1. Technology in Disaster Management Shyma S G Assistant Professor St
Technology in Disaster Management Shyma S G Assistant Professor St. Pius X College Rajapuram

2. What is Disaster Management?
Preparedness -- activities prior to a disaster. Examples: preparedness plans; emergency exercises/training; warning systems.
Response -- activities during a disaster. Examples: public warning systems;
emergency operations; search and
rescue.
Recovery -- activities following a disaster. Examples: temporary housing; claims
processing and grants; long-term medical
care and counseling.
Mitigation - activities that reduce the effects of disasters. Examples: building codes and zoning; vulnerability analyses; public education.

3. Are we living in a more dangerous world than our grandparents lived?
Living with Disasters…
Are we living in a more dangerous world than our grandparents lived?

4. India and Natural Disasters
India is one of the most disaster prone countries in the world.
Over 65% land area vulnerable to earthquake;
70% of land under cultivation prone to drought;
5% of land (40 million hectares) to floods;
8% of land (8,000 km coastline) to cyclones.
A Major Disaster occurs every 2-3 years;
50 million people affected annually
1 million houses damaged annually along with human,social and other losses
During , the annual average damage due to natural disasters has been estimated at 70 million USD
Source: Ministry of Agriculture, GOI: BMTPC, Ministry of Urban Development, GOI

8. Date: December 26, 2004
Large earthquake strikes off the tip of Sumatra, Indonesia
07:00 hrs
Seismological Station
relays data of seaquake from
seismometer center
07:06 hrs
Center revises magnitude to 8.5,
mentions potential for tsunami
08:04 hrs
Sources: NYT, Sunday Times, Tamilnet,

9. Was this the reason?

10. Disaster Management in India
Paradigm shift from relief and recovery to Risk & Vulnerability management
Introducing culture of preparedness at all levels
Strengthen decentralized response capacity in the country
Empowerment of vulnerable groups and ensuring livelihoods
Learning from past disasters.

11. Role of Technology in Disaster Management
To catalyze the process of preparedness, response and mitigation.
Providing access to vital information on Disaster preparedness to citizens.
GIS based decision support system for planning.
Designing early warning system.
Emergency communication for timely relief & response measures.
Building Knowledge Warehouses to facilitate planning and policy making.

12. Information Requirements
Key Challenge - Information is Scattered
Law Enforcement Data Exchanges
Criminal Justice,
Corrections Agencies
Regional Centers of Operations
Information Requirements
Fire Dept,
Early Responders,
Other Disciplines
Central, Regional,

13. Enabling the Possibilities
We must collect, integrate, and analyze the scattered pieces of data and information required to assemble the big picture

14. Emergency Information Management
Defined as the collection, consolidation, analysis and dissemination of the information — requires that the emergency manager be fully cognizant of the needs of the eventual users of the information.
Effective emergency information management requires concerted planning, organizing, controlling, and influencing of human, material, and information resources to endure that information is disseminated to the right decision-makers at the right time to satisfy those needs.

15. Role of Disaster information system in various phases of Disaster Management
Prepare
Identify
Prevent

16. Risk & vulnerability identification
A database of past disasters effects to determine the risks in particular geographic location.
Zoning of hazards using GIS.
Validating the disaster history database with hazard maps and other external data for accuracy in risk assessment.

17. Preparedness for response & recovery
Database of existing skilled human & material resources for emergency response.
Database on human resources trained on various aspects of disaster management.
Develop preparedness plans based on risk, available skill & resources.
Converting Disaster Management plans into electronic documents for easy accessibility and easy updating.

18. Mitigation strategies and policies
Mitigation strategies, policies and legislation based on statistical facts & figures from various databases.
Development of a virtual knowledge net for creation of a network of institutions, developmental organizations and Government dept. for information sharing and preserving the research efforts.

19. Information systems framework for Disaster Management
Reducing disaster losses & conserving developmental gains
Planning & Policy decision for disaster preparedness & mitigation
Hazard mapping &
Vulnerability Assessment
Database of disaster history
for trend & pattern analysis
Database of disaster
management plan.
Awareness & training
materials
Inventory of legal,
techno legal, administrative
and institutional framework
Quick emergency response & recovery
Human & material response
resources database
Database of Infrastructure,
lifelines & critical facilities.
Database of trained human
resources.
Demographic information
GIS based information
system
Facilitating 1 1 2 2 3
elements 3 4 5 4 5
Knowledge base for disaster management

20. Content India Disaster Resource Network Disaster Inventory
GIS in Disaster Management
Emergency Communication plan
Use of ICT at community level
Proposed incident surveillance system

21. Online inventory of resources for disaster response preparedness

22. The biggest problem for disaster managers to respond to disasters is quickly mobilizing equipments, human resources and critical supplies to the emergency spot.

