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Abstract |
Over the last three decades, the number and severity of natural disasters all across the world has been increasing exponentially (Basher, 2006). This paper intends to consider geographic information capacity (GIC) as it relates to government, government regulated organizations, and international organizations, including the United Nations, and their involvement in disaster risk reduction and management. Specifically, the paper aims to understand similarities and differences and the connection between two governmental disaster management organizations, FEMA in the United States and BBK and THW in Germany. We present a comparative analysis on the two countries in terms of their organizational structures, how their structures affect geographic information capacity and how geographic information capacity is related to disaster risk reduction and disaster response. Future work can make comparisons across more countries, including developing countries, to see what structural changes can be made in government entities to help increase GIC when disaster strikes. |
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