Home

Welcome to the IGT4SAR wiki!

If you would like to know more about IGT4SAR and what it is used for please visit this blog: WiSAR and GIS Blog

Wilderness search and rescue is understood to be an inherently spatial problem which is relative to both the subject and searcher. From the standpoint of the subject, many decisions that are made before and after becoming lost or injured are influenced by the terrain and the environment. These decisions may be either conscious (active) or sub-conscious (passive), and in many ways are driven by both time and space. In WiSAR related to lost persons, it is the decisions that were made by the subject that resulted in them becoming lost. Studies on lost person behavior have allowed searchers to categorize individuals that exhibit similar behaviors when they become lost. These categorical behaviors are observed by plotting Initial Planning Points (Point Last Seen or Last Known Point) and Find locations then extracting information about the terrain and observing trends in the data. When combined with a critical analysis on the influence of terrain and environment (T & E) on a specific individual, geospatial trends in lost person behavior provide valuable information that could reduce the time taken to locate a lost subject.

IntegratedGeospatial Tools for Search and Rescue (IGT4SAR) is a dynamic tool developed to take advantage of using Geographic Information Systems to model lost person behavior and provide a critical analysis on the influence of T & E. The primary advantage of a GIS is that it allows a user to interact with spatial data and even create new data from existing information, for example estimating cellular coverage across the search area using a digital elevation model and cell tower attributes. No more is a search analyst limited to extracting information from a printed, topographical map that is most likely outdated.