Within hours of Japan’s disastrous earthquake and tsunami,
Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis was working to help,
creating a web-based portal for information that acts as a
clearinghouse for disaster responders and academics alike. The
Japan Sendai Earthquake Data Portal was created by research
manager Merrick Lex Berman at the center, based on templates
developed in prior earthquakes, the 2008 one in China and last
year’s in Haiti and Chile. While it took weeks to create the
first site, each subsequent one went live more quickly. For the
Japan quake, it took just about an hour to create the site and
another hour to begin populating it with data. The site features
a bright orange and blue “energy propagation map” of the Pacific
Ocean basin, a map created by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. The site includes news feeds from
various sources, a link to the main Japanese government disaster
web page, and GIS information data sets that connect to
geographic information points. Berman and