Using remote sensing and GIS for risk and damage assessmentCase study in Libya Eng. Abdulhamed Salhen Gneeniss Vice President ROLTA, Libya Email: gneeniss@hotmail.com Eng. Hossen Ayad Majduob Eng. Khaled Alhadi Kreadan Abstract A primary responsibility of any government is to provide safety and security for its citizens, communities, and assets. This could be achieved by the better use of any available tools and technology that help managing the efforts and suggest solutions at the time of crises. Location based information system is crucial to homeland security. Managers at all levels of government must effectively collect, analyze, and share spatial data. Fire, police, public works, public health, building and safety, water, engineering, utilities , and other disciplines utilize image processing and geographic information system (GIS) software for analysis and planning; this can be extended to managing and reducing the consequences of all forms of public emergencies. Different sensors are particularly well suited to different geospatial disaster-response purposes, for instance SPOT IKONOS and QUIKBIRD provides valuable data for land use and cover which will be a key point the process of damage assessment. The aim of this paper is show to the local governments the benefit of remote sensing data and geographic information systems in managing data and suggest solutions at the time of crises. The paper focused on making two scenarios in two different cities in Libya : The first scenario was to produce risk map for the effect of explosion Briyga fuel storage complex which is now became very close to the city of Tripoli because of Urban expansion, and estimate the damage. The second scenario was to simulate the flooding in some areas which is located near dry valleys and witness flooding in the time of heavy rains, the results were to map the mostly affected areas and to suggest the best routs for emergency services, and also to suggest the best locations for urban expansion for the local government . Quick bird data was used to map the existing building in the study areas, digital elevation models was obtained from the contour lines of 1:50,000 topographic maps of the study areas. 3d view of the area was generated using ERDAS software and used also to perform the flooding scenario. ArcGIS software was used to perform network analysis and analyze the thematic maps to produce the risk and best location maps and suggest the best tracks to be used for emergency services.