Spatial relations in contextual information for mobile emergency messaging

© 2014, IGI Global. All right reserved. Responding to a disaster is a process that should take the least time with high-level information. It requires human decisions that could delay the whole process, thus putting more lives at stake. However, recent technological developments improve this process by facilitating decisions within the domain. Discovering the spatial relationship can help to clarify the spatial environment for the domain. In this chapter, the authors give an overview of using spatial modelling and spatial relations for context-aware messaging with emphasis on emergency situations. They utilize various existing spatial relations recognized within the field of spatial computing such as RCC8 and Egenhofer relations. The RCC8 and Egenhofer relations are examined besides a range of spatial relations using English phrases in Mona-ont emergency ontology. The Mona-ont emergency ontology is used to describe emergency scenarios. The Mona-ont emergency ontology is employed by the Mona Emergency System (MES) that generates alert messaging services to actors within a disaster area. The authors demonstrate the validity of the Mona-ont spatial relations in describing a (fictitious) flood situation in the Melbourne CBD area. They also prescribe the structure of such context-aware messages (i.e. their content and target description) for the MES system.