GIS and urban security

The adaptation of GIS has evolved from a land/resource management system to a non-exhaustively applied solution for managing, manipulating, analysing and presenting all kinds of spatially relevant information. Contemporary usage is particularly strong in ecology, demographics, utilities, planning, logistics, quaternary science, defence, retail, asset management and business, yet application within urban security, particularly at the operational level, is still relatively peripheral. This comes despite the fact that location is critical in understanding urban security problems, the premise upon which GIS is based. Utilising case study based application evidence this focus paper depicts the benefits of aligning GIS with decision making in the urban security domain as well as highlighting the design and development processes and procedures followed in the creating the bespoke BESECURE GIS which serves as the functional underpinning and reasoning to the Inspirational Platform, Policy Support Platform and the Urban Data Platform.