Geo-information technology offers an opportunity to support disaster management: industrial accidents, road collisions, complex emergencies, earthquakes, fires, floods and similar catastrophes (for example the recent huge disaster with the Tsunami in South-East Asia on 26 December 2004). Access to needed information, facilitation of the interoperability of emergency services, and provision of high-quality care to the public are a number of the key requirements.

Such requirements pose significant challenges for data management, discovery, translation, integration, visualization and...

Spatial technologies like GIS, CAD, and spatial DBMS have proved their applicability and usability in almost every sector of urban development. Urban Planning Systems, Public Participation Systems, and others have been continuously developed and improved contributing to better decision making, communicating ideas between different actors as well as receiving feedback concerning alternatives or implemented designs.

The Urban Data Management Society (UDMS) aims at providing a forum to discuss urban planning processes, exchange ideas, share information on available technology and...