RESEARCH ON EARTHQUAKE EMERGENCY MAPPING METHOD BASED ON TEMPLATE MATCH

After an earthquake, earthquake emergency response and rescue are important ways to mitigate earthquake-induced losses. Various earthquake emergency maps can provide effective references and guidance to those actions. Currently, related studies include the investigation on symbols of emergency maps, remote sensing emergency mapping and GIS-based mapping methods. However, the existing studies overlook the characteristics of rapidity, dynamicity and variety of presentation methods in making earthquake emergency maps. In this paper, a map template matching method is used to quickly make earthquake emergency maps considering their characteristics. We take investigations on the service objects(users)of the earthquake emergency maps to understand the needs of making earthquake emergency maps. The audience theory in mass media field and map information transmission theory are adopted to classify the users of the earthquake emergency maps into four categories: earthquake emergency commanders, technical staffs for decision-making, earthquake emergency rescuers, and the public. The components of different types of users are described and then their diverse demands in earthquake emergency maps are analyzed, such as the needs of on-field disaster information maps, earthquake information maps, physical geography and social economic maps. Following those needs, we introduce the representation methods of the earthquake emergency maps according to their formats(vector or raster)and contents, such as point symbolization method, kilometer grid method, line symbolization method and range method. Then, we study the rapid plotting method of earthquake emergency map based on map template matching method. The core steps of the method include: 1)before earthquake, the templates of different earthquake emergency maps are designed, prepared and connect the earthquake emergency features with their related spatial database. The map layout and map elements are stored in the templates. 2)After earthquake, the earthquake emergency features will be generated from seismic models(such as attenuation model of earthquake magnitude and seismic intensity)or the information obtained from field investigation. 3)Corresponding earthquake emergency map template is selected in accordance with the generated seismic features. And the features are used to update related features inside the selected template. 4)Minor adjustments are made such as to the map scale and some map annotations to finally generate the formal earthquake emergency map. Architecture of template system of the earthquake emergency maps is designed, including map user level, map template level, template layer level and map element level. Regrading to the architecture, the general map template of earthquake emergency is presented which includes four main regions: title region, main picture region, auxiliary region and annotation region. The main picture region is the essential, which lays geographic background maps and earthquake emergency features. Finally, an earthquake emergency mapping system is developed. Based on the system, a case study is presented, which demonstrates making a simulated seismic intensity influence map. From three aspects, the case presents the application of the template-matching method including: generating earthquake emergency features, substituting the features inside the template with the generated features, and revising map annotations. Therefore, the map template matching method is verified so that it can be used to quickly generate various earthquake emergency maps.