23. When disasters strike:
Disaster managers needs lot of specialized equipments and skilled human resources for quick response.

24. When disasters strike:
Delay in response may result in increased loss of lives and livelihoods.

25. When disasters strike:
There is a lack of knowledge of whereabouts of these resources either in the neighboring District or State.

26. Online resource inventory for disaster management
National initiative under the Govt. of India-UNDP DRM programme in collaboration with National Informatics Center, Government of India.
Online database for capturing the countrywide inventory of equipments and skilled human resources for emergency response.
A database to minimize emergency response time by effective decision making on mobilization of human & material resources.
Systematic data collection & collation from Govt. line departments ,Public Sector Units, Corporate sector etc at the district level.

28. The Progress…
Decentralized resource inventory being managed by the districts.
80000 records from 565 districts of 35 States/UTs already been captured.
Districts are updating their inventory quarterly.
Partnership with Builders’ Association of India (BAI) for Corporate Sector resource inventory.

29. Content India Disaster Resource Network Disaster Inventory
GIS in Disaster Management
Emergency Communication plan
Use of ICT at community level
Proposed incident surveillance system

30. Disaster Inventory Database- Objectives
A database of disasters to understand trends and patterns.
Capturing ‘Local’ level disaster data to understand the emerging risks at the local level.
Geo-referenced inventory of small, medium and large-scale disasters to understand trends and patterns.
To support planning & policy decisions for disaster preparedness and mitigation with statistical evidences.
Providing an objective base for vulnerability assessment and priority setting.

33. Preliminary Findings-India
Epidemics and cyclones are the greatest causes of deaths
Epidemics are highly associated with floods, but also occur as independent incidents.
Fire is the greatest cause of household destruction, comparable to Cyclone.
Floods affect people more than any other type of disaster.

34. Distribution of Disasters- INDIA

35. content India Disaster Resource Network Disaster Inventory
GIS in Disaster Management
Emergency Communication plan
Use of ICT at community level
Proposed incident surveillance system

36. Geography Information System in Disaster Management
GIS allows disaster managers to quickly access and visually display critical information by location.
This information can be easily shared with disaster response personnel for the coordination and implementation of emergency efforts

37. GIS usage in Disaster Management
Pre disasters
Preparedness
Risk Analysis
Hazard zonation
Vulnerability mapping
Response planning
Spatial/ non-spatial database
Administrative boundaries(state, district, block/ taluka)
River network
Road network
Railway network
Airports
Prediction
Forecast Models (disaster wise)
Vigilance system (observation & warning)
Post Disasters
Relief
Disaster identification
Immediate response
Recovery
Rehabilitation
Impact study

38. Map Not to Scale – For demonstration purpose only

39. Community Contingency Plans linkages on GIS based system

40. Map Showing Natural Disaster Risk Management Programme States of India
Monitoring disaster possibilities using Satellite communication
and GIS tools
Floods
Map Showing Natural Disaster Risk Management Programme States of India

41. Global warming

42. Bio-Surveillance systems:
Show spreading patterns of critical diseases
Short term(SARS, Bird Flu) or long term (HIV/AIDS)
Also address the issue of bio terrorism
Stochastic modelling:
Mathematical simulations based on real data

43. Description about the Area
Layers Taken for analysis :
Health Centres
Multipurpose Cyclone shelters
Storage Facilities
Buffer zones
Location of Boats
River systems
Roads
Information can be retrieved upto village level.
Block to Village can be zoomed in to view the geographical location of resources.
Details about item/resource can be seen and query based resources finding is possible
Flexibility of moving macro to micro level in a same window.
Linkage has been established to
District Disaster management Plan (DDMP)
Block Disaster Management Plan (BDMP)
Gram Panchayat Disaster Management Plan (GPDMP)
Village-CCP

44. Content India Disaster Resource Network Disaster Inventory
GIS in Disaster Management
Emergency Communication plan
Use of ICT at community level
Proposed incident surveillance system

45. Does Early Warning matter?
Technology in Disaster Preparedness and Response
Does Early Warning matter?
MAY BE
MAY BE
YES
MAY BE
MAY BE
YES NO

46. Early Warning Systems - monitoring
eg. ADPC Tsunami and Multi-Hazard Regional Early Warning System
Recorder on sea bed measures water pressure every 15 mins - an unusual result triggers a reading every 15 secs.
Buoy measures surface conditions and sends this plus data from sea bed to satellite
Satellite receives data and relays it to ground stations

47. Float in a "stilling well" tube measures sea level
Data is processed and sent to satellite
Satellite transmits data to alert centres
satellite

