Not just a pretty picture...
BACKGROUND
New Zealand Fire Service collects, maintains and delivers to its internal and external users a wide range of data and associated tools for the purposes of emergency risk management. Historically, we have not got the best benefits from spatial information because it is stored in a variety of places and managed by different business units. With each entity using, storing and managing data for their own purposes, data is recreated that exists elsewhere with the risk of inconsistency and inability to share data for common purposes.
FROM REACTIVE...
Within a couple of years spatial tools were also being used to determine optimum locations of fire stations utilising a heuristic that locates fire stations based on historic demand so that fire appliances can get to the most calls in the least time. Recent advances in the use of spatial data have come, however, from the application of the existing tools to the 'proactive' or fire risk management side of the business as opposed to the emergency response or 'reactive' side.
...TO PROACTIVE
The NZ Fire Service incident report data were geocoded to census meshblock level and analysed with New Zealand indices of deprivation, that are also available at census meshblock level across the country. Rates of fatal fires in the most deprived decile were 4.5 times the rates in the least deprived decile. Strategies to address this differential risk for fire related mortality can now be better targeted. Maps coloured by deprivation at meshblock level provide strong visual images, readily understood.
SPATIAL TOOLS OR SPATIAL STORAGE?
Just one issue arises: though each incident that the New Zealand Fire Service attends is automatically geocoded, for historical reasons the data is not stored spatially. In order to query just part of the data, the entire incident database must be extracted each time in order to carry out spatial queries. So some data is spatial, and some not. Does it matter?
WHAT DOES SPATIAL DATA MEAN TO THE NON-SPECIALIST?
On the face of it, spatial data is expensive to collect and maintain in terms of applications, and personnel. If spatial analysis delivered savings there would be no question about its adoption. Decision makers appreciate the improved functions - the pretty pictures - but don't associate anything in particular with technology of their delivery.
The standard definitions about spatial being to do with 'place on the earth' completely fail to convey the richness of the spatial environment within which it is possible to operate. But at the end of day, it's the accountants and the non-spatial people who have to be convinced.
WHAT NEXT?
Searching for the ultimate definition of spatial data that suits all purposes and users may be futile. Any organisation must determine for itself where it sits in the spatial/non-spatial continuum. It is imperative that organisations find ways of doing this and it is essential that the spatial experts provide the language within which this discussion can take place. Until they do, their work runs the risk of being seen as just another set of pretty pictures.