ERMA: Environmental Response Management Application

ERMA is a web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) tool designed to assist both emergency responders and environmental resource managers who deal with incidents that may adversely impact the environment. The application can assist in response planning and is accessible to both the command post and to assets in the field during an actual response incident, such as an oil spill or hurricane. The data within ERMA also assist in resource management decisions regarding hazardous waste site evaluations and restoration planning.

ERMA supports environmental preparedness, response, and recovery efforts by:

• Providing integrated and timely information to improve decision-making.
  
• Integrating and synthesizing various types of information on a single map interface.
  
• Providing fast visualization of current information.
  
• Improving communication and coordination among responders and stakeholders.

You can turn layers on/off to customize the information shown on an ERMA map. On this map, areas that may be impacted by an oil spill have been drawn on the map as blue polygons. Additionally, the Shoreline Classification layer has been turned on, which indicates how sensitive the shorelines are to oil (areas in red are the most sensitive).

Key Program Features

ERMA helps emergency responders and environmental resource managers by:

• Providing secure upload and download capabilities for plotting new data on spatial maps, such as field survey, overflight areas, ship traffic, marine debris, and incident command areas.
  
• Displaying a variety of existing data on the map, including Environmental Sensitivity Index shoreline classifications, spill response resources, contaminant datasets, regulated facilities, resources at risk, and restoration projects. 
  
• Displaying real-time data on the map, including weather forecasts and tidal information from observational buoys.
  
• Allowing the user to choose the basemap view, such as NOAA navigational charts, raster images, and aerial photography.
  
• Providing links to documents, such as spatially-referenced photos, area contingency plans, and site survey results.

Due to the detailed nature of the data included in ERMA, each version of ERMA is specific to a single geographic region. For example, the ERMA demo project was created for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the development team is now working on a Caribbean ERMA.

Development Team

The development of ERMA was facilitated and funded by the Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC), which is a partnership between the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R). 

Additionally, each geographically-specific ERMA product is the result of collaboration with many other partners. For example, the Portsmouth ERMA product was developed by NOAA (OR&R and CDSL), CRRC, UNH's Joint Hydrographic Center, Earth Observing System (EOS), Earth Systems Data Collaborative, and the Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology. The Caribbean site will partner with NOAA, the members of the Regional Response Team, Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

For More Information

ERMA Home Page Find out more about ERMA and get additional resources. [leaves OR&R site]

ERMA Specialist For more information about ERMA, contact our ERMA Specialist.

Downloads

ERMA Fact Sheet Basic description of ERMA features. (Document format: PDF, size: 587.7 K)