This application describes an information and resource management system for collecting data from diverse sources and organizing multiple types of data and information to facilitate dynamic multi-dimensional displays that will enhance cognition and situational awareness for diverse user communities. This system may facilitate collaborative cross-agency research and response to public health and safety issues. The system will generate more rapid awareness of potentially critical situations and promote greater awareness of the cost and benefits of alternative courses of action across diverse agencies and organizations serving common populations and communities. The invention includes customized geographically enabled data collection tools and techniques, dedicated databases and parsing schemes that feed into customized data visualization and simulation engines that drive the display of context sensitive interactive environments on a wide variety of computing platforms. The invention provides a novel approach to inter-disciplinary information integration processing, visualization, sharing and decision-making in the domain of public health and safety, disaster management and mitigation.