A Spatio-temporal Population Model for Alarming, Situational Picture and Warning System

Natural and man-made hazards, disasters, and concerns such as the increasing amount of terrorism, cause insecurity for people and society. Therefore, crisis management with respect to urban structure becomes one of the core tasks of governments. Population information is essential during the rescue planning process. Population density can be estimated by using various statistical methods. Often it is impossible to estimate the size of the population of a certain area. Most population distribution models do not take into consideration the temporal variation in population location; this causes poor estimation results. In this paper, we present a spatiotemporal population model, which is used for calculating the number of people in a certain area at a certain time. The model combine object-oriented spatio-temporal model with users ́ knowledge. Population size is estimated on the basis of built-up environments in the real world. Built-up environments such as buildings and roads are divided into different categories; each category is one spatio-temporal object. The model produces reasonably accurate results since each spatio-temporal object is modelled separately according to its own characteristics. The model is also flexible, as most of the estimation methods are based on user knowledge. The model is simulated using Java programming language. As a result, the model produces a text file, which can easily be adapted to most information systems.