Environmental Response Management Application :: CRRC

The Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA™) is a web-based GIS platform that integrates and synthesizes various types of information, provides a common operational picture to all individuals involved in an incident, improves communication and coordination among responders and stakeholders, and provides resource managers with the information necessary to make faster and better informed decisions.

The Portsmouth Harbor area is the prototype ERMA™. The data sets contained within the Portsmouth Harbor ERMA™ were identified by the local and regional response community.

The Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC), a partnership between the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (ORR), facilitated and funded the development of ERMA™. The prototype was developed by NOAA ORR, the UNH Earth Systems Data Collaborative, UNH-NOAA Joint Hydrographic Center, UNH Research Computing Center. The UNH-NOAA Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology provided funding for Portsmouth ERMA™. NOAA and UNH also partnered with Maine and New Hampshire state and local agencies, industry and non-governmental organizations to create a version of ERMA™ that was used successfully during the June 2008 PREP exercise in Portsmouth.

This Portsmouth ERMA™ site was constructed by: Bobby Braswell, Stanley Glidden, Michele Jacobi, Steven Knight, Kurt Schwehr, and Bob St. Lawrence.

Site was designed using: OpenLayers, MapServer, Postgres/PostGIS, and FeatureServer

Amy A. Merten, Ph.D., NOAA Co-Director of the Coastal Response Research Center, is managing the ERMA™ project for NOAA ORR as it expands to national venues. The first such venue is the Caribbean through Regional Response Team, Region 2.

For more information on ERMA™'s capabilities, please contact Amy Merten: amy.merten@noaa.gov