Gavin Treadgold, James Gunn, Paul Morton, & Simon Chambers. (2018). Developing a regional approach and strategy for geographical information systems for emergency management. In Kristin Stock, & Deborah Bunker (Eds.), Proceedings of ISCRAM Asia Pacific 2018: Innovating for Resilience – 1st International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Asia Pacific. (pp. 190–199). Albany, Auckland, New Zealand: Massey Univeristy.
Abstract: This paper outlines practitioner work-in-progress in Canterbury, New Zealand, to develop a regional approach for geographical information systems (GIS) for emergency management. This is based upon recent events in Canterbury including earthquakes, floods, and fire; as well as New Zealand-wide work that is being done under the NZ GIS4EM banner. It introduces our approach, discusses a mind map that is being used to track desired data sets, plans to develop applications to support response functions in emergency operations centres, and the goal of using the common data sets as the basis of a common operating picture for Canterbury. Risks and issues associated with this work are highlighted, and then the draft strategy is introduced with desired outcomes and principles to achieve this goal. While initial work is primarily focused on GIS, the expectation is that the approach will be expanded to take a broader information management perspective in future.
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Marcus Dombois, Timo Bittner, & Uwe Rüppel. (2018). Approaching the criticality of information for emergency response and control center operations. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszewski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 388–397). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: Successful emergency response and control center operations rely on a great number of information sources. The importance of said information becomes immediately obvious if it is not available when required during an emergency situation. This can be described as the criticality of information, signifying a potential need for action to prepare for functional failures. The concept described in this paper approaches the criticality via an analysis that examines various combinations of information sources and situations in order to identify weaknesses and improve existing procedures. The proposed semi-quantitative assessment was developed taking several attributes and characteristics of criticality into account and afterwards conducted in close cooperation with emergency response institutions.
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Lauren Bateman, & Erica Gralla. (2018). Evaluating Strategies for Intra-Organizational Information Management in Humanitarian Response. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszewski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 145–157). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: Information management is critical in humanitarian response, yet intra-organizational information management practices have not been well-studied. This paper evaluates several strategies for intra-organizational information management. An agent-based model represents the dynamics of information-gathering and -sharing, in order to examine the impact of each strategy on (1) the time required to acquire adequate information for decision-making and (2) the amount of excess information acquired in the process. The results show that holding regular information-sharing meetings significantly reduces the time to acquire adequate information, but does not reduce information overload; however, deploying an information management specialist reduces both time required and information overload. The results support recommendations for humanitarian organizations deciding how to improve their internal information management approaches.
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Andreas Lotter, Florian Brauner, Alexander Gabriel, Frank Fiedrich, & Stefan Martini. (2017). New Decision-Support Framework for Strengthening Disaster Resilience in Cross-Border Areas. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 412–419). Albi, France.
Abstract: The improvement of disaster resilience in cross-border areas causes special challenges. Involved countries use different structures in their civil protection systems and have to work together facing more difficult conditions than in local incidents. Furthermore, in the past involved countries mainly worked individually and focused on the concerned areas in their territories regardless transnational activities. The project INCA will develop a resilience framework to support decision-makers. The framework will focus on information management, the implementation of volunteers and the needs of citizens who are receiving medical care. Therefore, a case study region on the German-French border was defined and a scenario-based approach will be used to investigate resilience opportunities through disaster collaboration. The tested scenario is a transnational long-lasting power-outage in the German-French region.
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Hossein Baharmand, Kees Boersma, Kenny Meesters, Femke Mulder, & Jeroen Wolbers. (2016). A multidisciplinary perspective on supporting community disaster resilience in Nepal. In A. Tapia, P. Antunes, V.A. Bañuls, K. Moore, & J. Porto (Eds.), ISCRAM 2016 Conference Proceedings – 13th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. Rio de Janeiro, Brasil: Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Abstract: Fostering community resilience in the aftermath of a disaster constitutes a significant challenge and requires an adequate understanding of the community’s specific capabilities and vulnerabilities. We carried out a field study in Nepal as a multi-disciplinary research team that explored how the humanitarian response enabled community resilience after the devastating earthquakes. We explored three elements of resilience: persistence, adaptability and transformability by zooming in and out between the local community and humanitarian organizations operating at the national level. Our combined insights from three disciplines, social sciences, information management and logistics, show that humanitarian organizations operating in Nepal still primarily aimed to (re)build community resilience ‘from above’ instead of enabling communities to strengthen their own resilience in a bottom up way. In this paper we contend that fostering an inclusive and networked response has the potential to strengthen the adaptive capacity of humanitarian organizations and community groups and boost local resilience.
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