Abstract: During the past quarter century there have been many developments in scientific models and computer codes to help predict the ongoing consequences in the aftermath of many types of emergency: e.g. storms and flooding, chemical and nuclear accident, epidemics such as SARS and terrorist attack. Some of these models relate to the immediate events and can help in managing the emergency; others predict longer term impacts and thus can help shape the strategy for the return to normality. But there are many pitfalls in the way of using these models effectively. Firstly, non-scientists and, sadly, many scientists believe in the models' predictions too much. The inherent uncertainties in the models are underestimated; sometimes almost unacknowledged. This means that initial strategies may need to be revised in ways that unsettle the public, losing their trust in the emergency management process. Secondly, the output from these models form an extremely valuable input to the decision making process; but only one such input. Most emergencies are events that have huge social and economic impacts alongside the health and environmental consequences. While we can model the latter passably well, we are not so good at modelling economic impacts and very poor at modelling social impacts. Too often our political masters promise the best 'science-based' decision making and too late realise that the social and economic impacts need addressing. In this paper, we explore how model predictions should be drawn into emergency management processes in more balanced ways than often has occurred in the past. © Proceedings ISCRAM 2004.

Abstract: This paper introduces the latest state of the interoperable Sensor Web and Web Processing standards specified by the Open Geospatial Consortium. Based on these components it becomes possible to share, integrate and analyse observation data across political and administrative borders as well as across multiple thematic domains. We present the 52°North open source implementations of the OGC SWE and WPS standards and introduce an outlook how this technology could be applied in the field of crisis management. Thus, this paper aims at providing a perspective how currently existing technology can be combined and applied to solve problems in emergency management rather than describing an already finished product. Special consideration will be given to the combination of Sensor Web and Web Processing technology which opens up new possibilities by having near real-time data flows that can be linked on-demand to different processing services.

Abstract: Social Media contain a wealth of information that could improve the situational awareness of Emergency Managers during a crisis, but many barriers stand in the way. These include information overload, making it impossible to deal with the flood of raw posts, and lack of trust in unverified crowdsourced data. The purpose of this project is to build a communications bridge between emergency responders and technologists who can provide the advances needed to realize social media?s full potential. We are employing a Delphi study survey design, which is a technique for exploring and developing consensus among a group of experts around a particular topic. Participants include emergency managers and technologists with experience in software to support the use of social media in crisis response, from many countries. The topics of the study are described and preliminary, partial results presented for Round 1 of the study, based on 33 responses.

Abstract: Several recent studies point the way to enabling emergency response managers to be able to find relevant posts and incorporate them into their sensemaking and decision making processes. Among the approaches that have improved the ability to find the most relevant information are the social conventions of creating topic groups and tags and of “retweeting;” the use of trained volunteers to filter and summarize posts for responders; automated notifications of trending topics; natural language processing of posts; techniques for identifying posts from the disaster site; and the use of GIS and crisis maps to visually represent the distribution of incidents.

Abstract: This paper is a critical examination of the U.S. Incident Command System (“ICS”) as an organizational structure and information gathering tool for emergency management from the perspective of a career emergency management officer who became a graduate student in information management following 35 years of public service. In addition to examining the ICS, and assessing its current weaknesses in the area of information management, the paper proposes a low-cost, COTS approach to automating the ICS information gathering and dissemination process.

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to provide and recommend a strategic approach for implementation of information sharing initiatives. While such an approach offers a number of benefits, as a primary benefit, it provides a way to measure and monitor the performance of such initiatives, irrespective of their scope, whether they are regional, state, or federal efforts. The first section of the paper presents a framework for alignment among information sharing initiatives; the second section builds on this framework and outlines a roadmap for an assessment methodology for such initiatives.

