Abstract: This paper provides a descriptive analysis of the eMARS database, which contains compulsory information on major chemical incidents under the SEVESO Directive. This analysis serves to assess the installations with the highest number of direct fatalities and injuries. At present, the data collected to assess the status of chemical accident risk globally are rather limited. There are some sources of data on chemical accidents in government and industry that might be used to estimate the frequency and severity of some types of events, but they are far from providing a complete perspective that covers all chemical accidents, thus limiting the possibilities of obtaining a more homogeneous picture of the risk of chemical accidents worldwide. Waste storage, treatment and disposal is one of the industrial areas with the highest number of fatalities and injuries, so we must emphasize the importance of this type of industry within the risk maps.

Abstract: The goal of this article is to introduce a platform (called Agility Service) that gathers and analyses data coming from both crisis response and crisis field by using the principles of Complex Event Processing. As a crisis situation is an unstable phenomenon (by nature or by effect of the applied response), the crisis response may be irrelevant after a while: lack of resources, arrival of a new stakeholder, unreached objectives, over-crisis, etc. Gathering data, analyze and aggregate it to deduce relevant information concerning the current crisis situation, and making this information available to the crisis cell to support decision making: these are the purposes of the described platform. A use case based on the Fukushima's nuclear accident is developed to illustrate the use of the developed prototype.

Abstract: Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are formed by self-organized wireless nodes that use multi-hop wireless relaying. These networks are useable in a variety of situations ranging from fixed residential broadband networking based on rooftop wireless mesh nodes to emergency response networks for handling large scale disasters. Quick deployability, minimal configuration, broadband communication, and easiness of reconfigurability are the major characteristics that make WMNs a suitable choice for emergency applications. There exist several open research issues in using such WMNs for emergency response applications. We, in this paper, present a hybrid distributed wireless networking architecture, Extreme Networking System (ENS), and present large set of performance observations collected from a real distributed hybrid wireless mesh network used for supporting a medical emergency response application. We present the traffic behavior observed in our network when a client server medical emergency response application is employed. The performance observations on real-traffic scenarios for emergency response application underlines the need for focusing further research on topology control, reliability, service availability, and distributed management. We observed that though there are several challenges that need to be solved, a WMN is a favorable choice for emergency response networking.

Abstract: The Flemish Institute for Technological Research (Vito) in Belgium has initiated in 2000 the PEGASUS (Policy support for European Governments by Acquisition of information from Satellite and UAV-borne Sensors) project which envisages the development of a solar powered UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) containing several types of instruments for remote sensing and flying at an altitude of about 20 km. The aircraft can be deployed rapidly in crisis situations and provide disaster managers with ~1 m resolution images (or better if required) of the affected area. High quality data shall be received in less than half an hour from a mobile ground station that is in direct contact with the UAV, which can operate as long as requested by the user. The PEGASUS HALE-UAV is a flexible and cost-effective tool that will allow officials and local authorities to dispose quickly over relevant geographical information in an emergency situation. The first demonstration flight of the PEGASUS HALE-UAV shall take place in the summer of 2005 over Flanders.

Abstract: We are just beginning a two year research project on the management of nuclear risk issues, paying particular attention to environmental, financial and safety issues. One aspect that concerns us is to avoid the assumption that any future accident will be similar to a past accident. In the cases of Chernobyl and Fukushima, it was possible both to evacuate the local population to impose a substantial exclusion zone, and we recognize that for many potential accidents this would be the case. But for some nuclear plant, it may not be so because of the large number of local inhabitants or because of some key industrial or societal infrastructure. We would like to take the opportunity of the ISCRAM conference to discuss this issue with a wide audience.

Abstract: The Chernobyl nuclear accident made Europe and even the whole world clearly aware of the threats posed by nuclear accidents. When the Fukushima nuclear accident happened in Japan, the “Rush for Salt Affair” took place in some Chinese cities. Meanwhile, large numbers of anti-nuclear parades were held in many Western countries, such as Germany and the United States. Nuclear accidents have a much more serious impact on society than does an ordinary disaster, due both to the nature and characteristics of nuclear accidents, as well as asymmetric in the general public's access to reliable information. By analyzing the mechanisms and characteristics of the impacts on social stability of a nuclear accident, this paper develops a multi-attributes decision making method based on index system of social stability factors in nuclear accident scenarios.

Abstract: This paper summarises the contribution of EURATOM research to off-site emergency management in Europe over the past two decades. Effort initially focused on the development of methods and software that could be used to underpin the nature and extent of emergency management arrangements and policy. With time, and partially in response to accidents at TMI and Chernobyl, effort shifted to the development of a comprehensive decision support system that could find broad use in real time across Europe in order to better inform decisions on emergency management. The deployment of the developed system across Europe, largely so far at a pre-operational level, is described together with the opportunities this offers for more coherent response to any accident that may in future affect Europe and for better use of scarce resources, both human and otherwise. Indications are given of where further effort or initiatives should be directed with a view to ensuring that the major research achievements are fully and effectively exploited.

