Abstract: Modern critical infrastructure (CI) systems are tightly coupled, resulting in unprecedented complexity and difficulty to predict, limit and control the consequences of disruptions caused by hazards. Therefore, a paradigm shift in disaster risk management is needed: instead of focusing on predicting events, resilience needs to be improved as a basis for adequate response to any event. This paper starts from a definition of CI resilience that provides a basis for quantitative and qualitative decision support. For the quantitative modelling approach, which aims at measuring the resilience of individual CIs, we focus on two CIs of fundamental importance for disaster response: transportation and power supply. The qualitative framework details relations between CIs. The results of this research are illustrated by a case study that analyses the impact of Hurricane Sandy. The findings highlight the need for a framework that combines qualitative and quantitative information from heterogeneous sources to improve disaster resilience.

Abstract: Building community resilience to natural disasters represents a major policy priority for the United States as hazards impact vulnerable urban regions with increasing frequency and severity. Applying network analysis techniques, we examine the dynamics of emergency response to Superstorm Sandy, which struck the United States east coast in late October 2012 and caused over $72 billion in damages. Drawing on a variety of data sources and analytical techniques, we document the storm's impact on a system of interacting private, public, and nonprofit organizations. We find that the storm's response network exhibited clear patterns of information gaps and flows among different types of organizations. Our findings suggest a general lack of communication between government agencies and businesses, an area of potential improvement in future regional-scale emergency response systems.

Abstract: Humanitarian organizations are increasingly challenged by the amount of data available to drive their decisions. Useful data can come from many sources, exists in different formats, and merging it into a basis for analysis and planning often exceeds organizations? capacities and resources. At the same time, affected communities? participation in decision making processes is often hindered by a lack of information and data literacy capacities within the communities. We describe a participatory disaster risk analysis project in the central Philippines where the community and a humanitarian NGO worked towards a joint understanding of disaster risks and coping capacities through data integration and IT-supported analysis. We present findings from workshops, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews, showing the reciprocal effects of the collaborative work. While the community valued the systematically gathered and structured evidence that supported their own risk perceptions and advocacy efforts, the humanitarian NGO revisited established work practices for data collection for analysis and planning.

Abstract: First responders (FRs) in Europe are currently facing large natural and man-made disasters (e.g. wild fire, terrorist attacks, industrial incidents, big floods, gas leaks etc.), that put their own lives and those of thousands of others at risk. Adapted situation awareneSS tools and taIlored training curricula for increaSing capabiliTies and enhANcing the proteCtion of first respondErs (ASSISTANCE) is an ongoing European H2020 project which main objective is to increase FRs Situation Awareness (SA) for helping and protecting different kinds of FRs' organizations that work together in large scale disasters mitigation. ASSISTANCE will enhance the SA of the FRs organisations during their mitigation activities through the integration of new paradigms, tools and technologies (e.g. drones/robots equipped with a range of sensors, robust communications capabilities, etc.) with the main objective of increasing both their protection and their efficiency.

Abstract: As freshwater availability for domestic and agro-industrial uses is highly sensitive to climate change, there is an urgent need for the management of this critical resource to be resilient, i.e., to cope with and rapidly recover from climate risks. To achieve this resilient goal, decision-makers need to have a comprehensive understanding of (i) the current and future local water resources, (ii) the ways these resources are and will be impacted by climate change, and (iii) the effects their management decisions can have. In this paper, we present an innovative scenario based modeling tool that help decision-makers make the most appropriate decision towards managing water resources: the Resilience Performance Assessment (RPA). This GIS-based decision support tool illustrates the current and future effects of climate change on local water resources and simulates the outcomes of different water resources management strategies. The RPA helps guide decision-makers towards the implementation of context specific adaptation strategies.

Abstract: Governments have strongly recognized that the proper functioning of critical infrastructures (CIs) highly determines the societal welfare. If a failed infrastructure is unable to deliver services and products to the others, disruptive effects can cascade into the larger system of CIs. In turn, decision-makers need to understand causal interdependencies and nonlinear feedback behaviors underlying the entire CIs network toward more effective crisis response plans. This paper proposes a novel block building modeling approach based on System Dynamics (SD) to capture complex dynamics of CIs disruptions. We develop a SD model and apply it to hypothetical scenarios for simulation-based impact analysis of single and multiple disruptive events. With a special focus on temporal aspects of system resilience, we also demonstrate how the model can be used for dynamic resilience assessment. The model supports crisis managers in understanding scenarios of disruptions and forecasting their impacts to improve strategic planning in Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP).

