Fundamentally, homeland security is about location (specifically about the content and context of location) and is a geographic problem. A geographic information system (GIS) is the accepted and established technology for documenting critical and vulnerable assets, planning for and implementing mitigation strategies, assisting in response, aiding in recovery management, and facilitating interdepartmental and intergovernmental cooperation.

"Routine" emergencies happen on a daily basis in all communities across the nation. Public safety agencies are well practiced in responding to these events. Likewise the public is well prepared to react by calling on the appropriate authorities to assist. However, as the severity of emergency events increase, the public’s preparedness to respond decreases as the complexity of coordinating public safety response increases. GIS can help effectively prepare our communities to protect the public for all types of potential hazards, every day, everywhere.

GIS offers a unique, effective framework for designing information management systems that can accommodate the data sharing requirements of scalable emergency events. A report from the National Academies of Science provides an excellent description of the need for effective public safety GIS at ALL levels of government.
Read full report Read a summary of the report [PDF]

Understanding the GIS requirements to effectively support a comprehensive emergency management [PDF] and homeland security strategy is a challenging and important task. Experience shows that if an organization carefully documents and defines its GIS strategy in relation to the necessary emergency management and homeland security requirements, this documentation becomes a valuable guide in creating a strategy that prioritizes system needs, application demands, and projects.