Abstract: In emergency management, the identification of hazards, analysis of risks, development of mitigation and response plans, maintaining of situational awareness and support of response and recovery are all complex responsibilities. A major accident brings together individuals belonging to many different organizations, having backgrounds in different fields of operation, and representing different organizational cultures. They have to absorb a large amount of information about the accident over a short period of time. In order to take effective action, actors are expected to work smoothly together, thus the flow of information from and to the actors involved is crucial. Nevertheless, there are certain problem domains in the different phases of emergency management, which may weaken the flow of information. In this paper we present the findings of the first round of a Delphi study in which we identified problem domains in communication both in long-term and short-term planning for major accidents.

Abstract: Ketale is a collaborative data management system to share, manage and view the results of dispersion and dose calculations and other information related to nuclear or radiation accidents. Ketale was used the first time in an exercise in December 2008. User feedback led to a redesign of the system during 2009. The redesigned version improved the overall performance of the system and introduced some new features like a planning tool for countermeasure recommendations. The present report outlines operational aspects and user experiences of the Ketale system.

Abstract: In this article, work in progress on a system for rapid aerial mapping is presented. We believe that a tool able to quickly generate an up-to-date high resolution aerial view, e.g. shortly after a natural disaster or a big incident occurs, can be a highly valuable asset to help first responders in the decision making. The presented work focuses on the path planning capabilities of the system, together with the area partitioning and workload distribution among a team of multi-rotor unmanned aircraft. Sensor footprint and range of the involved aircraft may differ. The presented approach is based on an approximate cellular decomposition of the area of interest. The results of this work will be integrated into an existing system which already provides a mobile ground control station able to supervise and control multiple sensor carriers.

Abstract: Traffic accidents are a common feature of the modern life. The paper proposes an approach addressing response to traffic accidents happened in a smart environment. The idea behind the approach is to self-organize resources of the environment according to the state of the situation caused by the accident. The resources self-organize a collaborative network that comprises physical devices, software services, organizations, and persons. The purpose of the resources is to undertake joint actions for accident response. The disaster response system intended for operating in smart environments has a service-oriented architecture. Some of Web-services making up the architecture are intended to model the accident situations; others model resource functionalities or bear supporting functions. Web-services that model resource functionalities are aligned against the disaster management ontology. This alignment ensures semantic interoperability of the heterogeneous resources. The alignment operation is supported by a tool that identifies similar concepts in the ontology and Web-service descriptions using a machine-readable dictionary. Response to the traffic accident illustrates main ideas described in the paper.

Abstract: Results from disaster research suggest that methods for coordination between individual emergency responders and organizations should recognize the independence and autonomy of these actors. These actor features are key factors in effective adaptation and improvisation of response to emergency situations which are inherently uncertain. Autonomy and adaptability are also well-known aspects of a multi-agent system (MAS). In this paper we present two MAS strategies that can effectively handle aircraft deicing incidents. These MAS strategies help improve to prevent and reduce e.g. airplane delays at deicing stations due to changing weather conditions or incidents at the station, where aircraft agents adopting pre-made plans that would act on behalf of aircraft pilots or companies, would only create havoc. Herein each agent using its own decision mechanism deliberates about the uncertainty in the problem domain and the preferences (or priorities) of the agents. Furthermore, taking both these issues into account each proposed MAS strategy outperforms a naive first-come, first-served coordination strategy. The simulation results help pilots and companies taking decisions with respect to the scheduling of the aircraft for deicing when unexpected incidents occur: they provide insights in the impacts and means for robust selection of incident-specific strategies on e.g. deicing station delays of (individual) aircraft.

Abstract: Crisis and disaster management in the Netherlands has made huge leaps forward in recent years with regard to different organisations trying to manage one or more aspects of the safety chain. This research focuses on the information structure of health care during disasters with an aim to improve disaster management and tries to answer the following question: How can location based services improve information services within health care during disasters? Through the use of literature and interviews this thesis describes how disaster management can be improved through the use of Location Based Services (LBS). The scope of this research is aimed at better understanding the organisational processes during somatic health care. By defining a case and on the basis of literature and interviews in the Province of Utrecht, it was possible to develop a three layer graph model (3LGM). This model shows an overview of information processes performed by the health care organisation during the first hour after an accident. In this context, the 3LGM model is used to obtain an overview of the quality of information processing in such a problem area. The organisational structure, which deals with disaster management, consists of a strong co-operation between the police, fire departments, the local government and the 'Medical Aid during Accidents and Disasters' (GHOR). The size of the organisation depends largely upon the scale of the disaster, however the current information structure is not suitable for storing and processing the information in an efficient and effective manner. The same applies when displaying information related to casualties and safety within an area. With the help of location based services consisting of, geographical information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS) and second or third generation telecommunication technologies, the existing information structure can be optimised. Expected advantages are higher accessibility to health care, a safer environment for rescuers, more time for managing the healthcare processes and an improved interdisciplinary co-operation between the police, fire departments, the local government and the GHOR. © Proceedings ISCRAM 2004.