Abstract: In recent years the concept of urban resilience has acquired great relevance within urban planning. The complexity of urban systems and the wide scope of the resilience concept require tools to facilitate the integration of the concept in urban development. Numerous studies, tools, and theoretical frameworks have been developed to support the resilient transformation of cities. However, these initiatives are usually not holistically integrated and limit incorporating the changes and advances in the resilience concept. This article highlights the importance of shifting from a continuously-building-new approach to building on an existing knowledge approach. This study has updated and improved the maturity model developed within the Horizon 2020 project Smart Mature Resilience. A bibliometric analysis was carried out to study the developments in resilience over the past four years and to integrate the relevant advances in the area into a new version of the Smart Mature Resilience Maturity Model (SMR MM).

Abstract: Currently, the city of Rio de Janeiro is is in total evidence, hosting important events such as the Pope's Francis' visit in 2013, the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. In order to make the population aware, of some environmental problems this article was produced to analyze what factors people consider dangerous. In 2011, Rio de Janeiro went through difficult times, caused by one of the biggest floods seen in the city which ended up partly destroying cities of the state's the mountain region. Kids from aged 10 to 13 years from a high school in Rio were invited to participate in a study and they had to answer questionnaires before and after playing the game. From the results obtained, we analyzed how the game “Stop Disasters” developed by the by the UN can help create awareness and learning on how to behave in flooding situations at an accelerated rate.

Abstract: Forecast and plan response to incidents are fundamental to create a Command and Control Center (C2 Center). However, some incidents are considered chaotic and are completely understood only after happening. These unforeseen incidents pose challenges to plans of such centers and if not properly managed, may result in failures. This article describes how the Integrated C2 Center of Rio de Janeiro City (CICC-RJ) responds to violent, unexpected and improbable events, especially related to protests that took place during the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup. It aims to describe from the resilience engineering point of view how the CICC-RJ function to cope with incidents, where the structure has proved to be resilient, where it holds brittleness, and to suggest possible actions to help the center to become more resilient to upcoming events.

Abstract: This work aims to analyse an emergency response tabletop simulation exercise undertaken as part of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) State?s Fire Department?s officer training program and conducted at Rio de Janeiro State?s Command and Control Center (CICC). Eleven groups of three officers acting as one played the roles of unit commanders. The exercise concerned the use of a set of SOPs and our research sought to identify sources of resilience and brittleness. From an initial scenario, the inserts escalated the action so as to require the commanders? responses to exercise 12 different SOPs, many simultaneously. This provided the context for the simulation´s main goal, which was to exercise and verify the knowledge, use, and suitability of the procedure related to the management of operational events of larger scale, duration, or complexity. Data collection and analysis followed cognitive task analysis methodology and included audio and video recording of the simulation and parts of its two preparation workshops. The simulated exercise showed the relationship between standardization and resilience. Not all of the expected SOPs set were utilized, in part due to the exercise design, in part due to gaps in participants? knowledge of SOPs, and in part due to acknowledged limitations of SOPs to deal with all cases real world contexts. This need for adaptation is an aspect increasingly present in complex systems, such as the one studied here, as the unexpected variability arising from the interaction between the many different elements that compose them can exceed the capacity of the SOPs to deal with it. Knowledge and analysis of the need for adaptation can contribute on different fronts: (i) better training for more conscious and safer recognition, planning and implementation of adjustments; (ii) the design or reformulation of SOPs better able to deal with real activity by considering aspects revealed by brittleness; and (iii) artefacts design to support these demands for recognition and enforcement, ensuring increasingly resilient, efficient and secure systems.

Abstract: The research on technology-assisted crisis management has primarily existed for two decades since 9/11. Although, the focus of technology research has been centered around tools to assist the response phase after a disaster. There has been a lack of emphasis on the role and design of technologies to assist the other phases of the crisis management cycle, particularly preparedness and mitigation phases to lead towards the vision of building resilient communities. In this paper, we first identify resilience characteristics of a community from the prior literature. We then analyze a co-occurrence network of concepts in the ISCRAM publications to validate the gap in relating technologies to resilience and conduct an indicator analysis of factors for proactive disaster informatics via a case study of recent disaster. Our analysis leads us to propose a conceptual framework “Digital Crow's Nest” based on Open Source Intelligence to improve the technology design for community resilience.

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.

Abstract: Resilience has become a concept extensively used by several areas of knowledge. However, there is no method, widely recognized capable of measuring resilient behavior. Therefore, this exploratory work aims to present a set of dimensions capable of delimiting metrics in order to measure a resilient attitude. For that, we analyzed some scientific papers considered relevant by the academic community. In this work we follow an analytical flow seeking to conceptualize resilience and situate it in the context of complex systems. This analysis allowed the discovery of some characteristics regarding resilience, fundamental for the proposition of the presented dimensions. Finally, we present a conceptual map that brings together the elicited dimensions.