48. Early Warning Systems
It is an end-to-end game…

49. State Level Communication
NEOC
POLNET HUB
NIC HUB

50. NATIONAL EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION PLAN
Parent Hospital
Mobile Medical Team
THRO’ POLNET
NICNET HUB
OPTIONAL BACK-UP FOR DEOC CONNECTIVITY
THRO’ POLNET
SEOC-N
DEOC-1
DEOC-2
NATIONAL EOC
GMPCS PHONE
GMPCS PHONE
PUBLIC
ISDN
NETWORK
POLNET HUB
Reserved VSATs
MOBILE EOC -
DEOC-N
NQRT-1 VSAT

51. Case Studies India Disaster Resource Network Disaster Inventory
GIS in Disaster Management
Emergency Communication plan
Use of Technology at community level
Proposed incident surveillance system

52. Technology in Disaster Recovery
(short term)

53. Disaster Recovery (Immediate Aftermath)
Developed by LSF in the aftermath of tsunami
Used LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) software stack
The main applications and problems they address are:
Helping to reduce trauma by effectively finding missing persons.
Coordinating and balancing the distribution of relief organizations
in the affected areas and connecting relief groups
Registering and tracking all incoming requests for support and
relief up to fulfilment and helping donors connect to requirements.
Tracking the location and numbers of victims in the various camps
and temporary shelters set up all around the affected area.
Successfully used in Kashmiri earthquake (2005), Philippines
Guinsaugon landslide (2006) and Indonesian Yogjakarta
earthquake (2006)

54. Disaster Recovery (Immediate Aftermath)
Role of
Internet:
Aftermath of
Turkey
Earthquake
A major earthquake in Izmit, Turkey on August 17, 1999
Damage: 16,000 deaths, 120,000 houses
Fixed and mobile networks almost down
Only Internet was still up
It was used to locate missing persons, joining families, diverting essential items, prioritizing activities, donor coordination etc

55. Disaster Recovery (Immediate Aftermath)
Web 2.0 tools
- Sarvodaya
blog site
Sarvodaya was not ready for a ‘tsumani’
No resource to support the thousands displaced
The result: A blog site called
Developed overnight by two volunteers
This site connected the Sarvodaya teams at the international level
Sir Arthur C. Clarke made a public request for donations through this site
Site referred by Google, Apple and Nortel
Collected amount more than USD 1 million over few weeks time

56. Web 2.0 tools – Social Networking

57. Disaster Recovery (long term)
Example: DAD – Development Assistance database
An automated information management system designed to improve efficiency and coordination of donor activities in the country.
Promotes good governance and public accountability and transparency
First used in Afghanistan. Now rolled out in Indonesia, Thailand, Maldives and Sri Lanka
Has a user friendly web interface

58. Mitigation and Prevention
Fortunately it does not have to be one technology over another…
Risk Reduction
Mitigation and Prevention
Preparedness
Response
Recovery
GIS
√√√ √√ √
Analytical tools
Blogging
Internet
Mobile (voice)
Mobile (non-voice)
Open Source
Satellite Communication
Web 2.0, Social Networking
TV, Radio

59. Case Studies : Community Level
Orissa Experience
73 information centers in
12 districts of Orissa
Early warning dissemination, information on disaster preparedness, agriculture, governance, health etc.
Self sustaining models in partnership with Panchayats, NGOs, community.
Facilitated by local volunteers and NYKS volunteers.

60. SETU Information Management System - Gujarat
Case Studies: Community Level
SETU Information Management System Gujarat
A nodal point for facilitation of the rehabilitation process underway in Kutch for a defined geographical cluster of villages.
A network of 22 such centers across 10 talukas.
Act as a coordination cell for relief and rehab in a cluster
Village community uploading information and feedback about on going projects and activities, base line resource information etc.
Accessing info. On schemes, entitlements, technical know how in various areas.

61. Case Studies India Disaster Resource Network Disaster Inventory
GIS in Disaster Management
Emergency Communication plan
Use of ICT at community level
Proposed incident surveillance system

64. Reports and Utility of the System
>Situation Reports >Alerts >Damage Assessment >Need Assessment >Immediate Relief Requirements >Intervention Gap Analysis >Long term recovery and rehabilitation planning >Disaster Trends and patterns report >Risk identification
Incident Server
Preliminary Data Collection Format
Archived
Research and analysis
3rd Party Analysis Tool
Maps
Graphs
Research and analysis of time series disaster data through 3rd party analysis tools for trends, patterns of disasters and risk identification using graphs, maps etc.

65. Knowledge Network
Creating and connecting community of practitioners in Disaster Management through a knowledge based portal.
A network of organizations, research institutions, Government agencies and DM practitioners.
Facilitating direct interaction, information sharing, virtual conferencing ( / video conferencing etc)

67. Together towards a safer world…