Abstract: The interaction design for web emergency management information systems (WEMIS) is an important aspect to keep in mind due to the criticality of the domain: decision making, updating available resources, defining a task list, trusting in proposed information. A common interaction design strategy for WEMIS seems to be needed but currently there are few references in literature. Our aim is to contribute to this lack with a set of interactive principles for WEMIS. From the emergency point of view, existing WEMIS have been analyzed to extract common features and to design interaction principles for emergency. Furthermore, we studied design principles extracted from the Turoff's model relating them to emergency phases and features. In particular, in this paper, we choose to follow the current trend in the definition of emergency life cycles. In our approach, referring to general policies in literature, the emergency management process is divided into two different sub cycles: back-end and front-end. From the interaction point of view, a formalization process based on the interactive PIE model has been defined. The result we propose here is a set of design principles for supporting interactive properties for WEMIS.

Abstract: Information and communication technologies (ICT) are becoming increasingly important in emergency management and crisis communication. ICT tools are developed and adopted in all phases of the emergency management cycle. On the one hand, these tools contribute to better disaster preparedness and effective response. On the other hand, the lack of consideration of universal design in these tools also creates new barriers for different stakeholders, particularly the elderly and people with disabilities. The primary objective of this paper is to give an overview of the current state of the emerging research field of Universal Design of ICT for emergency management and provide a Research Agenda to highlight ways to uncover how the increasing introduction of ICT in emergency management can contribute to removing barriers instead of adding more barriers.

Abstract: Serious games and virtual environments are increasingly used for emergency management training and research. The development of these technologies seems to contribute to a solution to some problems in the existing literature on emergency management which is mainly based on case study research. However, using virtual technology for research also introduces new difficulties. This paper describes the advantages and drawbacks of using serious games for research and reviews eight recently published studies that make use of virtual environments. The review focuses on the external validity of serious games as this is a challenging issues for research that involves virtual environments. The paper concludes with some recommendations to increase the external validity of future research with serious games.

Abstract: This proposal rises from the Center for Disasters Scientific Support experience over eleven years supporting over a hundred disasters in Latin America. It also presents a case study applied to landslides assessments in Teresopolis (Brazil) city, when all field-generated knowledge was still registered in paper and later, at the base station, uploaded to database and finally available for managers evaluation and decision. The proposed methodology creates a platform (still under development) which allows online registration from different field agents during their evaluations enabling data upload combining mobile devices and telecommunication network (or Wi-Fi) technologies. Teams can also customize forms for different information classes (i.e. landslide assessment, rescued person, blocked road) and still retain the possibility to attach images, videos, other files related to each inspection. Incoming data are stored into a web database available for a real-time coordinators evaluation wherever they are (sometimes over a thousand of miles away from disaster area). © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: In the realm of emergency operations, planning and training is a critical ingredient for success. The use of virtual environments can offer a convenient means of practicing and simulating activities in an emergency operations center (EOC). Although many virtual environments strive to offer realism in their simulations of weather, population, and incident happenings, they often fall short in terms of collaboration among simulation participants: unless participants are at the same physical location, their ability to see and interact with one and other is limited. Moreover, interactivity that is possible may not be truly synchronous (e.g., network lag can cause activities to happen out of order). These are compelling drawbacks to computer-based EOC simulators/trainers, since collaboration is a cornerstone for successful EOC teams. To address these problems, we present the virtual EOC. Our prototype aims to provide a collaborative virtual environment that enables interactivity among participants while executing synchronous, script-driven tests and simulations.

Abstract: Emergency managers need to assess, combine and process large volumes of information with varying degrees of (un)certainty. To keep track of the uncertainties and to facilitate gaining an understanding of the situation, the information is combined into scenarios: stories about the situation and its development. As the situation evolves, typically more information becomes available and already acknowledged information is changed or revised. Meanwhile, decision-makers need to keep track of the scenarios including an assessment whether the infor-mation constituting the scenario is still valid and relevant for their purposes. Standard techniques to support sce-nario updating usually involve complete scenario re-construction. This is far too time-consuming in emergency management. Our approach uses a graph theoretical scenario formalisation to enable efficient scenario updating. MCDA techniques are employed to decide whether information changes are sufficiently important to warrant scenario updating. A brief analysis of the use-case demonstrates a large gain in efficiency. © 2012 ISCRAM.