El Geoportal como vía de acceso a información cartográfica de pronta respuesta. Caso de estudio del sismo de Ecuador en abril del 2016

Abstract

Ecuador is one of the countries where natural hazards are a real problem. This is because of some aspects linked of human settlements which are located at risk areas, which contain several natural hazards some of them are catastrophic at regional level, but also at the national level.  About the cartographic technical aspect, these circumstances raise the need to solve two problems at the same time: the availability of useful information in the shortest possible time and to transmit immediately the data to the different users who works with the management of rehabilitation and planning the geographical space affected. The first is related to the ability to generate quick response map information and the second one, with access to information technologies through SDI and Geoportal. In order to disseminate the actions taken within an Ecuadorian public institution, this article presents what actions and results were achieved in support of risk management in the earthquake on April 16, 2016; the earthquake had devastating effects in towns of the center-north coast of Ecuador. The action plan developed and implemented for the first time in Ecuador established a starting point. In the future this will allow to implement the improvements in other similar cases and to be a reference for other places where geoportals are implemented for the availability of cartographic information and the attention in case of natural disasters. In the case of Ecuador, the availability of timely and easily accessible cartographic information was a matter of great importance for the emer- gency response in April 2016.