Audio Click on the icon above to hear excerpts from Prof. Jerry Dobson's interview On the radio Click on the icon above to hear KU radio spot about the database. Related topics To learn more about the LandScan 2000 database, visit http://sedac.ciesin.org/plue/gpw/landscan/. Visit the Kansas Applied Remote Sensing Program site KU News Resource Page: War on Terrorism Search KU News releases Subscribe now to receive KU News by email

Contact: Ranjit Arab, University Relations, (785) 864-8855.

KU professor helps create emergency response database

LAWRENCE -- If there is such a thing as a weapon against weapons of mass destruction, Jerry Dobson is helping to perfect it.

A team of scientists led by Dobson, professor of geography and researcher in the Kansas Applied Remote Sensing Program at the University of Kansas, has created the LandScan 2000 population database to help emergency officials respond to acts of bioterrorism, natural disasters, nuclear and chemical accidents and regional conflicts. The LandScan team consists of Dobson and colleagues Ed Bright and Phil Coleman of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

The database is supported by a geographical information system (GIS) that combines data from a variety of sources, including best-available census counts of every country in the world, terrain and nighttime lights interpreted from satellite images, road networks and elevations. The LandScan Global Population Database provides the distribution of people in sections even more precise than one square kilometer per cell.

The result is the most accurate source available to help authorities determine the number of people who would be affected by an attack, accident or disaster, and the number of emergency officials who would be needed to respond.

The World Trade Center attacks last month only reinforced the need for such a database. Immediately following the attacks, more doctors than were needed were dispatched to the site. Many of the doctors had to simply stand by or offer assistance in other ways. Although this wasn't a major problem, what if too few doctors had responded? The LandScan database helps eliminate that possibility.

"Knowing what level of emergency medical personnel and equipment to send is absolutely essential," Dobson said.

The database is already popular among several organizations involved in the war on terrorism, including the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the U.S. State and Defense departments, he said.

"I know that if there is a biological release anywhere in the world -- and the U.S. military is aware of it -- they will use their air-diffusion model to estimate where the contaminant will go and they will use this database to estimate how many people may be exposed," Dobson said.

While helping to plan a response to such emergencies is one of LandScan's primary functions, the database has already proven useful for a number of other applications. Last year, for example, the database aided rescue and recovery efforts during the disastrous flooding in Mozambique. LandScan is also being considered as a valuable resource in helping to remove land mines in the Balkans, Dobson said.

Moreover, humanitarian organizations may use the database to monitor the inevitable rise of Afghan refugee camps. The sooner such organizations can determine the magnitude of refugee problems, the more likely they can prevent further deaths from disease, starvation or additional hostile actions, Dobson said. In fact, the database was used in a similar manner to track refugees from Kosovo in 1998.

While much has been said about this war being unlike any previous one, that point perhaps is best illustrated in the growing importance of the LandScan database. By providing crucial information on population distribution, it is helping authorities balance the need to keep an eye on global developments that affect specific communities.

"I've used the expression 'Global threats to local places,' and that's what we are facing now," Dobson said.