Building a Practical Ontology for Emergency Response Systems

Major crises in recent years highlight the need for building collaborative crisis information management systems. An effective ontology is instrumental in establishing a solid common ground for such systems. By closely examining a generic emergency response workflow, this paper proposes a practical emergency response ontology. Using this ontology, we implement a prototype emergency evacuation planning system. This implementation demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of our proposed ontology and its potential to grow into a more completed ontology for collaborative crisis information management systems.