. This information is shared at all levels through the Homeland Security Information network (HSIN) and helps DHS officials coordinate the appropriate response for a particular incident.

MetaCarta, Inc., a leading provider of geographic search and referencing solutions and partner ArdentMC have developed a location-based situational awareness solution for the Department of Homeland Security National Operation Center (NOC). The solution was used during the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and during Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike to combine information from open news sources and DHS intelligence on a map so that watch standers could visualize what was happening in a specific geographic area as real-time events occur.

The solution used the MetaCarta Geographic Search and Referencing Platform (MetaCarta GSRP). MetaCarta GSRP identifies places and points-of-interest in text documents, news feeds, email, reports, web pages and blogs, and assigns latitude and longitude coordinates so that the content can be searched, retrieved, and visually displayed on a map. Today, not all geographic references can be identified by traditional text search engines. The MetaCarta GSRP can identify more than 190 million place names and public sector agencies are now able to geo-enable all of their content in English, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic, or mixed-language documents so it can be used in location-based applications to help visualize trends and enhance intelligence analysis.

Tags: Hurricane Gustav, Hurricane Ike, MetaCarta, MetaCarta GSRP