1. ITU-T Handbook on Telecommunications and Disaster Mitigation
“Workshop on Disaster Relief Systems, Network Resilience and Recovery”
(Istanbul, Turkey, 11 December 2012)
ITU-T Handbook on Telecommunications and Disaster Mitigation
Keith Mainwaring
ITU Consultant
Istanbul, Turkey,11 December 2012

2. Contents Trends in natural disasters Case studies
United Nations disaster mitigation activities
Regional disaster mitigation initiatives
ITU activities related to disaster mitigation
International Amateur Radio Union (IARU)
Other standardisation activities
Conclusions and Recommendations

3. Trends in Natural Disasters

8. Impact on countries in different states of development (1991 – 2005)
Source: “A year of living dangerously – a review of natural disasters in 2010”; The Brookings Institution – London School of Economics Project on Internal Displacement; April 2011.

9. Risk
Hazard x Vulnerability Capacity
Risk ∝

10. Climate change and environmental degradation
300,000 deaths annually
325 million people affected
Human displacement
36 million people displaced by sudden-onset natural disasters in 2008
Sources: Global Humanitarian Forum Human Impact report – Climate Change 2009; and “Monitoring disaster displacement in the context of climate change – Findings of a study by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre”, September 2009,

11. Global estimates of newly displaced people
Source: “Global estimates 2011 – People displaced by natural hazard-induced disasters” IDMC, June 2012

12. The causes of disasters 1980- 2007

13. Hazards
Natural
earthquake, landslide, tsunami, cyclones, flood, drought.
Biological
disease epidemics (such as SARS, influenza and cholera), pest infestations.
Technological
chemicals, radiological agents, transport accidents.
some 10,000 people were killed and 500,000 between 2000 and 2011
Chernobyl accident affected 8 million people
Societal
conflicts, population displacement, acts of terrorism.

14. Case Studies

15. Case studies Japan earthquake & tsunami 11 March 2011
Hurricane Katrina 29 August 2005
Indian Ocean tsunami 26 December 2004
“9/11” New York City 11 September 2001
Some observations

16. Some Observations

18. Some observations Avoiding congestion Autonomous power supply critical
Encourage alternative means of communication
Reduce call hold times
Reduce call quality
Reassign resources to telephony
New network architecture
Autonomous power supply critical
Install equipment in safer locations
Avoid use of aerial facilities
Geographical disperse critical equipment such as authentication servers

19. Media diversity important
Radio
BBC World Service 188 million weekly (2009)
USA million weekly (2011) 93% of population
Social Media
Twitter 140 million users (March 2012)
Facebook 900 million users (2012)

20. Accessibility Elderly and disabled vulnerable
Need mechanisms to inform the deaf, blind and illiterate
Text-to-speech
Text-to-sign language
Talking books
Multi-lingual information

21. Lead times
Time between detection of an event indicative of a disaster and the disaster itself are those in which early warnings can be provided.
Lead times vary enormously depending upon the type of threat
tens of seconds for earthquakes,
minutes for tornadoes,
minutes to hours for tsunamis,
hours to days for volcanic eruptions,
hours to weeks for hurricanes,
weeks to months for droughts, and
years for long term climatic events such as El Nino and climate change.

22. United Nations Disaster Mitigation Activities

23. UN Disaster Mitigation Activities
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)
World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
World Health Organization (WHO)
UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)
World Bank
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)
Istanbul, Turkey,11 December 2012

24. Regional Disaster Mitigation Initiatives

25. Regional initiatives Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (www.adpc.net)
Association of South East Asian Nations
ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER)
ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance (AHA Centre) ….

26. International Telecommunications Union Activities Related to Disaster Mitigation

27. ITU ITU Objectives Tampere Convention
ITU Framework for Cooperation in Emergencies (IFCE)
ITU-T Recommendations
ITU-R Recommendations and Reports
ITU-D Reports
Istanbul, Turkey,11 December 2012

28. ITU-T Recommendations
Numbers
Emergency Telecommunications Service (ETS)
International Emergency Preference Scheme (IEPS)
Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)
Alerting object identifier
NGN service restoration
Outside plant
Istanbul, Turkey,11 December 2012

29. International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) Activities

30. International Amateur Radio Union (IARU)
Over 160 national amateur radio society members
Represents more than 2 million radio “hams” many of whom have undertaken special training in emergency communications
Member of ITU-R and ITU-D
“Amateur Service” defined in ITU Radio Regulations
IARU promotes the use of amateur radio as a means of providing relief in the event of natural disasters
Amateur radio is a valuable asset during an emergency as communication links are independent of vulnerable infrastructure and immune to overload
Amateur Service is integrated into the emergency preparedness systems in a number of countries

31. Other Standardisation Organizations

32. Other standardisation activities
CEPT
ETSI EMTEL
W3C Disaster Management
OASIS emergency management committee
3GPP / GSMA

33. Conclusions and Recommendations
To be defined.
Istanbul, Turkey,11 December 2012

34. Thank You!