THIS week, representatives of Hobart's emergency services community will be told how software standards behind web services could help them cope with large-scale disasters such as bushfires, extreme weather, tsunamis, earthquakes and even terrorist attacks.
The meeting will be sponsored by public-private interests in the geospatial data industry that have thrown their support behind the Spatial Interoperability Project. The meeting kicks off a national tour of Australia's capitals.
Maurits van der Vlugt, a GIS specialist with large consulting firm Sinclair Knight Merz, hired to head up the project, says the goal is to convince emergency services teams to embrace software that can interoperate with web services in their command centres.