Blue Thunder: A Spatiotemporally-Enabled Web-Based Collaborative Crisis Case Knowledge Base

As governments shift the emphasis of crisis management from response to preparedness, Information Preparedness has started to gain importance. In this paper, we present Blue Thunder, a spatiotemporally enabled Web-based collaborative crisis case knowledge base that aims to provide an effective tool for Information Preparedness. Through an open architecture, rich analysis functionality, and multiple information collection methods enabled by Web 2.0 technologies, the Blue Thunder system facilitates stakeholders to better understand crisis cases happened in the past, hence prepare them to mitigate and respond to future crises more effectively. This paper highlights spatiotemporal analysis functionality implemented in the Blue Thunder system as it provides a unique means to reveal the underlying and sometime hidden relationships among crisis cases.